ABANDONMENT: a love story

Waking from another dream: this time: upstate New York: a life-long haunting that began around  my twentieth year...

When a love-affair begins with the subject of one's declaration leaving one at the mall, in the middle of a raging blizzard on Thanksgiving Eve, one should take this as a Portent of Doom--or at least as the first chapter in a cautionary tale. (No wonder I still have this dream--especially in Spring, where it all began to unwind...) However, when one has just turned twenty and is head-over-Adidas in limerance and longing, one rarely reads portents of any kind.

I got out of the brown Rabbit and headed into the mall, dumbstruck that my declaration had caused such consternation. (It was shell-shock: our twenty-year age difference just the beginning of the problem...) Walking alone through the mall like a zombie, replaying the last six months in time to the loop of "mall muzak", I didn't realize the enormity of the sleet-storm raging outside. It was the public service announcement over the loud speakers, informing all late shoppers that the stores were closing early due to the storm, that brought me out of my funk.

Having avoided the subject of my heartbreak all afternoon, allowing "space to consider my declaration of affection", I now needed to suck it up and find my ride back to school. (We were thirty-five miles up the side of the lake, and the buses, like the mall, were no longer running.) I headed for the exit, encountering a wall of white: freezing rain mixed with chunks of hard snow, coming down in slanted gusts, coating everything. I pulled my down vest closer, ducked my curly head, and looked outside for the parked brown Rabbit.

The lot was almost empty!

All the cars that had surrounded us as we peeled into the parking space under the lamppost were long since gone. Adios! The chocolate V.W. Rabbit along with the herd...vamoosed!

My contacts began to freeze to my eyeballs. Little icy ringlets clung to my afro-ed head (Hey, it was the 70's!) My down-vest soaked through in seconds and clung, useless, to my turtleneck. My jeans were dripping into my hiking boots, even as I tried to push my way back into the mall.

Abandoned! By the one human being I most wanted to spend Thanksgiving with--my first adult "affair"--my first heart-rush of the most human kind! I was marooned at a closing mall on the outskirts of Ithaca--some ridiculous cartoon "kid"--with no one near enough to bail me out. I had like five bucks in my soaking pocket and that was it. Not even i.d.! ("Come to help me get Thanksgiving dinner stuff--it will be fun! You don't need anything--we'll only be gone for half an hour! Our first dinner party, come on!")  I believed it...OUR first dinner party...

Course, that was before I declared my undying affection and the serious turn-around of a two year friendship with a faculty member...sigh. But, unexpected as that burst of honest emotion may have been (today I doubt it was that "unexpected", frankly...) for my "friend", it didn't warrant being abandoned at the mall in an ice-storm on Thanksgiving Eve. Hell, it didn't even warrant being told that "I need time to process this" and running off in the opposite direction. The point was moot: I was stuck here and I needed to seek cover!

Back inside, even the "muzak" had been curtailed. I made it past the pushing throng, to the pay phones in the middle of the mall. I had enough change for one call. I knew all my friends in Ithaca were long gone for the holiday. I knew even the school buses back to my campus had left town. No cabby would take me thirty-five miles back without showing cash...I was truly stuck. And why? What had I done that was so heinous? One does not argue with the heart--not if one expects to win. Who better to fall in love with, anyway, than a friend?  Especially a friend who has spent every day and every challenge (on both sides) being close? Sharing personal histories? Telling truths and allowing one "in"?

Gritting my teeth, I made the call.

One of the "guests" who was invited for dinner the next day, answered.
I asked for the host.
I was told the,"the host can't come to the phone--"
I heard real music in the background. I heard many voices laughing.
(Evidently, the Host had recovered enough to drive back to campus and open the house for the group dinner prep we had planned...So much for being honest...)

I demanded to speak to my friend. Then, this goose-egg of terror that only my Mother had ever caused to rise in my throat (oh Childhood--how thou lingers!), rose. The blinding tears followed.
My nose began to run. (I had no Kleenex.)
The security guard was eying me suspiciously, just beyond the phone-booth.

"Please!" I begged, hating my tears, my plugged sinuses, the quaver in my voice, "Everyone I know has left town and I don't have money for a cab--you said I didn't need my wallet, when you asked me to come--"

Silence on the phone. (Louder laughter in the background: Joni Mitchell is replaced by Bee Gees...) Then, an audible sigh.

"Okay, I'll send Georgie to pick you up--"

It felt like every time I'd been slapped as a little girl: all the injustice of being punished, when all I was trying to do was to make a logical argument...

"I don't want George!"
(What to say to George for thirty-five miles of icy, back- road silence? How to explain even my absence, as the party unfolds this night before Thanksgiving, and everyone, BUT me, is there?)

"I need YOU...to come and get me..." My voice is the voice of a child in trouble.
(My heart is the heart of an adult abandoned...cracked and freezing as the asphalt outside...asking, only: why?)

"Look, I can't abandon all these guests--the house is full! I'll send someone else, then, if not Georgie, maybe...Carolyn? She can drive my car--"

"I want YOU!"
The tears are now full force enough that the mall cop comes over, about to ask me what's wrong.

"Okay, Okay--I'm on my way..." Click.

I move away from the pay phones. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. The mall cop hands me a surprising Kleenex.

"Kid, you all right?" he asks, suddenly friendly.

"Yeah...I just...needed to get a ride....home..." I blow my nose, try to smile. Stop shaking.

"Bad roads tonight, " he says, walking me to the exit.

Behind us, the lights are shutting down. Bars have already been slid into place, on the fronts of all the stores. Employees are leaving by the last door unlocked--the one the cop is escorting me to.

"When's your ride supposed to show?" he asks.

"Coming from down the lake...Aurora?" I shrug, praying he won't expect me to wait outside.

"Might take a while...look, I'll let you stand in this doorway, okay?  I have to do another round and check all the store fronts before I leave. Maybe your ride will be here by then..." He pats my back and walks away before I can thank him.

I can't even thank him.
I am stunned. This has never happened to me before--being left somewhere I couldn't escape--a prisoner of Fate; the weather; of my own clamoring heart: everything that was (still is) Bigger-Than-Me.  (For what?)  For admitting the Truth. For allowing someone a choice and a chance to talk through these new feelings, with  me; if not as lover, than as the friend I believed us to be...not using someone for cheap thrills, material gain, nor even for prestige on campus--but for believing that honesty was the only way to continue...

To continue.

Who expects abandonment? Or humiliation?  Being forced to plead for my life, in the middle of an ice-storm, miles and miles and miles away from where I was supposed to be...
(In a mall!)
More than hurt, there was embarrassment...even if no one knew what had occurred...just us...who had ever prepared me for such a situation?

Finally, even as I heard the "click click click" of the mall cop's boots, the rabbit's "eyes" burned through the widening white.

I jumped into the running car. The cigarette smoke and cologne were an umistakable mix. Before my seatbelt was fastened, we peeled out into the murky dark.

Silence, except for the sound of the tires and the squish of slush.
The wind lessened.
I rolled the window down an inch, inhaling the frigid air, praying to die on the road.
Hugging the door handle, trying to make myself invisible in the greenish light of the dash, I prayed to be done with this life, if all that the future held was more pain. Deeper silence. Blue smoke.

No music. No conversation. (Nothing but the tire thump and thrum and my own broken heart.)

As we pulled up to my dorm, I opened the car door before we even stopped.
My friend grabbed my still-soaking vest, holding me in my seat.

"Look, I'm sorry...you just...surprised me..." The tip of the cigarette glowed in the dark.

"Let me go...please...I can't..." I wrenched free, almost tearing the yellow vest in half, spraying goose feathers over both of us, adding to the wretched situation.

"Come back to the house...everyone's helping cook for tomorrow...they'll be expecting...us...you..."

"I can't..."

I bolted for the dorm door, the statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, snow-capped and silent, greeting me at the bottom of the stairs.

(I should have known.) 

       

HERE COMES THE...

Spring WAS due to arrive in just a few days. Even the crocus-heads were peering up from the icey mud in the garden. Maeve couldn't find a single unsullied patch of snow to pee on in her daily inspections. Everything was, as ee cummings stated: "mudluscious". I should have known this was a false promise.

Like a lover one suspects of extra-curricular activities, Spring was lying. She merely blew warm kisses and toyed with our hearts. I had seen this in 1978--wild snow-squalls covering the cherry and apple blossoms in upstate New York, where my heart was cracking, my senior year at Wells College. (Another sad tale...) We woke up needing our long undies and packed-away snowboots. Hats, scarves and mittens were hauled out of boxes we thought we needn't look at till next year. The slog to the dining-hall was filled with melting white.

I'm here, now, not finishing school. My winter clothes are strewn about the room at 88 Maple, along with everything else I own. This seems like the winter that never ends. Even the state of Massachusetts has thrown in the towel. MCAS, the state standardized testing for tenth graders everywhere, has been post-poned! The storm, once predicted at 1-4 inches, max, with rainshowers mixing it up, has now been up-scaled into a "nor'easter"--up to fourteen inches in our area. FOURTEEN INCHES!

My siblings, assembled around the diningroom table yesterday, drinking Guiness and scarfing corned beef and cabbage in honor of St. Patrick's Day, will be nowhere near, tomorrow. They are scattered about the state, doing what they need to do, and I will be home alone, to battle Dad, who tried to run me over with the snowblower a week ago (the last storm) when I refused to budge, for fear he was going to drop dead, at six a.m., snowblowing.

We had a screaming argument in the whiteout conditions of the last storm--he grinding the blade off a plastic shovel I held against the snowblower, to halt him from slipping on the icey driveway. He merely shoved me aside, shards of orange plastic mixing with the vomitous spew of the machine, and I saw blood in his eyes. It wasn't a stroke--it was the kind of Irish Anger and Stubbornness that has marked his entire life--God Help Anyone who tried to tell him what he was going to do--no matter if the intentions were to help! So he creamed the shovel and knocked me over and shot chunked up snow all over my face--until I just got out of his way.

I shoveled until I couldn't anymore and then sat in the Subaru, engine running, parked in the middle of his path, preventing him from at least a third of the job. Until, an hour later, my brother showed--as promised.

"Why the Hell did  he get up at six a.m. when I told him I was gonna come and do it around eight? Christ Almighty! They aren't going anywhere! You don't have school! It's still coming down..." my brother growled, one eye on Dad, still shuffling around like an old bear woken from hibernation, around the perimeter of my car.

Meanwhile, as I do my own shuffle back inside, my Mother is screaming that my father's going to have a heart attack and the paramedics won't be able to come up the driveway to get him, etc.
She goes out onto the front porch, her beret pulled over her ears, her scarf wrapped wildly around her head and neck. She "sweeps the front steps"--why?  I've already shoveled them. Dad's already shoveled them. Kev's already snow-blown the walk...but sweep, she does.

And so it goes on days this winter...whether school is called or not. Whether my sibs show up, later, or not. If anyone gets up before six, Dad will set his alarm to get up before five...even with the false Spring blowing ice and wicked wind all round him.

So, here comes the last great gasp of Winter 2013. We didn't die on 12/12/12--but we might.     

COMMENTS EVERYONE!

After just reading the latest issue of TIME, I came to Joel Stein's column about comments at the end of articles. His premise is that by giving the comments as much (or more room)than the original article, one can actually change peoples' views about a well-balanced and non-biased article into negativity towards the article, and the writer, themselves. He bases this premise on personal observation, minor research (which he readily admits--tongue in proverbial cheek) and one article by a researcher on media communications.

I have often found myself ploughing through an article, on-line, only to come to the comments list, hoping for further insight into the issues raised--or issues not raised. More often than not, however, the comments, after two or three at the top, de-evolve into shouting matches, wherein people's i.q., sexual preference; physical make-up and /or personal hygiene becomes the fodder. I have seen absolutely sane discussions dissolve into the crudest name-calling contests imaginable, and I substitute teach kids in middle-school! (Why does it matter that someone got two comments on Yahoo, while a competing writer got three?  What does one's breath quality have to do with anything online? Who cares if one sleeps with robots, or reads THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER for a hobby?)

A comment, after an article--whether the article was published in the NEW YORK TIMES, or on THE HUFFINGTON POST--should address issues raised in the article before it. It should ask questions that haven't been answered--or bring up points that were neglected by the original article's writer. Comments should be sane, and sanely represented. If someone is using the comment board to post racial, sexual, ageist, homophobic or bigoted slurs of any kind, they should be  somehow "rated", if not barred, by the editors of these boards--starred as the crap they are--irrelevent and uninteresting. Giving them equal time and equal space,(often more space than the original article), does validate what Mr. Stein was upset about--and also contributes to the dumbing down of the planet.

I have commented, on occasion, when particular articles have angered me, or moved me to tears. When beloved heroes have passed. When a special event touches us all, as a nation, or as global citizens--but I have commented where it would add to the conversation. Negativity has its place in the order of the Universe, as does everything that exists, but it seems, extended name-calling, and pointing out the foibles of an individual who has commented before you (and who is unknown to the rest of the readers), is just plain absurd. Whether there is endless space available or not, I know, for myself, it shuts me down,(and off) as a reader. It rarely changes my mind about the article--nor the writer of the original article. However, it does cut me off from fair exchange of original ideas with other readers. It turns me off to the entire process: I begin to search elsewhere.

My hopes have always been that the Internet is the first, real democracy on the planet. Everyone has an equal voice--if they can make their way into virtual space. With the advent of increasingly affordable technology and shared techno-support--even countries who are the farthest behind in technology can give rise  to their culture, their needs, their dreams. One doesn't have to be a President nor a Pope, to offer insight to the rest of the world. Soon, everyone, everywhere, will have this power. However, as with all power, the wisdom with which we use it will determine how it benefits the whole.

Comments are a perfect proving ground. If one doesn't feel ready to have one's own blog, or web-page, or even publish an article (or an entire e-book), a comment board is somewhere to cut one's teeth. Offering one's opinions to the world can be daunting. Learning to increase one's personal sense of power to help change the pattern of the world can be started through the use of simple comments. However, name calling, obscenity for the sake of being a wise-guy, crudity or just plain raunch has no good points--for anyone. Using precious space, polluting public arenas, or typing verbal garbage, reduces one to an angry five year old having a tantrum: something ugly and out of control.  Stein said, that for him, finding comments at the end of his published articles, was, at first, like having a signed yearbook all over again--but this time around, girls were signing it...for a while. Then, it degenerated and wasn't quite so interesting.

I welcome comments. Not for simple praise (or blame), but for insight into what people think/feel/come away with,after reading what I write. I am working on this blog to offer solace to all the loners and artists and teachers and independent ones out there, who maybe don't find their stories in the popular press. I want to hear your adventures, too. I hope you do leave some comments--and continue coming back, to see what transpires--however fast or slowly. This is a blog about one person's life--just one human on Earth. It is a history that, before now, might have been squelched. It is a record of hope in dark times. It could only be offered at this point in our evolution.(Because of the Internet's access and because of you, as accessible audience.) So, comments are an important ingredient in the exchange.

Recently, a friend was writing an article for a national newspaper. She mentioned that numerous famous and "almost anonymous" bloggers were addressing similar issues she was taking on, in their blog posts. Whether she numbered me among the "almost anonymous" bloggers or not, the description stung. For every writer who has published, mainstream, in solo books or anthologies or in magazines with any sort of distribution or even in other sorts of periodicals, worldwide, to be numbered among the "anonymous bloggers" stings. We are all toiling to communicate beyond  ourselves--believing in an unseen audience. Comments often are the only way we know anyone is listening--or reading. We may not be "famous"--at least not by today's definition of YouTube million-hit fame--but we are out here. We are touching readers; we are making people think, argue and discuss issues. Comments keep us in a constant reality-check. They have the power to count.

(In some sort of irony, my friend's article didn't get published. But my "anonymous blog" keeps moving on out into the world. Hmmmm.)

 

THE SOUND OF MEMORY

"Twenty-seven years ago, we were doing this, H.!"  I nudge my friend in the ribs.

"More like forty years ago, Minns..." she laughs as the line moves forward.

"Hey, Ms. Minns, so good to see you!"
"Hi Ms. Minns!"
"Ms. Minns, you made it!"

I wink, touch a shoulder and move through the crowd of high schoolers and their parents, all in the ticket line.

"You already have your tickets, right?" H. asks me, suddenly worried. "If they don't have your tickets, I'll buy my own--" H. sets her jaw. (She is gainfully employed as a real-life teacher in Worcester...she's arrived. I'm still "arriving". She knows she may have to pay her own way--as well as mine...)

"No, they'll have them," I insist, praying. "They got me to be a sponsor--kinda last minute, though. I guess the tickets are upfront."

I feel my face flaming beet-red, as the nearest parents begin to listen.

"Name please?" the ticket lady asks, thumbing through the shoebox of envelopes.

"Uh, Minns--" (I feel like a rube at my first Broadway show. How embarrassing if they forgot my tickets! No way--I bought they from Capt. Von Trapp, himself...)

For a second, the ticket lady looks as concerned--then sighs with relief ."Oh, yes, Karen, right?  Here they are!" The woman beams, handing me the envelope with my name printed across. "Enjoy!"

H. and I exhale.

H. hands me a copy of the program.

I try not to be obvious as I scan the list of "sponsors".
(I don't see my name...)

"Ms. Minns--you actually made it, tonight!" a student usher takes my tickets, grinning. Her "Madonna microphone" is caught in a long curl. "There are sponsor seats in the center."

(I am a sponsor; I laid out my donation; but I'm not on the list...will we be further embarrassed and asked to re-seat ourselves if we sit in the wrong aisle? God, High School never changes!)

"Wow, when WE did the show, there was NO sound-system..." H. (an original cast-member back then--one of the children--and again, in the community college's production, ten years later) comments. (I know this is bringing up all sorts of nostalgia for her, too.)

"Times do change, Minnsie," she sighs.

Off to her left, she begins a conversation with a couple I don't know. (The man looks to be about seventy--the woman fifteen years younger.) I busy myself with the program.

"Do you know who that is?" H. grabs my elbow and squeezes.

 "Nope." (Still scanning the program, I find that I am, indeed, on the sponsor list. However, they've mispelled my name.)

"That's OUR original Capt. Von Trapp! Remember what a hunk he used to be?" H. whispers.

(I do remember: football captain; six feet plus of pure muscle; great voice; had everyone swooning.)

"Of course, we all look different with a complete head of hair," H. waxes philosophic.

(I cough, brushing my hand over my own one-inch spikes.)

Suddenly, the orchestra walks in.

(In our day, there was a full orchestra--complete with strings. A handful of the high school's best musicians were asked to play alongside professionals, who had been paid for their three night run. It was a huge deal for the students.)

Tonight, there are five guys in black shirts and pants.

Two are students I've had in  my classes. (They make up the percussion section.)
Two adults play keyboards.
The fifth member is the Conductor--the band director for the high school.

"Hey, at least they have a sound system!" H. nudges me in the darkening hall.


Forty years ago: the rising swell of the overture poured out from the pit.The feeling of being on Broadway--or at least in Boston--took us over.

Forty years ago: rented sets (that we had paid a small ransom for), and rented costumes and professionally painted backdrops, filled the stage. I noticed each shining detail back then, as it was my first time being a member of the stage- crew--pulling the mighty curtain and helping to set lights for weeks. I was taught that everything depended on my getting the timing right--or fitting a gel correctly. (I believed it, too.) The entire production on my fourteen year old shoulders...

I remember the dramas that plagued the cast--how we revolved around their inflated lives for those months of rehearsal--how the primary cast members became romantic community icons for an entire year--whomever they were dating, or breaking up with, or upset at, becoming fodder for all of our conversations, both in school and outside. The only "social networking" were whispered rumors and hallway gossip--always tantalizing--always thrilling--fillling our lives with angst and emotion!

(I also remember having to go into the mighty Massachusetts winter; being bullied into selling tickets every weekend, to pay for the extravaganza.) Our director was a task-master; a bit of a meglomaniac--he would not allow an unsold performance on his watch. So, we assailed the neighboring communities, risking dog-bites and slammed doors, assuring people they'd miss a masterpiece of theatre if they didn't buy at least one seat.)

As kids from a football-only- town, we were sucked into the romance. It was a matter of pride and social cache, to be associated with the musical.  Those were the days when Gardner was known, without irony, as "The Chair City of the World".

Looking back, I wonder: whose aim did we serve? How many of us truly prospered under that stress?

It wasn't until college, where I began to be cast as a primary player, on-stage. In California, too, I had my taste of being a minor star--but never in high school.

 I was not a member of the beautiful set, nor the musically gifted-- I felt that lack, for years. (Still, I found a niche-- my starry-eyed, starring-role friends never held it against me.)

 Forty years later, I wonder, how many of these cast members will continue on?  How many chorus members will dream of being leading ladies? How many stage-crew will swallow their dreams? ( Or, does any of this matter, anymore?) Am I nostalgic or bitter?  I weigh it out...


The orchestra, though minimal, helps carry the voices. The students are bright eyed and earnest and some of them can really sing. Most impressive: the dutiful chorus of nuns--filling the live auditorium with Gregorian Chant. (Did our nuns do as well?) Certainly, there are fewer in this present-day production.

Another difference I can't fail to notice: in our day, no one was allowed backstage until the performance was through. No actors --not even a chorus member--could so much as peek at the audience. If anyone dared to join the audience while still in costume, well, that person was struck from the cast. We were to act as "professionals".

Was this maniacal? Necessary? Did it add to the community's enjoyment of the musical? Did it add to our understanding and appreciation of theatre? (At the time, we seemed under the spell of this man.  He represented the dreams we shared of leaving central Massachusetts and conquering the world. I only began to question his authority as a Senior--when I was tired of being forever relegated to the stage-crew, and never given an opportunity to act. But that was more my ego than his, I fear.) I wonder, if forty years later, such high anxiety and power-struggles still exist behind those curtains?  (If this is so, will kids be better or worse for it?)

No one famous came out of  our marathons.

Most of us fled the town and moved on to other dramas in the world.

A few of us returned to witness the reprise--by chance. (Only, by chance.)

(I do not feel forty years older.)


Kids are beaming as they take their bows.
Parents  hug and smile and pass out bouquets bought at Price Chopper and Stop and Shop (some with the sticky price tags still clinging to the plastic wrap)--but no less thrilling to the young actors.

Though forty years earlier we might have had a choreographer, no one giggled this time, when Capt. Von Trapp awkwardly kissed Maria. The audience held its breath--as it should.

(In the end, there was a standing ovation, even as there had been, in my day.) It was just as heart-felt.
The staff, and teachers in attendance, were just as proud--even if there seemed to be fewer of them.

I'm sure there were arguments about cast party attendance and missed dinners and forgotten homework. (Yes, they could have done without the spotty sound system. Better lighting design would also have helped.) However, the magic of theatre, for all of those involved, hasn't diminished.

(Even if the world of the Von Trapp Family Singers seems farther away.)

"Forty years, Minns--" H. squeezes my arm as we saunter back to my Subaru.

"Shit! We left the overhead light on!"

(I pray the engine will start and I can get her home.)

Some things never change.