We had believed we would be saved from disappointing lives. Unlike our parents, we would be adored by our children because we would be their champions. We thought sex was very important and spent limitless time encouraging each other. We loved Japanese movies of the time. After a film Warren would race up and grab me with a samurai leap and a hiss. I would fold up with laughter. We danced around his apartment. We rushed out to buy the latest albums. And we decided to live together at a time when it wasn't done.
Why did he want to see me now? I detached from the present and became a consultant to myself to cut free of my own feelings. He was in his mid-60s and always a self-observer. He could be doing a life review and revisiting the women important to him, pulling themes of relationships together, looking at the whole canvas. He could be wanting to make amends. And, oh yes, he could be wanting to start an affair. But it seemed too risky to find out. I couldn't risk rejection again.
I knew from mutual friends who'd sketched in the rough outlines of his life that, after being divorced from his first wife for a long time, he'd suddenly married a woman they didn't like.
Though so many years had passed, Warren still meant so much to me. Those critical years when we were together were passionate and stimulating. They had become my template for life.
Dinner with him? Back then I'd planned to make dinner for him every night for the rest of our lives. Now I was afraid that one dinner would just start me up all over again.
Three days later, I left a message that I'd meet him for dinner at his hotel during his impending visit to Washington. When he opened the door to his suite, we stared at each other, mutually surprised at what we saw: two white-haired people! My robust, youthful, pipe-smoking lover was replaced by another man -- manicured, slender, significantly older. He guided me smoothly into the sitting room and conducted our meeting like a TV interviewer.
As I began searching anxiously for my old familiar friend, he talked about his life, the 20 books he'd written (he placed two right in my hands), the conferences he chaired. He was here in D.C. to preside over a forum for Business Week. My life suddenly felt skinny.
I found myself responding unenthusiastically and reluctantly to his polite questions about my life and children. I heard myself reporting mechanically -- and endlessly -- about a recent barge trip I'd taken in France. This wasn't the way I wanted it to go. Where was the mystery, the unfolding? I feared we'd never speak in any way that would draw us close.
I heard him say that he had many happy years after our time together but that he'd never recovered such passion again. The words were stiff, awkward, spoken without emotion. They were not an invitation. We ordered BLTs and, after a few bites, I looked at my watch and saw that it was time to go. Quietly he walked me down to get a taxi. In the silence he simply smiled and, through the otherwise packaged persona, let out a sigh. That was the first glimpse of my old lover.
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS, BETWEEN patients, I thought about him, and dropped him a note: "Id like to stay in touch and not lose this friendship of our youth now that we have made this effort. In the old Forest Street language, I might have proposed 'the wine has been opened and must be drunk.' In the context of our present lives, the metaphor must be modified. I simply doubt that we will get another running start. I remain, your Amazed Grace."
He did not respond. That didn't fit. He'd been a university president. They answered their mail. Months later in a conversation with mutual friends, I learned that Warren had some surgery and was laid up for a while. It gave me the courage to try writing again. At worst he would be flattered. Just a few lines: "Was our getting together meant to be a one time thing?"
Five days later a letter arrived by Federal Express. "Strange, so strange. I thought/felt that you were pushing me away when we met in October, that you couldn't wait to leave. I was mesmerized -- again -- and wanted you but thought, well, the slow flat barge you described was emblematic of the life you were resigned to lead. Or that I seemed to have settled for." He had not received my earlier letter. And barely two weeks before, "for too many reasons to recount now, my wife and I separated. In truth, I didn't want to continue life on a flat barge. I don't want to make too much of a cute metaphor but I want to see you and hold you." From that point on the Federal Express man was Cupid to me.
THE RULES OF REUNIONS
#1. A reverse "Lost Horizons" effect occurs. There's a recapturing of the past that is felt as a reexperience of youth. Some people describe a sexual reexplosion in which the partner is a sort of a physical composite of their youthful and present selves, thereby enhancing the experience.
Old songs come to mind, old jokes, playfulness, a carefree regression into childlike behaviors. Couples may recapture the high-energy part of a shared life. Each party may take a new look at old talents left unexplored. The rebirth that takes place in the reunion can stimulate new learning -- even a new career.
Each partner may have reached the fruition or completed form of the wonderful outlines suggested but barely developed many years ago. Once potential qualities such as generosity, responsibility, competency, honesty, confidence, and the ability to be nurturing may now be clearly established. Perhaps your old lover looks even better to you now than before.
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