Guinevere had green eyes, like you, lady, like you...

 

I didn’t know I even missed David Crosby till he died. And then, his death unleashed ghosts of mine that have been scared into the closet by blue light and a service economy.

Not that I missed David Crosby, precisely, but some men I knew in that era.  The ones who romanticized women.  Not that I was looking to be romanticized then….I knew what I was made of, so that was like the LAST thing I expected from a man.  Or from anyone.

They romanticized themselves too.  And life.  Part of me thought they were fools.  Part of me was jealous that they knew what they wanted life to look like.

Remember those flowy blouses we made—we all made our own clothes—with sleeves gathered at the wrist with elastic and tied with a ribbon on the collar and hair that was allowed to curl or be straight or be whatever the hell it wanted to be, all it wanted was for some wildflowers to be stuck in between its tiny braids? By some man who thought our hair was spun silk.

Yeah.

Jeez, remember carrot cake?

Being an earth mother was the epitome of femininity. Earth mothers all made carrot cake.  

There was a farm in Coopersburg owned by some guys who knew my boyfriend, John. They wore Revolutionary War type military coats with brass buttons and their own long hair was in ponytails. A big fire was always in the fireplace. No electricity.  I think I was supposed to cook something as part of the tableau, but I don’t remember doing that. Because I didn’t know how to cook then. I do remember the guys making beer.  “Meade.”  Lol.  They were all writing novels.  One guy, Jim, his novel was so long the paper was stacked as high as my knee. 

Because he wrote on a typewriter.

Jim was thunderstruck by me, for reasons I never did understand, for reasons that didn’t ring true.  He was the first person to romanticize me. It was like one of those medieval chivalrous relationships. He would recite poetry to me. Sing David Crosby songs to me. I never knew how to act around him because I was trying to fit his romance.  I am probably in that novel. I probably wouldn’t recognize myself. 

John, my real-life boyfriend, and I went to the farm to fight. That farm always brought out the worst in us.  We fought outside in the full moon in the plowed field. I can picture it right now, tonight. The white Snow Moon illuminated the plowed rows and my boyfriend’s handsome earnest face, implored me to want what he wanted.  I didn’t know what he wanted.  A simpler life? This romantic life on the farm? I was too young. It was inconceivable to me. I wanted a complicated life. I wanted to see what the hell was out there.  What was going on. I didn’t want my youth and beauty to be buried in some farm making porridge and babies.

Now, of course, I know what’s out there.

We all make tradeoffs, I guess. I became a writer because I didn’t want to be forced into one box.  I wanted to create my own worlds and live a million lives.  If I could enter other people’s worlds, I could even make porridge and babies if I wanted to.

Jim, the novelist, came to visit me years later when I was stationed in the Army in Germany.  He was on his way back to the states from Greece where he fell in love with a man on a beach.  A paraplegic. Rhapsodies for the man on the beach.

I don’t know if he ever finished the novel, it’s probably as tall as I am if he didn’t. I heard recently that he’s teaching poetry in upstate New York. 

Sometimes, I think that the farm was the right place but the wrong time.  Wouldn’t it be lovely, at this stage of my life, to be cooking for a houseful of people by firelight. With my husband crooning, “Guinevere  had green eyes,”  putting wildflowers in my hair.  Pretending it was a time before we all counted our daily steps on fitbits, and before we were in despair because we know way too much about the world and there’s nothing we can do about any of it.

But it’s a Snow Moon and maybe I’m a romantic. Like you, lady. Like you.