Falling

From diary to story

February 14, 1997

Oh, my. 29 Valentine’s Days in love with Jim. I wish I still had my diary from then, or something. How wonderful and giddy that first winter and spring were. (Just saying, “oh, wow” and shouting “I love you!” In the cold Syracuse night.)

Syracuse, New York. January 31, 1968. I am sitting in the Regent Theater watching Marcel Marceau perform “The Public Garden”. It’s a very long piece, as he mimes one character after another. Next to me was another 18-year-old freshman, a young man I hardly knew. His name was Jim. For months, I had known him only as the roommate of Gene, a golden-haired hippie who was the object of interest for half of the women on my dorm floor. Three weeks before, Jim had sneaked me up to his dorm room so we could listen to his new Ravi Shankar album. As he explained classical ragas to me, I pursued his collection of Pogo books. Two weeks before, we had attended a party where we surprised ourselves with a passionate necking session. Last week, when I was home for winter break, he had written me a letter hinting at”the presence of love”, followed up by a phone call inviting me to join him to see Marcel Marceau.

And there we sat, watching Marceau as the anxious lover, plucking petals from a daisy one by one, teetering between hope and fear as each one fell. Finally, he held the last one aloft - - YES! We turned and looked at each other. Jim asked “Yes?” And I said, “yes”.

After the show we walked back to campus, and stood overlooking the city, shivering and whooping “I love you” into the frigid night. It really did feel like falling.