Month: September 2017

Loving Men-Wants

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 2 Comments

I’m not used to being alone.

Or better, I’m used to being half of a relationship.

No, wait . . . I prefer to spend my time with others and to share my dreams with one specific person.

Frankly, I don’t understand how single people survive?

I’d been in a wonderful relationship for over 30 years. I understand that I behaved in ways which ruined my relationship. But even today, when I begged for forgiveness, begged for the chance to reconcile, begged to come home, his reply was cold and unsympathetic: We need distance in order to establish ourselves independently.

What had I done, I keep asking myself, what on earth could I have done to find myself staring at the back of a man that I spent the better part of my lifetime with?

How did I go from husband to the gay divorcee? My spot in the house has been replaced by a no-name roommate.

I know I think too much. But time stretches like a napping kitten. My days pass so slowly. gayloverI chat with friends, introduce myself to others, call my Parisian and talk on the phone. Yesterday he asked me, “Harlan, what is it that you want? Do you want to fly back to Paris? Fly home to Chicago? Stay in Charlotte?”

“I want to be with someone,” I said, gulping down air to stifle my crying, “I’m not used to being single. Call me weak, or call me scared, I don’t care. I’m better as a pair.”

 

Loving Men-Future

~ Harlan Didrickson

I smell Paris.

This morning in Charlotte I opened my suitcase and the smell of my hotel room in Paris paris2wafted out, filling my room with all kinds of memories. I discovered a shirt I had worn with my Parisian, the odor of the shirt reminiscent of his cologne; pants which I wore there smelled of him; an Alpaca scarf which the hotel gave me for the rainy and chilly Paris days reminded me of the languid garden hours in which I wrote and smoked cigars.

Last night while sleeping I had visions of my future. “Let it go,” Wisdom told me in a dream. “Your future is already here; simply step into it.”

It is with great peace that I know my Parisian and I will see each other again. But yesterday, on at least four separate occasions I found myself crying on the airplane;crying crying because I missed my Parisian’s closeness; crying because I missed his laughter; crying because I wasn’t certain what my future would hold without him.

But here’s the odd part: I have no future without him, just as I have no future without Paris, or Chicago, or Pretoria, or Ghana. I am a sum of my parts. My future is but another number in an already long equation. Every man I meet, date, love, or fall in love with, will help carry me into the future.

And it’s in my future where I will find true happiness.

The Artist and The Academic (novel excerpt)

~ Harlan Didrickson

alistairdoorAlistair opened the vestibule door with great purpose. He glanced at Mrs. Carmichael who rose quickly from her desk and dogged him as he stormed into his office where he spotted Qiana Reece, Curator of the R.J. Cooper Collection rising from one of the handsome yet hard winged-back chairs. He turned quickly to glare at Mrs. Carmichael.

“God-damnit, Mrs. Carmichael!” he said loudly.

Mrs. Carmichael stopped, “She insisted, Dr. Deveraux.”

“Everyone insists, Mrs. Carmichael! That’s why you sit out there! To stop them, insistent or not!”

“It’s not in my character to be rude,” she said while turning, “Even if I do work for a boor,” she said while closing the door.

Alistair was careful to never receive personal correspondence at his office because Mrs. Carmichael, the entrenched secretary that came with his office and which was well-known to use information addressed to him to finagle her self-selected title:

Senior Executive Administration Administrator &
Secretary to Dr. Alistair Devereaux, Vice Chancellor and R.J. Cooper Chair

and who must never tear open any letter from R.J. Cooper. The information contained therein was of such a private nature that he didn’t even allow its delivery to his home because he knew Elloise much too well. He’d already rehearsed her behavior thousands of times in his mind: She, being the wife of an academic, and as nervous as a Jack Russell terrier would serendipitously greet the postman, who would hand her a single envelope that was hand-addressed on a buttery, engraved linen paper whose return address was the signature of the sender and beneath, in great simplicity, Coopertown, NY, NY 10001. Her interest piqued, she’d open the door, step out onto the Braen Stone driveway, shield her eyes, and confirm that Alistair’s figure couldn’t be seen through gaps in the thickets lining the private roadway. She’d hastily close the door and with an almost giddy demeanor, open the small drawer of the eighteenth century hall table, retrieve a letter-opener and deftly slice the top edge withdrawing a scrawled note of which she’d immediately read hastily, then begin to slow until she dropped both the envelope and letter-opener and collapsed, aware that the information would granulate everything.

As soon as Mrs. Carmichael left his office, Allistair walked to the door, closed it with a bang, then turned to Qiana.

“So, what is it, Qiana?” he asked.

Handing him the already opened envelope she said, “I think you’ll want to see this.”

Taking the envelope from her, he sat down on the hard mid-century modern sofa and felt the creamy, butter-like envelope. “Another painting,” he asked.

“Uh, no. Worse. Much, much worse.”

He studied the creamy cotton envelope, stamped, and postmarked New York, NY. On the back flap engraved meticulously read L.O. 18 Blount Street, Cooperstown, Hastings, New York 10165. Hastings, Hastings Alistair repeated quietly to himself, why does that town sound so familiar to him, as if he’d opened a dusty trunk in the attic, only to discover remnants of his long-forgotten past.

Alistair reached inside for the crisp paper, folded in thirds with a heavy crease. Upon unfolding the letter a piece of paper fluttered onto the Persian carpet Elloise insisted should be laid beneath the sofa. He bent down to pick up the paper and set it on the table, much more interested in the hand-written letter. The cotton paper was embossed at the top: Lila O’Riley, Assistant Curator, Cooperstown Gallery of Illustrative Arts, Cooperstown College of Liberal Arts, Cooperstown, Hastings, New York 10165. Lila O’Reilly, he kept repeating as though her name was a piece of hard candy.

“Jesus Christ!” Allistair said emphatically. “What the fuck!”

“I know, Dr. Deveraux. That’s why I thought you should see it right away. That’s why I insisted that Mrs. Carmichael. . .”

“Do you know what this means, Qiana?”

“I suspect,” she added quietly.

“Suspect? You suspect? You better damned well know. This means we’re all fucked! All of us! You, me, this fucking lousy college! All of us are fucked!” he says as he stands from the sofa and walks to the window over-looking the college’s common area.

Qiana walks to the table, picks up the loose piece of paper, and walks next to him.

“You didn’t see this,” she says.

Allistair looks down at her hand and sees a boarding pass for a first class seat on the 7:05 pm flight to New York.

“What’s that supposed to be?” he asks, “A god-damned ticket to his funeral?”

“Might be,” Qiana adds. “But I have a hunch it’s more than that.”

“Like what?” Allistair asks, devoid of concern.

“RJ never liked loose ends. You said that yourself. He was tidy. Complete. I think there’s something else waiting for you at the other end of that flight,” she says cooly.

 

Loving Men-Adieu

~ Harlan Didrickson

I can’t write.

I can’t find the words.

gregoirAnd for a writer that is very troubling.

All I can say are the truths.

I came to Paris to find true love. I expected it to occur on one of the many bridges which straddle the Seine like concrete humpback whales; or, in the cloisters of Notre Dame amidst whispers; or, at the Rodin Museum while ogling famous sculptures. That’s where my imagination said I’d find true love.

But true love, I have discovered, is found in the hours and hours and hours of mindless chatter; of watching romantic movies on my laptop in my hotel room; or sitting in the comfort of my hotel restaurant dining on French menus while laughing at our own personal foie pas.

You see, I found true love in a friendship with my Parisian that has drilled down so deep into my heart that I know that he and I will be friends for a very, very long time. And it isgregoir3 with a great degree of heartache that my Parisian and I have bid each other adieu in the lobby of my hotel, and about which I am still reeling.

I haven’t been able to stop crying; I already miss him, even though I don’t leave until tomorrow. I can’t wait to tell strangers on the airplane about why I’m so crushed leaving Paris; I can’t wait until this heartache turns to longing.

I’ll never be able to express how I truly feel about my Parisian. Except that he and I have gregoir2dug deep holes into each others’ souls; deep holes that will never be filled by the passage of time or the miles separating us. I’ll never be able to tell him what he really means to me because these foolish words can’t possibly describe the depth.

I’m a writer without words.

Loving Men-Departures

~ Harlan Didrickson

I’m leaving Paris.

pariseifelIn two short, short days I’m leaving Paris to set down roots in Charlotte, North Carolina. Why Charlotte, a lot of my friends ask? You don’t know anyone in Charlotte.

True. But I didn’t know anyone in Paris, either. But then I met my Parisian and I discovered a totally new Paris. A Paris seen from the inside, as though I was able to hold up a mirror and see myself there. Knowing my Parisian let me, little me, see myself in Paris from the inside out.

I ache with my decision to leave him. He’s become one of my closest friends and I will miss him terribly. But it’s unfair to stay anywhere for anyone. It’s too great a burden for them to bear. It’s smothering. It’s too weighty. It’s like shovels full of dank dirt thrown onto wilting hearts. There’s no joy in burdens. And more than anything I want my Parisian to be as happy as I am.

“You’ve got set down roots someplace,” he offered over a beer, “You’ve got to have a place to escape to, to run to when the world wants too much from you.”

Which is the most painfully honest thing anyone has said to me in years? Yet in my heartmodel of hearts, I know that I must step into my future. And it is my future which beckons me.

I have met so, so many men. So many handsome men. I routinely navigate to the dating site I frequent and in less than twelve hours I find strikingly handsome men in Palm Springs, Ghana, Belgrade, Pretoria, New York that vie for my attention. And they’re all beautiful, and witty, and good texters, and lovers of literature. But none of them are flesh and bone like my Parisian.

One day I know I will find the next true love of my life. But in the interim, I must take heed of what my Parisian said this morning, “Be comfortable with yourself and let the expectations of the world pass you by. Someone will recognize you. You’re too beautiful to be alone for the rest of your life.”

Sigh.