Keeping in Touch

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"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were."--Didion from On Keeping a Notebook

I remember a very shy, lonely nine-year-old girl who used to sit inside the Catholic Church during recess at the parish school she attended. She was afraid to be laughed at, afraid the other children wouldn't want to play with her, and she found comfort in the dark, musty smell of the old nave with its burning wax candles and the faint scent of incense from last Sunday's mass still in the air. As she sat in a pew by herself with her head in her hands, she could see through the cracks of her fingers, sunlight streaming through the wine-red, mustard and azure-blue stained glass windows that opened near her. She could hear, beyond the windows, the sound of children laughing at play outside.  Somehow, that multi-colored light held promise and safety. As she looked up, she saw a statue of the infant Jesus of Prague in princely robes holding the earth in his hands. "Such courage, she thought, to be a child and carry the world like that all by one's self."

There is another girl I remember, older, more sure of herself, who moved to Santa Barbara at age 21, found old friends with whom to live and made many new ones. Most significantly, she found a new identity, a name that gave her life meaning and promise. She lay in the sun on nude beaches, drank wine and rode horses in the surf, Lady Godiva style. She acted in amateur radio shows and even on stage at a local theater where she performed in a play with able-bodied and deaf and disabled actors.  She met and fell in love with a man, almost got married, and then fell out of love. She lived in a college town, in a spiritual community of people young and old, and helped tend a communal garden. She decided at age 23 to return to college and found her passion in English literature, eventually to become a teacher of the same.

That little nine-year-old girl, sitting in the darkened church, alone, bereft of a father and with few close friends could not imagine how life would change for her. But strangely, it is she whom I recall most vividly.  I still see her in my dreams and often when I am sad. And so I would like to say to her now, "It is going to be alright. You will grow up and be an amazing woman, kind, creative, compassionate and generous of spirit. Know that you are worthy of love." Yes, I think Joan Didion is right, "We are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not." And so I nod to her now, and she smiles back at me and waves, from a distance.

Josh Groban: You're Still You