One Day ...

A story without names.

Not long after high school, when my high school sweetheart and I parted ways and I was devastated at the discovery that love did not conquer all and had very little reason to go on living — because I was stupid-dramatic and saw everything in earth-changing rubrics — I got involved in a relationship with a professional dominatrix.  Money was involved and it wasn't; that is, I ended up spending all the money I had but I wasn't charged by the hour.  I was not a client.  The relationship was outlandish, occasionally terrifying and deliberately self-destructive on my part.  In some degree, it ended amicably, without shouting or recriminations ... and we did not see each other socially again.

Occasionally I would see her at a club or in a movie audience, or even walking around downtown — and for the record, not because she was a streetwalker but because even high priced dominatrix escorts meet friends and shop.  We would see one another, not say hi, but vaguely acknowledge each other before pretending the other didn't exist.  This went on for years.  Then, without notice, this stopped happening.  Years went by and I stopped seeing her.  I didn't push the affair out of my mind or anything; I've never hesitated to tell stories about her because, hey, they happened and I'm good with it.  They're just things that happened.

"Well, you're pretty young, Mr. ... Mr. Thompson.  A fellow'll remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day back in 1896 I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since, that I haven't thought of that girl."

 — Mr. Bernstein, Citizen Kane

If this was 1941 when that movie was made, or even 1983 when my affair took place, that would be the end of it.  Like Mr. Bernstein, I'd be writing that I never saw the girl again and how sometimes I wondered what happened to her.  Of course, if this was 1983, I'd be writing this on a typewriter and not the internet, and you'd never read it ... and this is the point.  Because the internet does exist and unlike Mr. Bernstein, I'm not limited to my memory.  I know the girl's name, though she's a little older than me and is of course a woman; verging, in fact, on being an old woman, as I verge on being an old man (if the D&D parlance is to be respected).

Which means, occasionally, as we all do I think, it's possible to spend a lazy morning poking about seeing who's out there and what they're doing.  Only this particular search has always been foiled, because I was never able to find her.  I've thought for years, maybe she died.  Maybe a client made her so rich she doesn't have to spend time on the internet.  I laughed pretty hard when Eminem admitted in 2009 that he didn't know there was porn on the internet.  Makes sense.  When would Eminem in those days have had time to look at the internet?

A bit sad, sure, but then this was a long time ago.  I bring it up partly to express my perspective of having been around awhile ... and having done things unsavoury, strange ... and yes, shameful in some people's eyes.  Would you know it to look at me?  No.  No, I look like a run-of-the-mill gamer, a little fat in the pot, wild eyes, scraggly hair, grunge clothing.  No one would connect me with those six months in Toronto when I was a rabid Rocky Horror Picture Show fan.  Or those years in my childhood dealing with the alcoholism and intensive racism of my extended family (though not my parents in those two categories, thank gawd).  Or my anti-nuke days, or when I worked a summer as a roadie or walking around my Canadian high school dressed like a Brit Punk.  Nope, those things fall away when I grin and open the door for someone, or help pick up their groceries or chat about gardening with the woman neighbour over the fence (which happens to me now).

These things have been true for awhile.  So there's no reason to write about it now, except ... I found her.  I found her today.

She's well.  A long way from here.  Working for an NGO that's helping to feed immigrants from overseas.  She did an interview talking about how she got started and why she likes it ... and watching her talk, I recognize her smile, her facial tics, the way she still pulls her hair back from her forehead and the little movement she makes to hide her teeth (she always felt her front teeth were too big), and how she forgets to hide her front teeth when she starts talking.  Definitely her.  And no one would guess what she did when she was only 22.  Maybe she's forgotten it; maybe she stopped letting herself think about that years ago.

It is among the stupider things that people say, when they think we can't change.  That we can't move on. That we can't learn new tricks.  That things we did 40 years ago amount to all that.  Nothing is fixed.  Nothing is ever done that can't be accounted for, or moved past, while yet acknowledging it without shame.  We are not fixed.  We are not measured by what we are right now.  When we want to change, we can.  We always can.