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Talking about a broken heart
By Skip Miller
Staff Writer
It had been a very mature conversation. Both of you had excellent reasons for ending your teen-age romance, embrace the evermore irksome burden of adulthood.
Her plans included going to Paris where she would teach English at a private academy.
You would be going to Madison Square Garden to cover the fights – Roberto Duran was scheduled to beat up somebody.
You talked gently, already remembering how it had been, until you were on the verge of being late.
The student union at Syracuse University was named the Jabberwocky. The tables had been removed and the chairs rearranged. A small, plywood stage had been nailed together.
Welcome to an evening with Tom Rush.
He was one of the folk-blues musicians who prowled the country in the late Sixties. He was a high school classmate of Joan Baez. He could play slide guitar and he had an interesting voice that sold the lyrics.
The closest thing he came to a mainstream hit was Driving Wheel, a song about a guy who had left his girl but couldn’t let go.
She started crying when he sang Driving Wheel. When he ended the night with Goodbye Mama she was sobbing.
And that was the last time you saw her. It was … what? … almost four decades ago.
A year ago she returned to memory and would not go away. It took three months to find her. She was living in the land of your childhood, not far from what had been your family farm.
After graduating college she returned to Paris and lived there for several years. She studied philosophy and earned money teaching. She worked for the United Nations for many years. She was an expert on women’s rights – or lack of – in Eastern Europe and Northern Africa.
Finding her, communicating with her, made you feel better about self and life. Both of you had claimed the success and achievements you wanted.
You patted your son on the shoulder.
“She’s somebody I’ll always think about,” you told him. “And that’s OK. She was a part of my younger years. She had a helping hand in defining who I have become.”
He shook his head, said he didn’t want to think about her. “I feel so betrayed,” he said.
“That will go away. In time you’ll remember the good things, the good times.”
He nodded, looked out across the river. Swamp frogs were chuckling. A heron hunted the shallows. Full moon rising.
“When she left and went to Paris were you as miserable as I am right now?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“What did you do about it?”
“Talked to my father.”
His cloud of misery lifted long enough for him to smile. It was then you knew everything was going to be OK.
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