Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Scattered thoughts on a previous lifetime....

Many years ago, when I was young and just down from the trees, I decided to add to my already copious amount of education by attending graduate school in a small town in Central Illinois.  It was a nice place with theatre spaces and instructors and other students, so I fit in much like a square peg goes into a round hole.

It wasn't the institutions fault; it was mine.  I spent a year on the road with four other people, so essentially alone, I was fighting to a stalemate with the bottle of vodka, and I had just enough money to pay for two years of education, even with the scholarship.  I have always leaned to the loner side of the equation, and I was slightly older than your average Grad Student.

Oh, and by the way, I was as rusty as hell.  Doing three shows for a year in country clubs and military bases can take your edge off in no time at all.

I survived the experience, of course, and the education has served me well, but I didn't want to talk about that.

I wanted to talk about Becks.

Okay, I called her Becks.  Her name was Becky, or Rebecca, but one reminded me too much of Becky Thatcher and the other smacked too much of SunnyBrook Farm; although I preferred the latter to the former.  So, I just called her Becks.

It was my second year of the program; it was a time for Master's Theses, a loathsome Children's Theatre Tour, and a couple of really intricate theory-based classes.  I had a roommate in the summer, but he was booted before the Fall, the house we had chosen was too rich for my blood; I tried another house, but soon abandoned the idea, and finally wound up living in the Infamous Tree House, a second floor apartment that contained oodles of Monty Python, every Metal Band that ever existed, my roommate Steve who kept me sane, and everything but rubber swords to play with.....everything a good Tree House should have.

Yes, Vodka and Rum included.

I met Becks during a Fire Drill.  We were standing out in the quad as the siren wailed, and the Costume Shop Guru called me over to introduce me to her.....apparently, she thought we'd hit it off.

Strangely enough, we did.  We started in simple conversation, which of course probably included me making jokes and her rolling her eyes.  We went from that to making a pact that every time we saw each other in the hallway, we would kiss.  That went very well.  And then, conversations in stairwells and finally, a loose kind of dating.

She got me to wear a suit to a party.  Those that know me will understand the relevance of such a thing.  I wore a tie.

Here's where the demon rises up to erase my memory.  Some things I remember, some things I cannot trust to be true.  I can say this:  I was an idiot.

I missed signs.  I was selfish.  I was insecure.  I was burned out.

I was drunk.  Most of the time.  Functional, but whacked out.

And it faded.  We went our separate ways.  I went to Missouri.  Becks joined the circus.

Years passed.  We couldn't stop them.

Years later, we met again.  The first conversations were awkward, of course.  Part of the whole recovery process is taking responsibility, and that tripped me up for awhile.  We danced around topics.  We joked about the things that hurt.  But slowly, things smoothed out.

The girl I knew had become a woman who had seen the world; who had made her mark; who married and had two children; and, as she told me later, kept a piece of me with her.

But no photos; it was something she subtly cursed me for in later life.  I was camera shy in my drunken days.  Another regret.

One day in those years, we met at a reunion of a kind at the sight of our original relationship.  We had dinner with Steve (the Tree House roommate) and his wife Michelle, who saved my life one night by driving me to the emergency room when my head was in danger of exploding.  But that's another story.

We met in front of the theatre building, just steps from where that Fire Alarm years before had placed us.  We walked about the campus, seeing places we didn't even know existed back in the day; we walked around the town, looking at the places we stayed, and the conversations had there.  The buildings had different tenants, but everything looked the same.  And slowly, the years melted away, and it became what it was supposed to be, back then.  It became easy, and comfortable, and warm. 

Age brings wisdom, sometimes.

Between us, I was the only one that aged.  She was still the same girl, with the backward laugh and the smile that relaxed you.  Oh, and the cutting wit.  She had it back in the day, but she used it sparingly.  Not so much with the sparingly anymore....but I'm a big boy.

Friends a neighbors, I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Love is an energy, and as such, can be created but never ever destroyed.  It hangs around the universe, it permeates your idle thoughts, and if you're lucky....very VERY lucky.....you can relive it again, for just a minute or an hour or a day.

2 comments:

Gertrude said...

What's different about Joe? I get asked it all the time. Why Joe? I love him. That is what is different. I truly do. And you are right about love Clemo.
Beautiful writing.

Kizz said...

"That went very well."

I'll just bet it did.