The outside looking in is always different than the inside looking in. Neither sees all of you, and there is always a chance that you will see who you are and make whatever changes that you think need to be changed.
Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments was all about what it meant to be lovable so that we can be loved. Russ Roberts has a great, easy to read summary of that book. Thanks Deborah.
70 years ago this coming autumn the 16 year-old boy I was then met a cute 15 year-old girl on a religious youth group bus trip to Truro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. Within a month or two we played opposite each other in a play called “Time Out for Ginger” in which she played Ginger and I played her boyfriend. Then we dated. Once. Twice. Three times. I asked her to “go steady”. She said yes. Not able to afford a gold high school class ring, I gave her my silver Sea Scout ring and she put it on a chain around her neck.
HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART
Fifteen , a new house.
New school, new friends,
new adventures.
New girls!
A pixie cut.
Cute, bright, charming.
Time Out for Ginger.
She is Ginger and
he her boyfriend.
A double date.
They date again. And again.
Will you go steady?
Yes.
His Sea Scout ring
on a chain around her neck
she is his and he hers.
A movie, post movie snack,
making out in his father’s car.
Senior prom. Ending at dawn
on a Connecticut beach.
A summer Saturday night
at Tanglewood.
Ravel’s Bolero washing over them.
Its rhythms stimulating the senses.
Her letters are marked “Yo te amo”.
He pours his heart out in his.
Gently she starts to let him down.
He wants it not to end and disc jockeying that summer,
he chooses music of unrequited love to win her back.
Another year.
He has military training.
She has a new man.
Defeated, he surrenders.
December 1957. The University of Massachusetts annual ROTC Military Ball. Ages 17 and 18. My sophomore year. In 1959 when she was 19 and I was 20 we broke up. She married her Joel. I met, fell in love with, and married my Judy. We both had long, loving, and happy marriages. We both raised families. We both had lives. And we both were widowed. I about three years ago. She about five years earlier. About three months after Judy died, in the depths of despair, I wrote the following in part as therapy.
LOST
Home is where WE are he told her
as they left the house they
raised their children in.
Now 25 years and two moves later
cancer has stolen her from him
and WE no longer exists.
Lost, he struggles to find his way
never letting on the pain he feels.
A year later, pain mitigated but not gone I was preparing myself for an emotionally necessary journey of nostalgia to the Netherlands and Germany where Judy and I had spent the second year of our marriage while I was in the Air Force.
STANDING ALERT
Hoarfrost on contact,
his breath hung in cold air.
Frozen fingers fumbled safety wires
on the Mark 7 atomic bomb.
In the bomb bay too,
The 23 year-old first lieutenant
14 months on active duty.
A nuclear weapons alert duty officer,
The Cuban missile crisis just done.
She contacted me. Would I like to have lunch? Yes. But I can’t go to Denver for lunch. But she was going to be in New Jersey for a grandchild’s college graduation and we met face to face and spoke to each other for the first time in 64 years.
LOVE. FOUND AGAIN.
Curiosity piqued, we met for brunch.
It had been 64 years since last we saw each other. We talked.
Awkwardly at first. Comfort building, the conversation became smooth.
She invited me to visit. I accepted.
We rediscovered each other
and learned who we’d become.
We held hands and, her head on my shoulder, my arm about hers, we hugged.
We were in love again.
Not with the passion of youth,
but the mature love of we who
see into each other’s souls.
Now, in the autumn of our lives,
time is short and sweet.
Decades unimportant.
Quality of the time left, is.
And now we both consider ourselves blessed.
MY TWO LOVES
Those not here are missed.
One never to be seen again.
One to be seen whenever I can.
Judy was my life
but is gone, never to return.
Kari was my first
and now is my last love.
The woman I loved
and whom I mourn.
Never again to be seen.
My first and last, to be
seen again and again.
For as long as we are able.
My darling Kari on the occasion of her 85th birthday 70 years after she was the cute 15 year-old that first intrigued the 16 year-old me. She has brought a joy I thought I’d never feel again back into my life.
You are a rich man. You have lived and loved well. You have been in the abyss and come out the other side. You have nothing to fear. Thank you for sharing and inspiring.
Interesting because if one is loved does not mean one is lovable. A paradox or a play on words?
The outside looking in is always different than the inside looking in. Neither sees all of you, and there is always a chance that you will see who you are and make whatever changes that you think need to be changed.
Through The Looking Glass.
And down the rabbit hole.
Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments was all about what it meant to be lovable so that we can be loved. Russ Roberts has a great, easy to read summary of that book. Thanks Deborah.
A Love Story
A Tale for the Ages
70 years ago this coming autumn the 16 year-old boy I was then met a cute 15 year-old girl on a religious youth group bus trip to Truro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. Within a month or two we played opposite each other in a play called “Time Out for Ginger” in which she played Ginger and I played her boyfriend. Then we dated. Once. Twice. Three times. I asked her to “go steady”. She said yes. Not able to afford a gold high school class ring, I gave her my silver Sea Scout ring and she put it on a chain around her neck.
HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART
Fifteen , a new house.
New school, new friends,
new adventures.
New girls!
A pixie cut.
Cute, bright, charming.
Time Out for Ginger.
She is Ginger and
he her boyfriend.
A double date.
They date again. And again.
Will you go steady?
Yes.
His Sea Scout ring
on a chain around her neck
she is his and he hers.
A movie, post movie snack,
making out in his father’s car.
Senior prom. Ending at dawn
on a Connecticut beach.
A summer Saturday night
at Tanglewood.
Ravel’s Bolero washing over them.
Its rhythms stimulating the senses.
Her letters are marked “Yo te amo”.
He pours his heart out in his.
Gently she starts to let him down.
He wants it not to end and disc jockeying that summer,
he chooses music of unrequited love to win her back.
Another year.
He has military training.
She has a new man.
Defeated, he surrenders.
December 1957. The University of Massachusetts annual ROTC Military Ball. Ages 17 and 18. My sophomore year. In 1959 when she was 19 and I was 20 we broke up. She married her Joel. I met, fell in love with, and married my Judy. We both had long, loving, and happy marriages. We both raised families. We both had lives. And we both were widowed. I about three years ago. She about five years earlier. About three months after Judy died, in the depths of despair, I wrote the following in part as therapy.
LOST
Home is where WE are he told her
as they left the house they
raised their children in.
Now 25 years and two moves later
cancer has stolen her from him
and WE no longer exists.
Lost, he struggles to find his way
never letting on the pain he feels.
A year later, pain mitigated but not gone I was preparing myself for an emotionally necessary journey of nostalgia to the Netherlands and Germany where Judy and I had spent the second year of our marriage while I was in the Air Force.
STANDING ALERT
Hoarfrost on contact,
his breath hung in cold air.
Frozen fingers fumbled safety wires
on the Mark 7 atomic bomb.
In the bomb bay too,
The 23 year-old first lieutenant
14 months on active duty.
A nuclear weapons alert duty officer,
The Cuban missile crisis just done.
She contacted me. Would I like to have lunch? Yes. But I can’t go to Denver for lunch. But she was going to be in New Jersey for a grandchild’s college graduation and we met face to face and spoke to each other for the first time in 64 years.
LOVE. FOUND AGAIN.
Curiosity piqued, we met for brunch.
It had been 64 years since last we saw each other. We talked.
Awkwardly at first. Comfort building, the conversation became smooth.
She invited me to visit. I accepted.
We rediscovered each other
and learned who we’d become.
We held hands and, her head on my shoulder, my arm about hers, we hugged.
We were in love again.
Not with the passion of youth,
but the mature love of we who
see into each other’s souls.
Now, in the autumn of our lives,
time is short and sweet.
Decades unimportant.
Quality of the time left, is.
And now we both consider ourselves blessed.
MY TWO LOVES
Those not here are missed.
One never to be seen again.
One to be seen whenever I can.
Judy was my life
but is gone, never to return.
Kari was my first
and now is my last love.
The woman I loved
and whom I mourn.
Never again to be seen.
My first and last, to be
seen again and again.
For as long as we are able.
My darling Kari on the occasion of her 85th birthday 70 years after she was the cute 15 year-old that first intrigued the 16 year-old me. She has brought a joy I thought I’d never feel again back into my life.
Beautiful.
You are a rich man. You have lived and loved well. You have been in the abyss and come out the other side. You have nothing to fear. Thank you for sharing and inspiring.
A poetic, beautiful, and centering post as always, Dr. Hall. Thank you for sharing.
Deborah, thank you for this bit of badly needed wisdom at this time. Creatively written and sincerely spoken.