Sincerely,
Princess or Rambo wannabe? Not this guy!
Friendly, 30 yr. old farmer, 140 lbs, 5′9″
Just a regular country boy tired of playing games and tired of spending his nights alone. Looking for a down to earth type. No head games, please. Into dancing, bars, fun. Easy going, reliable and looking for company. Where is every body? What more can I say? Better stop now before I screw things up. Including my address and phone number, whichever you like. Home after 4:30 until about 7:00.
Hoping to hear from you.
Alan
Dear Alan,
I can’t believe you gave me your address. Phone numbers were one thing, but addresses, Alan? With an invitation to drop by any time between four thirty and seven p.m.? I could never just throw the door wide open to a stranger like that. A gay stranger, nonetheless. I’d be a wreck, swivelling my head every time I heard a car turn down the side road.
Maybe life was like that in the country. No need to bother with calling ahead. No doors locked. Pie with a lattice crust and a full pot of coffee always waiting in every kitchen.
Or maybe it’s that times have changed since you wrote me your letter.
Maybe it’s me that’s changed.
When I was growing up, having company was a big deal. My parents didn’t entertain much and extended family visits were rare. My mom was a chronic worrier on the best of days, but entertaining, hosting people, would send her teetering on the edge. There was always so much to organize. The beach towels had to be removed from the sofa and armchair. The orange-and-gold shag carpet needed to be raked and vacuumed. The fake fur toilet tank cover, seat cover, and matching mat would be tossed into the washing machine. The kitchen floor might get a good scrubbing, even though no amount of Spic and Span could scour away the yellowed tinge of the linoleum. The basement, with its former living room furniture from the sixties, would get aired out and dusted. I’d even be forced to clean my room to give the impression that I was a well-behaved, orderly child who made my bed every day.
Whenever we were expecting company, I wouldn’t be allowed to sit on the couch, speak to my mom, or touch any food. (Although I was a master at sneaking squares from Tupperware containers, rearranging them each time to make it appear as though none were missing.)
In those days, as you might recall, there were no cell phones. So the best any out-of-town company could say would be “We’ll get there after one p.m.” or “We’ll be there around dinnertime.” My mom would march back and forth from the kitchen to the living room window, wearing a trail on the carpet, checking for approaching cars. She’d have to prepare for the energy it took to entertain, to put on a revved-up, more animated, lipsticked version of herself, someone who acted as though we ate roast beef and scalloped potatoes every night.
Sometimes, out of boredom, I’d yell “They’re heeeeeere!” when my mom had gone back to the kitchen, just to watch her come tearing back into the living room.
“Why did you do that?” she’d scold after seeing that I had lied. I’d usually get a swat from her tea towel before she went back to whatever it was she’d been doing. I’d wait another ten minutes before doing it again to the exact same results. It helped pass the time.
That was what life was like back then, in the seventies. Things were more loosely scheduled. Plans were vague. If you were late, you were late. You couldn’t blame the traffic in a text. You probably wouldn’t even stop at a payphone to call. Arrivals could happen any time within the span of three hours. Hotels were booked unseen. Phones would ring and you’d pick up without having any idea who would be on the other end. The doorbell would chime—and we wouldn’t be filled with panic. There were also these things called phone books that were delivered free to every house in the city. Not only did they list your name and phone number, but also your address. Just imagine!
It feels like that’s all changed now. Many of us have since grown afraid of the world. And afraid of other people. No knock is ever good news. No unrecognized phone number can ever bring a welcome greeting.
It was a different time back then, Alan. And the word that comes to mind is “open.”
* * *
—
When I came out, I experienced a tsunami of emotions. All of the feelings that had been bottled up for twenty-some-odd years were finally unleashed. Much of it had to do with the fact that I was genuinely heartened. I’d been so certain I’d only be met with revulsion and rejection when people found out I was gay—that was, after all, the message I’d heard time and time again. But that wasn’t what happened. And so I felt tender, raw, and filled with the amazement that comes when you break down a wall and emerge out the other side.
I wrote letters to my friends telling them that I loved them. I gave my sisters poetry for Christmas (even though one had asked for a hair dryer). I read the Tao Te Ching. I’d been in darkness for most of my life, but now I had stepped forward into the light. I believed I had a gift to share.
Yet there’s been a gradual change as I’ve aged. While I understand it’s impossible to maintain periods of high emotional intensity—and wouldn’t that make you the most annoying person in the world?—I feel that I’ve become more closed off as a person. I’m not as sincere as I used to be. I can’t imagine writing poetry for anyone or telling a friend that I loved them.
I don’t dislike people. But I’ve grown tired. It feels like I’ve built another wall, creating a barrier between myself and others. At the midpoint of my life, I can honestly say that I’ve made my world smaller, not larger.
I don’t feel open anymore, Alan.
I remember having a conversation with a work colleague a few years back. We were discussing friendships and I told him I didn’t need new friends. I think he was insulted (we later became good friends and he likes to throw my comment back at me every now and then), but what kind of person says something like that?
I don’t need new friends.
As if friends were shoes.
What I meant is that new friendships take a lot of work. Cultivating them makes me feel like I have to package myself up in a certain way, force a bit of laughter, engage with others, pay attention to what they have to say. And all of that takes effort. So what I really meant to tell my co-worker was that I didn’t have the energy to make new friends. I couldn’t be bothered. And I didn’t feel it was ultimately worth taking the chance.
* * *
—
A couple of years ago, I was visiting my mom at her retirement residence. She’d been living in the lap of luxury as far as she was concerned. She had her own one-bedroom apartment, meals that she’d rave about (“The roast beef is fork-tender!”), and new friends to socialize with. There was even a valet service for walkers. She’d been lucky to end up in a nice place.
“There are former vice-presidents here,” she told me once. “Doctors. Educated people. Not like me.”
This was one of my mom’s vices, the feeling that she didn’t measure up. She couldn’t compete with what she perceived to be intelligent, higher-class people. She was afraid she’d say something stupid and people would look down on her. But my mom was also eminently likeable. She had an endearing, girlish sweetness about her and she was always the quickest to laugh at herself. She found her currency not in her brains but in her charm. She took care of her appearance, especially after moving into the residence. Every closet in her apartment was crammed with patterned blouses and coordinating slacks. She wore silver rings on most of her fingers, always had makeup on, and took pride in her cloud-white hair, which she had washed and set every other week. I think she enjoyed having a reason to get dressed up. The dining room, the social ceremony of it, motivated her to make an effort.
During this visit, I asked my mom to tell me a story about when I was a boy. I’d been having a hard time connecting to myself as a child, understanding the thoughts and actions of the gap-toothe
d boy who smiled back from class pictures. I wanted my mom to tell me something about myself I hadn’t heard before.
“Honestly, Brian,” she sighed. “Who can remember that far back? Before I forget, can you add honey to my shopping list? I like it on my Cheerios.”
Naturally, I was annoyed. A mother not being able to recall a single story about her child? But I shouldn’t have been surprised. My mom was someone who very much lived in the present: what she ate that day (“The cook is putting a new spice in the food and I don’t care for it. Everything tastes smoky”), the television shows she watched (“Why do people talk so fast all the time?”), what she needed in the way of groceries (“That grain cereal keeps me regular”). All the minor details that filled her life and the space between us. Maybe life is like that at her age, I reasoned, even though I assumed the opposite would be true, that the past would saddle up alongside you. Old age was a time for reflection, for taking stock of your life, not providing a play-by-play of the egg salad sandwich you’d had for lunch.
But I was hurt that my mom couldn’t remember a story about me and that she’d been so dismissive of my request. She hadn’t even tried to think of a story. Whatever bridges she might have offered to connect me to the boy I was had crumbled away.
I felt like I had lost a piece of myself.
* * *
—
When my mom started to get sick, the change in her was heartbreaking. She stopped going to the dining room because she lacked the energy to make the journey down the hall. She had meals delivered to her room, but even then, she took only a few bites of this and that. There were no comments about fork-tender roast beef, no spice complaints. She’d had her hair cut short to make it easier to manage, an impulsive decision that she then regretted. She lost weight and was growing increasingly unstable on her feet. It became clear that her days at the retirement residence, a place she’d loved so much, were coming to an end.
One afternoon during this time, the two of us were sitting in her living room, she in her burgundy power lift recliner, which, truth be told, had been her real home for the past few weeks. I’d been shocked by the sight of her when I arrived. She looked mannish with her short, flattened hair, along with her bare lips, the pants she had trouble keeping up.
I suggested that she might want to call some of her friends, the ones she’d grown up with. They had been friends for their entire lives, they’d even been each other’s bridesmaids. I thought it would do her good to reach out to them, to reconnect and take her mind off her troubles. Behind my words was the implication that she should tell them that she was ill. I didn’t think it was fair for them to find out after the fact. I brought out her address book, all the names, addresses, and phone numbers written in that perfect cursive of women of her generation.
But she said no. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone. She didn’t want anyone to know that she was sick.
“I’d rather just watch TV,” she said.
So I put the address book away, thinking of how all those phone numbers, those addresses, those names, were useless numbers and letters as far as she was concerned.
During a commercial, she said, “I don’t enjoy anything anymore. My shows, my meals. I don’t enjoy talking to people the same.”
She didn’t speak these words to me but rather to the room. To the furniture around her, the fake fireplace, the framed family photos that cluttered her shelves.
I’ve thought often about her words ever since. Do we close ourselves off as a means of protection, of preventing hurt or sadness? Does our address book remain shut because we see no point in opening it up? Do we will joy away? Or does joy slip away on its own, a column of sunlight on the wall fading to nothing, whether we want it to or not?
And I think about how much joy I’ve felt, or haven’t felt, in recent years. And about the last time I poured my heart out to a friend. Or made small talk with a stranger. The last time I took a chance on something unknown, rather than staring at the ringing phone in my hand.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of my high school friends and I were texting pictures back and forth the old-fashioned way, by taking a photo on our phones of an actual photograph. I don’t see these friends often. Not that there’s not a desire to see them, but we’re no longer a constant presence in each other’s daily lives like we used to be. I was caught off guard by some of the shots of me. I had no memory of them being taken. It was a reminder that there were all sorts of pictures of me that I’ve never seen and may never see. When I saw these photos, it was like reorienting myself to a room I hadn’t been in for years. That ugly suede vest with the fringe! What was going on with my eyebrows? And did I always have that many pimples or had it just been a bad week?
I never knew what would come through next in our text exchange, what random moment, remembered or not, would suddenly appear on my phone’s screen. I came to understand how there were pieces of me, of my past, that other people held. And in seeing these photos, I realized how much I needed my friends, their snapshots, their memories, in order to complete the picture of myself.
As much as I value these friendships, some of which date back to my elementary school days, I also recognized how random their formation was. If I hadn’t struck up a conversation with that person. If we hadn’t been sitting next to each other in class. If I hadn’t started working at that job, I wouldn’t have this person in my life. You could argue that, eventually, we all find the friends we’re meant to have. But that would mean you could just sit around and wait for everyone to show up.
It implies you don’t have to make an effort.
* * *
—
I was with my mom in palliative care on my birthday. For the first year ever, there had been no gifts or cake or birthday kisses from my mom. She’d been in and out of consciousness, delusional from pain medication, and I decided I wouldn’t mention it. I didn’t want to upset her or make her feel guilty for forgetting. But in the end I couldn’t resist saying something. I suppose, in some ways, I still needed that acknowledgement from her.
“You were in a hospital forty-nine years ago this very day,” I said.
Do you know the feeling of being looked at but not seen? That was how I felt being with my mom at the hospital. It was as though she was viewing everything, and everyone, through a sort of haze. But in that moment, I watched as her eyes sharpened into focus. It seemed as though she suddenly took control of her body again. She made a sound, a soft exclaim, then a kissing motion with her lips as she reached out her arms to me. There I was, Alan, a crying middle-aged man, leaning over for a last birthday kiss from his mom.
Her gift to me that day was the piece of myself I’d asked for.
* * *
—
I’m not a closed-off person; the years have just worn me down a bit. The shop doesn’t open as often as it used to, but it’s important for me to throw open the doors every now and then, to reach out to the people I love, and to invite a stranger in, spark a conversation, be a little less cautious. Make the effort.
I wonder what would have happened, Alan, if I’d taken you up on your offer. Just shown up at your farmhouse without notice. Let’s say around six p.m. You’d be coming in from a day in the fields and see a car turning into your driveway and you’d wonder, as your eyes squinted against the setting sun, “Now whose shitty car is that?” And I’d step out of Mr. Feces, a nervous smile on my face and a small bouquet of flowers wrapped in crinkly plastic in my hand. (Would a bouquet be too much? Maybe a plant instead. A crocus.)
“Can I help you?” you’d call out. Your first instinct would be that I must be lost. Or that I was a salesperson. But then you’d see my Doc Martens, my ripped jeans, the crocus. The shirt I bought with my Bay card, especially for this occasion, which I’d be returning the next day. Then you’d realize who I must be.
Maybe you’d invite me in, apol
ogizing for the mess. Farmhouses are hard to keep clean. The outside is always coming inside. Flies, mud, the smell of damp fields.
“I would’ve tidied up,” you’d say. “Had I known.”
I’d apologize, say that I should have called first. But you’d say, no, no, not to worry. You were happy I came.
“I could use the company,” you’d say.
“Me too,” I’d say, struck by the realization of just how much I meant it. How much I missed unplanned visits, and the curiosity that a car turning into your driveway awakens. The beauty in taking chances. Talking to strangers, Alan. Answering the door.
“Do you like pie?” you’d ask, and before I could even reply, you’d be taking a pair of plates down from the cupboard.
Sincerely,
September 25, 1992
Hello.
I was reading the newspaper at work today and saw your ad. It’s one of the most original ads I’ve seen in quite a while. I’ve placed some ads but never had much luck. Answered a few too but about the same. But something about your ad seemed different so I thought why not give it a shot?
We have some things in common. Like you I’m tired of being alone. Bars are no place to meet anyone for anything serious. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a fun night out but I don’t go out much. It’s not much fun when you’re on your own. I’m not a Princess Di or Rambo wannabe either. I’m an honest person looking for someone who is the same. Anything worthwhile has to start out as friendship but most people won’t give you the chance. They only have one thing on their minds.
Don’t get me wrong, sex is great and all, but there’s more to life than one-night stands. I’ve had a couple of long-term relationships but it’s been a while since my last one, mostly because it’s hard finding someone looking for anything serious.
Missed Connections Page 11
