At a Loss For Words

by Diane Schoemperlen

  I sent you the address for a foundation called Save the Mustangs, dedicated to saving wild horses. I knew you cared passionately about this endeavor. The website included the story of a woman named Janet Burts who had successfully removed more than a hundred horses from Canadian pregnant mare urine farms to safety in Alaska. (I didn’t mention that I knew about PMU farms and how the urine of pregnant mares is used in making birth control pills and estrogen replacement drugs because my cousin’s husband and his brother used to own a PMU in Manitoba. I didn’t mention that, for their efforts, the brothers were excommunicated from the Mennonite Church. Back then, the problem with PMUs was about the birth control pills, not the cruelty to animals. I didn’t mention that, after a time, the brothers gave up the pregnant mares and raised buffalo instead. This was back when trendy restaurants were serving buffalo burgers for the novelty of it.)

  I sent you the address for the Archive of Misheard Lyrics. Everyone loves these. I knew you would too. For example, I wrote, in that classic Rolling Stones song, “Beast of Burden,” the first line has been variously misheard as I’ll never be your big Suburban…I’ll never be your Easter bunny…I’ll never be your big stuffed bird…I’ll never be your bacon burger…I’ll never leave your pizza burnin’.

  And in the Robert Palmer song, “Addicted to Love,” the lyric from the chorus has been most frequently misheard as You might as well face it, you’re a dickhead in love.

  Thirty years ago, like all young (and not-so-young) couples, we had our own special song: “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest. A short-lived American band of the seventies, they were a one-hit wonder with this tune, singing about how getting it on most every night was a supernatural delight, and we don’t bark and we don’t bite, we like our fun and we never fight, you can’t dance and stay uptight, we keep things loose and we keep things light.

  Between the time you left me behind when I was eighteen and the time you walked back into my life almost thirty years later, I don’t remember ever once hearing this song. But after you reappeared, I heard it everywhere: on the oldies radio station, in taxicabs, in shopping malls, in the grocery store. Once in a movie soundtrack and again on a television show.

  Once I heard it in a department store where I was contemplating buying a shirt. I was holding the shirt up in front of myself in the mirror, admiring the tiny rhinestones on the front and the lettering that said Les Environs de Moulin 1913…Palais des Beaux Arts…Mise en Musique par M. L’abbé Dugué, but wondering if its predominantly beige color made me look washed out. Then the song came on in the store.

  Of course I took this as a sign.

  Of course I bought the shirt.

  Of course I wore it the next time I saw you.

  Of course you loved it.

  I discovered on the Internet that the old album including this song is now available on CD, so I ordered two copies, one for each of us. I mailed yours with a card that featured a photograph of a luminous full moon reflected in a gelatinous body of black gleaming water, and it said, When I am moon-gazing here…I love knowing that you are seeing the same moon there.

  I added my own words at the bottom: Still and forever dancing in the moonlight with you. Love from me.

  You said, I am so touched by your gift and your words. Thank you with all my heart. I love the moon and I love you too.

  Write about the moon.

  I already have.

  I’d been reading a book called Moonscapes: A Celebration of Lunar Astronomy, Magic, Legend, and Lore by Rosemary Ellen Guiley. I said, You know my astrological sign is the moon sign. I should be an aficionado on the subject!

  I sent you a list of Native American lunar names from the book:

  Moon of Frost on the Tepee

  Moon When the Little Lizard’s Tail Freezes Off

  Limbs of Trees Broken by Snow Moon

  Raccoon’s Rutting Season Moon

  Ripening Strawberries Moon

  Moon When Horses Get Fat

  Spider Web on the Ground at Dawn Moon

  Every Buck Loses His Horns Moon

  Hunger Moon

  Sap Moon

  Fish Moon

  Worm Moon

  Milk Moon

  Wart Moon

  Rotten Moon

  Honey Moon

  Moon with No Name

  You said, Thank you so much for sharing these. They are so beautiful and poetic, as are you. I will never again look at the moon without thinking of you, oh my Lady of the Many Moons.

  Thirty years ago, you left me behind to take a job elsewhere, a better job two thousand miles away. At the time, I thought my broken heart would never heal.

  I still have the four letters you wrote to me after you left. For all these years, I’ve kept them in a battered wooden cigar box that once belonged to my father, who never smoked cigars.

  Our correspondence back then was conducted long before the advent of e-mail, and so your old letters were handwritten on flimsy lined foolscap with an untrustworthy pen that blotted frequently. I have them still in their original envelopes. Back then, postage was only eight cents.

  I’ve read these letters over many times in recent months.

  The first one was written three weeks after you left me standing in the rain in front of my parents’ house. I’d passed those weeks in a welter of misery. I went to school every day because my mother made me, but once there, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the girls’ bathroom smoking and fixing my mascara after crying on the shoulders of all my friends. I was the first of my group to lose her virginity, and after you left, I found that my friends were every bit as fascinated by and obsessed with my abandonment as they’d been with my initial deflowering.

  In those weeks, I pretended to do my homework in the evenings, but really I was in my bedroom crying, hiding from my parents, listening to sad music, and wishing I were dead. In those weeks, I (former straight-A student) failed an algebra test, got caught skipping English class twice, was late handing in a history essay, and then got only a D on it.

  In those weeks, I swore that I would never fall in love again, that I would live the rest of my life alone, solitary, and sad, loving you forever and ever, and never looking at another man ever again.

  Your first letter began: That had to be the saddest goodbye I have ever spoken. The early morning, the rain, the tiredness, and thoughts of my long trip ahead…they all combined to shock me into realizing that the great time we had spent together was really over. You gave me some beautiful moments and much happiness in that time, and unfortunately the price paid was a lot of pain at the end. I hope I gave you enough good feelings, for I certainly wanted you to feel appreciated.

  It was a long letter, five single-spaced pages. The rest of it was about your trip, the weather, the price of gas, the sights you saw, the hitchhikers you picked up along the way, one who was going all the way to the east coast and another one, younger, a teenager who seemed to be running away from home.

  As I remember it now, once I had your new mailing address, I wrote to you every day.

  Your next letter didn’t arrive until a month and a half later. It began: Howdy there. I should have written earlier. There is no excuse. If you haven’t done it already, I deserve to be cursed to the fullest.

  You said, The last month here has been really really hectic. This new job is incredible. It’s been a steep learning curve. They keep pressing us for reports and stuff…

  You said, It is that tied-down feeling I am trying to overcome. I just feel like rambling all over this world. I think I will.

  You said, Please accept this letter as a peace offering. Once I get settled down, I’m going to get better as far as writing to you goes. Thank you for writing despite my failure to reply. They were neat pieces of writing…

  Your next letter was written only three days later. As I recall now, these two actually arrived on the same day. This one was filled with details of all that you were required to do in your new job, also anecdotes about the m
any new friends you were making and all the wild parties you’d been to. I remember being impatient with all of this and skimming quickly to the end of the letter where I thought there would be something about love, something about the future, something about me. But there wasn’t. I wanted pages and pages of lovey-dovey stuff, but instead I got all these stories that had nothing to do with me, and then, in closing, you said it was late, almost 1:00 AM, well past your bedtime and you had better turn in now. In a P.S. you asked me to please say hello to my parents for you.

  Shortly after this I graduated from high school and also celebrated my nineteenth birthday.

  Shortly after that I started going out with someone else.

  I was young, after all, and had the attention span of a gnat. I wrote and told you about my new romance. Upon receiving this news, you were supposed to come roaring back to my hometown and claim me for your own. I wanted you to come galloping back on your white charger and wrest me away from him and keep me all for yourself forever and ever amen.

  (I realize now that these fantasies may have been a bit Neanderthal, certainly not feminist, in nature, and might well have involved you dragging me away from him by the hair. In my own defense, I can only say that I was desperate, I was young, I wanted passion, I wanted drama.)

  What I got was one more letter from you, one more letter that didn’t arrive until four months later. For six whole pages, you told me about encountering a bear while you were out camping in the bush, about seeing a car on fire while driving back from a party, about the various projects you were working on, about the many interesting people you were meeting, and about a used car you were thinking of buying.

  Then, at the very end of this long and detailed letter, you wrote, I’m pretty darned happy for you and your newfound love. You’ll both be good for each other, I can tell. Undoubtably, he is one lucky guy, due to the fact that he is going out with you. I will never forget you. I think (when I take time to do so…) that I will always see you in a romantic light. I would like to keep in touch, as long as I am not a burden to you.

  I did not hear from you again for almost thirty years.

  I did not see you again until the day I was giving a reading at a small bookstore in my old hometown and you were the first person to walk through the door.

  I shrieked in a most unbecoming way and cried, I know you!

  Although I hadn’t laid eyes on you for thirty years, I would have known you anywhere. It appeared that we were both aging well.

  We hugged hello. You said you were in town for a couple of days to visit an old friend who was having heart surgery that afternoon. You said you’d read the notice of my reading in the local newspaper the night before.

  At the time, we marveled at what a coincidence it was that we would end up back in my hometown at the same time after all these years.

  At the time, my legs were shaking.

  Later: We said it was fate.

  Later: You said if it hadn’t happened then, it would have happened in some other way because we were meant to be together in the end.

  That day you couldn’t stay for the reading because you had to go to the hospital. But you gave me a beautiful card. A hand-painted landscape of lake and trees and hills on the front and inside you’d written: So proud and privileged to have known you in the days when you had hopes and dreams of becoming a writer. Now you are one of the best ever…Much success and happiness for you in the future…

  You said it would be nice to keep in touch now that we’d found each other again. I agreed and gave you my card with my e-mail address on it. I was so rattled I didn’t think to ask for yours.

  Back home again a few days later, telling Kate and Michelle about your unexpected appearance at my reading, I was surprised to discover that I’d never told them much about you. I filled them in on everything that had happened between us thirty years ago. But I did my best to downplay the intensity of emotion I’d felt when you walked into that bookstore and hugged me hello. I did not want to admit (not then, not even to them, perhaps not even to myself) how thrilled I was to see you again. I was so used to being disappointed that I was afraid even to hope I’d actually hear from you again. This sort of thing did not happen to me.

  If Kate and Michelle, who knew me so well, suspected there might be something more to this innocent little story of an old boyfriend showing up to say hello than I was letting on, if they could just imagine how far ahead I’d already leapt with this story in my head, they didn’t say so.

  For two weeks I checked my e-mail obsessively, but there was nothing. It appeared that I was right: actually hearing from you again had been too much to hope for. I tried to stop thinking about you. I succeeded fairly well.

  Two weeks later, a month then since I’d seen you, you sent me a long and emotional e-mail reliving our time together thirty years ago.

  You said, I will always remember that rainy morning when I last saw you…dropping you off at your parents’ home. I truly drove all that night with a very heavy heart.

  You said, I don’t mean to intrude so profoundly upon you with all these old memories. I guess they have always been there but never expressed. I think now that’s why I came to see you at that book signing a month ago…to thank you for the times we shared those many years ago. And simply to see you again.

  You said, You saved me in so many ways. You restored my faith in love, women, and myself. If I’d had more sense way back then, I would have stayed with you.

  I was so surprised and astounded by your outpouring that I didn’t reply right away.

  A week later you wrote to me again.

  You said, I am concerned that with my note a while back I may have overstepped the boundary between just sending along greetings and bringing forth painful elements from a time years ago. I do apologize if anything I wrote gave you cause for exasperation. It was great to see you and I wish you all the best…

  I wrote back within the hour.

  I said, It’s taken me a few days to answer your first letter because I was quite blown away by all those memories. And I just didn’t know what I wanted to say. I still don’t really, but here I am.

  I said, Your thoughts about the past made me feel all weepy. It was so long ago. And so very sad for me in the end. But I have never had any bad feelings toward you because of what happened. We were both so young, me especially. I do think about it sometimes. I was so in love with you and I just couldn’t understand why we couldn’t be together forever.

  I said, I’m happy that our paths have crossed once again. I look forward to learning more about your life. I’d love to hear from you again soon.

  And so it began.

  My mailman has just been and gone, leaving nothing of note in the box for me. Phone bill, water bill, Visa bill with a joyful congratulatory note informing me that, due to my excellent handling of my account, my credit limit has been increased. Invitation to a Super Carpet Liquidation Sale (2 DAYS ONLY! Over $3,000,000 of the finest Hand-Knotted Authentic Persian and Oriental Carpets from various BANKRUPTCIES are offered to you at GREAT SAVINGS). Catalogs from L.L. Bean and Victoria’s Secret. I have never bought anything from either of these stores and probably never will.

  A month ago when I went to check the mail, the doorknob came off in my hand. I took this as a sign. I stood there staring down at the round brass ball in my right hand and thought of you, how this meant I would never hear from you now. The broken doorknob somehow forced me to admit to myself that, having not heard from you for so long by either e-mail or phone, still there was a small sad part of me that was secretly hoping you might be in touch with me the old-fashioned way. A small foolish part of me that was secretly hoping you would send me a letter, a real letter, not an e-mail, a real letter on good stationery in that handwriting I would recognize anywhere. A real letter that would explain everything, so that I would finally be able to understand exactly what had happened between us and why.

  The broken doorknob somehow forced me to realize that thi
s was what I was waiting for. I was still believing that you had all the answers and that eventually you would give them to me.

  Now my front door can only be opened from the inside by means of a delicate maneuver with a pair of pliers. Sometimes it takes five or six tries to get the door open.

  I really should go to the hardware store and buy a new doorknob. And while I’m there, I should also check out their small window air conditioners.

  Do I have any idea how to install either a new doorknob or a window air conditioner?

  No, I do not.

  When I asked if you still had the letters I’d written to you thirty years ago, you said they’d been lost in a move shortly afterwards.

  You said, I have always regretted this…so very much.

  I was disappointed, but I did find some notes I’d written in my journal in those excruciating weeks immediately following your departure.

  Among many other rhapsodic, sappy, and embarrassing things, I had written, I remember the night I asked you if you believed in premonitions. When you said yes, I knew I could tell you mine. My words came from the depths of my existence and I believe in them—blindly, perhaps, but unquestioningly. That night I said that I really couldn’t believe it would be the end when you left. I said I knew that someday you would come back to me and we would be together as one once again.

  I wrote, Now I hear a strange sound outside my window. Can it be pigeons cooing? No, it must be doves on a foreign horizon. A sign: peace and love are coming back to me. I can feel an inner calmness emanating through me as I write these lines, fill these pages. I feel loving and giving. I pray that it lasts.

  Apparently it did not.

  These days I allow myself to check my e-mail only every thirty minutes. I’ve just received one from someone named Desirée. Never in my life have I known anyone named Desirée. The subject line is Whatever.