Alone Again

Inspired by The Reincarnation of Queen Esther, Beatrice Silverman Weinreich ed., Yiddish Folktales

My first apartment out of graduate school and into my new career was in the desired location of downtown yet a little too far down the wrong street where college students ritually immersed themselves in alcohol on weekends until they emerged with primal screams.

I have never had a constitution that allowed me to drink more than a little wine with dinner on a rare occasion.  Even then I don't feel quite right the next morning.  Plus, I like to stay in control of my physical environment.  My earliest memory of oversensitivity was calling for my mother in my first non-crib bed to smooth out all the wrinkles in my quilt.  In the primordial college bar ghetto, I simply wore the most comfortable earplugs I could find to protect myself from the screams of the revelers.

To replace drinking, as a young woman, I tried pushing shaper edges.  Once, I offered a homeless man, who was sleeping in the laundry room next to my apartment, a roll.  I had just returned from a Saturday morning walk with coffee and more than one roll.  The homeless shelter across the street from my apartment caused me to wonder why the homeless man was sleeping in our laundry room.

His story was that he had worked in a pizza parlor in Ohio before heading east with a buddy in a used car.  The car broke down in Vermont where he ran our of money and motivation.  He was unable, for some reason, to meet the 8:00 curfew at the homeless shelter so found our open door apartment building across the street.  He looked to be in his mid-thirties or even forty with a stocky build and shoulders that hunched over the roll and paper bag.  He wore a green parka.

After giving him the roll I did some Christmas/Hanukkah shopping before meeting my sister back at my apartment.

"Your not going to meet anyone in your apartment," she said as an encouragement for going out and meeting men.

Instead of telling her about the homeless man I told her about contra dances.

"Go!"

"You're right."

"Could you go tonight?"

"I could."

She left to go have dinner with her future husband and I was faced with going to a contra dance by myself on a Saturday night.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, I walked the six blocks to the waterfront where the contra dance was being held.  As I stood, trying to make a decision to go inside, I sensed someone standing behind me.  I turned around to see that the homeless man in his green parka had either followed me or was, coincidentally, in the same spot.  Knowing he didn't have the door fee, I quickly paid and stepped inside without looking back.

Before I could sit in a superfluous chair I was pulled into the contra line stumbling through with inexperienced steps.  I did notice a green parka laying across one of the chairs but did not see my friend anywhere.  Instead, my eyes fell on the graduate student who would occupy my life for four months then drop me like a hot potato.  He looked at me with piercing blue eyes and an outstretched hand that would lead me confidently through the contra moves twirling me around as though I had spent my life twirling in his ambiance. 

Before the graduate student who loved his mountain bike, was learning to play the fiddle and cared deeply about the environment, walked me home, I noticed the green parka still laying across the chair.  It must have belonged to someone other than the homeless man because I didn't see him anywhere.  He didn't have any money so could not have been there unless someone had offered to pay his admission or unless he slipped by the admission table.

The graduate student said goodnight to me at my door while smoothly making plans to see me the next day.  Later, towards the end of our flash in the pan romance, he would tell me that spending time with him was like basking in the light.  The way he took control of me on the dance floor was the way he would take control of our relationship allowing me to lean back and relax until he inevitably needed something from me.

He was right.  Our four month romance was summer camp or maybe even the military.  Everything was decided for me.  I just had to go along for the ride.  Mountain biking for the first time came as easily as contra dancing with my Master of Education candidate leading the way.  He took control of my tendency to take a yoga class once per week by giving me a book on yoga and esalen massage.  After he feel off his mountain bike and I had the opportunity to cure his banged up body by following the directions in his gift book, he encouraged me to give up my dowdy librarian career and become a massage therapist and yoga teacher.  Putty in his strong hands, I entered the world of new age bodywork classes eventually putting my master's degree aside for the first time.

While my head remained in the clouds, the homeless man followed me around town during the times my student was in school or I was on my way to work.  His parka, hanging unzipped from rounded shoulders, revealed a moth eaten red sweater.  On cold days I wondered if the zipper was broken but never said anything to him again.  He sometimes clutched a Styrofoam cup in one hand.

Sometimes, when I was with my short term boyfriend, I would catch a misleading glimpses of green parka.  I came to realize that the quiet homeless man was never there during those times. 

After four buoyant months, the graduate student had a birthday.  Because I had become accustomed to outside control, I naturally didn't plan anything.  Shocked and disappointed, he rallied a summer ferry ride and sunset dinner on Lake Champlain.  I felt confused and lonely when for the next several days there was no communication from the boyfriend and no sign of the green parka worn even during the warmer months.  I wondered if the homeless man had made his way back to a pizza parlor or somewhere else.  I longed for the boyfriend.

When I called him, he informed me of his interest in someone else who I knew was more curvaceous than me yet, later on after her whirlwind romance with the graduate student, began wearing non feminine clothing and dating women.  He scolded me later for purposely leaving pink dangle earrings on the rug hidden by the sofa unless you were actually lying on the rug.  I had my ways of controlling the situation.

Alone again, not fully understanding how I had become transformed from a librarian to a massage therapist, I considered my options.