Resetting the Gyroscope

Originally Posted Tuesday, November 11, 2014

I'm going to get into hot water here, I know.  Fuck it, though.  I have to tell it. 

I got an email last night from an old "friend."  She was never a "girlfriend," but she was something much more than a "friend."  We were "simpatico."  She was young when we met, nineteen, I think.  She was a college athlete, tall, blonde, funny.  She pursued our "friendship" in a flattering way.  It was fun.  I liked her.  She had an on again/off again boyfriend, a baseball player who was trying to make it into the majors.  He fucked up a lot.  He was a bad boy from a family with some money.  Of course.  He was "that thing."  Who could blame her. 

We wrote every day.  Volumes.  When she moved away on a scholarship to play for a four year school, I would go to visit.  She stayed with me once a few nights in a hotel in Palm Beach.  The girl I was dating came a few days later.  She asked me who so and so was.  Flushing, confused, I asked, "What?"  She handed me the hotel bill.  It had her name on it.  I had called ahead and told them to give her the key when she showed up.  She was going to arrive before I. 

Both of us abandoned and on our own one Christmas, she stayed with me. 

After college, I was adamant she move to California.  I wanted to set her up with Outward Bound.  I had a friend that could get her a job.  She would be a natural, I thought.  She moved in with a college friend at her parent's home in Stanford instead.  Later, she moved to San Francisco and got a boyfriend.  That ended when he ducked behind a car to avoid being seen by the girlfriend she didn't know he had. 

I went to visit several times.  Stayed with her in Stanford.  She stayed with me in S.F. at an old fisherman's hotel turned into a "b&b."  Hall bathrooms.  She couldn't stand it.  She got a place up by the marina.  We went out eating, drinking. 

She moved back and fell for a divorced attorney.  He had two kids.  He lived close to his wife.  It was never going to work out, but how do you tell someone?  His wife moved to Montana, and he followed.  So did my friend.  She loved Bozeman.  The affair had gone south a while ago, but she couldn't give up the life. 

Then she did.  When she moved back, I looked forward to her company.  It never came.  She didn't call, didn't write.  Then she did. 

It was too late. 

Last night she wrote to tell me that she thinks of me often.  She had been listening to some music and a song I had given her came on.  How was I doing?  She sent pictures of her new baby boy.  He is six months old.  He is the light of her life. 

I don't know what I will write her if I write anything at all.  I am not like other people in this.  I hate "reconnecting."  It is awkward at best, disappointing usually.  It might be better if we simply bumped into one another in a bar, more natural, easier to decide whether to just say hi or to tell a few stories or to decide to do it again.  But this reaching out. . . what inspires that?  Nostalgia, maybe, but that is never good for much.  A desire to tell of life's fortunes?  Of the madcap middle-class  misadventures that have led one to have a family?  In truth--and herein lies the danger--I am tired to death of hearing about the fulcrum of parenthood that has made life somehow more meaningful.  That statement opens me up to the world of cruel criticism, I know, but contemporary parents bug the shit out of me.  To explain is an exercise in futility since I don't really care.  It is easy enough to walk away from those conversations, from the soccer games and the kid play dates, etc., as easy as not going to church, as easy as not subscribing to Facebook. 

I should probably write back and tell her I only have years to live, that I have psychological problems beyond repairing, that I live as a monk, a shut-in.  It would be easy to accentuate and horrify the truth.  Oh, I could write her a chirpy note about how beautiful things are, that I plan on buying new furniture for the house and either a Vespa or a vintage Triumph bike, that I have had my knee fixed and will be skiing at the Sundance Festival once again this year.  I could tell her of the famous people with whom I correspond, or I could really drive her mad and talk about the incredible success of The Fashion Editor.  That is what I once might have done, given her the illusion of an incredibly happy and fertile life.  It is what people do.  But I am done with that now.  I guess I will consult with Emily Post's Book of Etiquette and make sure I respond in the most appropriate way of the Best Society.  Those rules are there for a purpose. 

My knee is recovering from the surgery nicely, I presume.  I have walked on it since half an hour out of surgery.  It is weak and sometimes painful, but it is stronger than I expected at this point.  I, on the other hand, have not responded quite as well.  I have been weak and tired beyond reason.  I have spent my days in bed reading and sleeping.  My digestive system was a mess.  I presume it was from the opioids.  After various home remedies (including drinking Epsom salts), I may be on the road to recovery in that arena.  But my lack of verve is problematic.  I have none whatsoever.  I will spend another day in bed trying to recover the energy to live fully again.  I can't say I've not enjoyed my time alone, though.  I have opened the plantation shutters along two walls of the bedroom to let in all possible light.  I have put on my favorite station and listened for three straight days and nights while reading two novels and looking through the grand print catalogs of Restoration Hardware furniture.  I will finish up "Rules of Civility" which has been the motivating force behind my buying either this and/or this among other things.  And, of course, the Vespa or the Triumph. 

Those are the melancholic illusions of the partially infirmed, anyway. 

I will make it out of the house today, but I will not return to work.  I have no stomach for that right now (forgive the pun).  I have had too much of work.  I am ready to wander melancholically through the holidays, taking drinks in sophisticated bars tucked into alleyways and hotels with friends who haven't waited to tell me of their circumstantial happiness.  I know some fellows and gals who can tell a few tales without self-consciousness, happy enough with the adventures before us and behind, undaunted and indomitable. . . or so it will seem. 

But first, I must shake this damnable malaise that is a mystery to me.  Perhaps the anesthesia and the opioids were a bit much for my aging system.  Perhaps it was something else.  But I will do all I can do today to reset the gyroscope and move in a positive direction. 

By the way, she sent a picture of herself, too.  She is still a handsome woman.