Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of Coventry Review of Virginity Or Death! Review of Imperial Reckoning Poetry Politico By Beth L. Block Peonies By Natasha S. Garnett A Foreigner in the Street By Tony Zurlo Sand Hill Cranes and Other Eccentricities By Jaqueline Powers On Sleepless Nights By Joy Harold Helsing I Don't Want To Be Hughes By Joe Koch Fiction Baseball Games and One-Eared Cats By Pete Laffin Beige By Dawn Merrow Geezer Cage By Scott W. Alten Sandlot By J. Conrad Guest Dinosaurs and Barbie Dolls By Michelle McMahon Burlesque Show By Stanley P. Anderson About the Contributors © 2006, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Vacant Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Sen. Fiction Editor - Patti Kurtz Sen. Poetry Editor - Neeldhara Misra Sen. Creative Nonfiction Editor - Brenda Coxe Contributing Editor - Robert Dittman Blog Contributing Editor - Maggie Koster Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit VolunteerMatch. |
Time Isn't Linear “Up on the watershed Standing at the fork in the road You can stand there and agonize Till your agony’s your heaviest load…” “Hello…” I think I remember saying at least that, after dialing the West Coast to speak with a man I hadn’t heard from since he was still a boy. It could have been a major mistake, calling Dave (not his real name) late at night – doubly so since I wasn’t exactly sober. I wanted to remember this conversation completely, and I am left with impressions and minor references in emails. It should have been sobering, to speak with a man who had been a part of some major turning points in my life, especially after nearly 17 years of silence. Dave had been the one true love of my junior year in high school. “…it has been half a lifetime since I spoke with anyone thereabouts and I've more than once wondered how you were doing.” Dave’s first email to me said. It was half a lifetime in his mind, but 3 or 4 lifetimes in mine. One positive thought was that I didn’t get upset about the fact that he had found me through my writing. It was good to get an email that wasn’t complaining about what I’d written, and I didn’t mind the fact that it seemed he was interested in reading everything he could find from my “clips.” Dave was the first boyfriend to give me a diamond – a small stone in the middle of an open heart. I remember making too big of a deal out of the ring, instead of worrying about him. “I got it to make you happy,” Dave said on the phone, while I sat thinking that I should stop him from saying or thinking that way. We were sitting on opposite sides of the country, and I realized that neither one of us really knew why we split up in the first place. “You’re not responsible for other people’s happiness,” I finally managed to say, and vaguely heard Dave’s reply – something about his expecting me to say that. The ring was lost, we never agreed on what it meant, and now I only regret that it was lost because it would have been nice to have more than just a few photographs left from then. “Thought I knew my mind Like the back of my hand The gold and the rainbow But nothing panned out as I planned…” The first pages Dave found and read out of everything I’ve written in the past several years were the columns I’d written for “The Philosophical Mother”. I enjoyed my time there, but I cringe when I look back – they were from when I was finding my voice and working my way through the insecurities that had been flourishing in me during my marriage and divorce. I replied to Dave’s first email with a friendly nearly-business-like note at first, but his face as I remembered it from my scrapbook kept hovering in the back of my mind. It took him a while to reply, and I went back to his note, re-reading one line like a scratched record replaying the same phrase, “My apologies if writing to you like this causes any anxiety.” People don’t contact me out of the blue after years of silence unless they want something, or something is wrong. “The past is past. In the general scheme of things, the negative things that went on between us were nothing in comparison with what others have caused since. We haven't talked in years, but I think you must consider me as a friend of some kind. You wouldn't have gone to the trouble of hunting me down if you didn't. If there's something wrong, or you just need to talk...you can catch me here, or call. My home/work number is…” I cringed as I clicked send on that message, not from fear or regret, but from a deep sense of dread. It was true, I had long since gotten over the fights Dave and I had, and now I hated the thought that something could be wrong in his world. “Maybe something is wrong, although it is not something tangible to me right now. I've actually been trying to sort out exactly why I did write. The dry answer is that my girlfriend was collecting yearbooks for her journalism class, which triggered a bout of general Googliasis and my run-in with the Philosophical Mother. A more considered answer would be that I have always regretted something - a constellation of somethings - about our time together that I am unfortunately having trouble conceptualizing as a whole, but which poked me in the stomach and asked to be resolved when I came across your articles…So, I guess if I need anything it's just to say that you are someone who still means a great deal to me; that I've wondered how you were doing and hoped that you were well, but regretfully never made any attempt to find out; and that I would regret infinitely more losing the opportunity that has presented itself.” Dave was writing about his guilt from our past, and I was feeling my own for breathing a sigh of relief that he had someone in his life. It wasn’t right for me to immediately stereotype the situation into that category for bad TV dramas on “women’s” networks depicting past loves trying to take their old place – but I did have more than enough complications in my personal life. I am on speaking terms at the least, or good friends with many of the men I’d been involved with over the years, so I was glad to see that I would be adding Dave to that list. There would probably be a period of awkwardness, but this was nothing new to me. “I have no problem catching up with you. There have been times over the years when I've wondered what, if anything, you were really thinking back then. Was a nice break from wondering what I was thinking when I'd get myself into various problems,” and clicking send had lost its dread. As I finished up work for the day, and headed out for the evening, I figured I would hear from Dave the next day. If I hadn’t argued a little with James, my youngest son’s father, as he pulled up in front of my house after we’d been out, I wouldn’t have touched my laptop until morning. “Every five years or so I look back on my life And I have a good laugh You start at the top Go full circle round Catch a breeze Take a spill But ending up where I started again Makes me wanna stand still…” Dave had replied, three times…the last leaving me with his cell phone number. I’d had a few drinks, and was generally wired from the argument I had just left. I dialed, said “hello” and ended up talking to Dave until about 5am. As I hung up, I was amazed to see that I’d topped all previous records for length of call – over 200 minutes. We’d talked for over three hours, and all I could honestly remember was that I had easily fallen back into the groove – I was holding back from finishing Dave’s sentences for him, and prompting him to reply to questions and comments. It may as well have been 1988 again. After a few hours sleep, the guilt for the previous night’s conversation set in – “Sorry about last night. I really need to stop saying all that I'm thinking when I end up ‘analyzing’ people.” I sent it, hoping I hadn’t scared him away – sighing at the irony. “…I care about what you are actually thinking, not what it is polite to say. There is all too much politeness in the world and not enough introspection.” Just a couple lines, and I was remembering why I’d been drawn to Dave before – knowing that I would have a chance at keeping him on that one list describing past loves that I actually like – the friends. Some years ago, a daytime talk show (Oprah?) had a show where past loves met each other after decades of separation. Each of them claimed the other “hadn’t changed a bit” – the blindness to aging was duly explained by an expert, stripping the spiritual connection down to neural impulses in the sensory and memory portions of the brain. I haven’t the notion that there is a deep romantic connection between Dave and me that can be rekindled one day, but I do believe that there is something deep within us that we will always recognize. “There may not be enough introspection in the world, but there's far too much of it in me - at least that's what my editors keep telling me. For now, I'm overdosing on the introspection, dropped a line to an old friend this morning that I may regret, and have been listening to music that probably is pushing me deeper into the quicksand I usually find myself in when I start thinking too much about the past. Seems awful, but it really isn't. It will keep me from scrambling for a topic to write about for my column…” my reply was longer... *Lyrics excerpts from "Watershed" by the Indigo Girls. Elizabeth Ross Disclaimer Note: The views and comments conveyed in this article are exclusively those of the writer and in no way reflect, in whole or in part, the official or unofficial views, attitudes, or beliefs of River Walk Journal, Inc. |