Read this disclaimer first!!
Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003 - 8:25 a.m.
To S, with Love

Monday night I had to go to S' place to grab a CD that I had lent her. She never did install the software that she needed from it, so I did it myself. While I was there, she showed me a picture of herself that she had uncovered. She was about 19 years old, so that would make it 1970. My older sister was born in 1970. (My even older sister, JaniceParker, turns 43 today!)

S was so beautiful. Back then she was shy and had little confidence in herself; you can see that from her picture. Even now, almost 33 years later, she struggles with this.

Whenever I think about us together, I think about what would things be like in the alternate universe where I was born in 1949 instead of 1974, or the one where she was born in 1976 instead of 1951.

If I were born in 1949, then maybe I could have been invited to that party that she organized, where the picture was taken. I would be a friend of a friend of a relative, brought along for kicks. Or maybe I could be a staff member. It was a summer party, her parents 25th wedding anniversary, so I would be 20 years old going on 21. I could have met her then, and been fascinated with the small, shy, blonde girl who organized such a party. I would engage her in conversation, frequently but only briefly. I either had to work, or I sensed trouble coming from her father's direction; a man who was obviously a bigot. But I would succeed in capturing her interest. I would get a phone number, if not then, later, through someone I knew. Somehow, I would be able to contact her and see her again. Unbeknownst to me, I would have a little help in this from none other than Sidney Poitier, with whom S had become enthralled a few years earlier.

And then we would hang out with friends, and then a traditional date would happen, movies, sodas, dancing, drinking, drugging, sexing. It's 1970. The Beatles just released their last album. Free love was still out there, even in the Canadian midwest. But it wouldn't be like that, because she looks at me as though I can leap tall buildings with a single bound; like I can see into the future or summon nourishing rains to help the agriculture of a small African nation.

And we would love hard, hard, fast, fully, deeply, crazily. We would dive off the 100-foot cliff of hope into who-knows-what? And we would live all over Canada and the U.S., visiting my family and hers, making friends, just doing as kids do, LIVING.

And by 1972, we might have even started a family.

But then 1974 comes along. It's been four years since we met. We are married, 2 years now, because that's what people do. S is estranged from her father, and her relationship with her mother is a little tenuous. Her younger sister doesn't pay us much heed, but her older brother is our biggest fan, and we are his. The life, though, starts to really slow down. I get a job, she stays at home. I quickly get bored. I am not living up to my potential. My frustration begins to show at home, and it is having an effect there. S, in turn, is prepared to step up to the plate and get a job so that I can figure out my next step. This is exactly what her feminist friend, R, wants, too, because women should not have to be shackled to the home.

In 1979, the 1979 of this world, S took a picture. She is 28 years old. I used to have a copy of that. That year was very hard on her, for a couple of reasons. The picture was of an incredibly sad, but hauntingly beautiful woman in her late 20s. Things weren't right in her world at all. Every time I think of that picture I wish I could go back in time, me being 28, and help her somehow. Soothe her pain. But I would keep a minimum distance, to prevent certain other problems from happening.

I wonder what would happen in the 1979 of that other world, the fantasy one where I am 29 going on 30 and married to S, not 4 going on 5 and wanting to be married to Mindy from "Mork and Mindy". I can't help but think that something would happen there. I can't help but think that that picture, that tragic picture, would be taken anyway.

The possibilities are endless...

0 scrawls at the end of this hall

The look:
The feel:
The taste:
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