Remembering When

At the lowest point in my life point in my life when I needed to find my way, an almost stranger volunteered to let me stay on his sofa. I thanked the kind heart and thought about it.

From First Communion at Holy Rosary to the last cup of coffee at the Morning Call in City Park I needed New Orleans to heal my spirit. At my home in Puerto Rico I l languished; I needed to hear the trumpet play with young musicians practicing on Popp’s Band Stand.

Expecting to stay on the sofa in a cozy one bedroom apartment with an almost stranger for three months could be considered crazy. New Orleans held a collage of family memories from a time before I married. Watching horses run in the morning at the Fairgrounds, could there be a better way to spend a morning on summer vacation? I had to touch base with memories connecting me to my life before my husband.

The first night on the man’s sofa had me like a cat on a hot tin roof but became comfortable. I enjoyed hearing a masculine Southern voice and he enjoyed talking; we were off to the races. We spent a day naming hit records from the sixties; neither one of us would quit. My host tended to be competitive, which challenged me even in the depths of my lethargy. We laughed; it surprised me that I could have a good time with a strange man.

We spent too much time together becoming familiar too quickly. I don’t mean physically familiar; he was a gentleman. By our senior years, we come with some rough edges as well as lovely smoothies.

Jazz, the Blues, poetry readings, writers’ clubs, and festivals filled our time together; we laughed a lot. He loved to read to me what he’d just finished writing at two am; oddly, I enjoyed his enthusiasm and didn’t mind hearing, “Oh, you’re awake; let me read this to you.”

Our friction points could have been doused had distance been available. In the end, he thought I was calling him as he put it, a bad boy. Not at all, he’s too damn old to be called a boy, a bad man he’s definitely not; his intentions were good. We were not meant to spend three months with me on his couch, but sincerely, thanks for trying.

My husband had died a scant ten months before I arrived at your door. You have no idea how insane being alive without my soulmate felt or how much I just wanted to die. This great time for me to be in New Orleans was not a good time to flirt with getting close.

Given a different set of circumstances, I believe we could have become good friends. We could sign a non-aggression agreement in blood; what do you say?