I have a friend, Scott. He’s a very good friend. He is a thinker, a writer, a reader, a lover of conversation. He will engage anyone in conversation… in deep philosophical conversation, political discussions, speculative “fantasmic” discourse, historical, fact-based ideology and events, a compliment on a tattoo, hair-color or the menu and quality of food and drink being served. No subject is out of range, no person is out of bounds if within hearing distance and even slightly receptive. He makes friends out of acquaintances and acquaintances out of strangers. He is no intellectual lightweight. He is educated and holds two degrees, one in English literature and another in Library and Information Science. He is an academic who is no longer at university but studies incessantly, nonetheless.

Scott can speak intelligently and knowledgeably on apparently any subject, be it concrete or the ethereal, yet he does not shy away from what he does not know. Though he has extensive volumes of information that he accesses without difficulty, he is also a very good listener. In some ways, he may at times appear to lack insight into his own humorous faux pas, particularly when he is briefly enamored with a pretty girl on the street or in a café. In that, he is a normal male. I will call him on it when I hear sexism slip into our conversation but he is always willing to admit the unintentional gaffe.

Scott just turned 40 years old, yet if the hours that we spend drinking and conversing in cafes are any indication, he enjoys hanging out with this soon to turn 68-year-old hippy. He is as happy as I am to while away the afternoon deep in enjoyable tête-à-tête. Regardless of my myriad of mindsets on any given day or his mood created by any given interaction with self or others, we engage in free-flow contemplative conversation that digs deep and wide. My soul longs for this interaction and always has. I don’t pretend to have the knowledge that he has… nor the memory to call upon all that I have learned in my years at university. But our conversations stir the deep recesses and open new horizons.

My interests today are varied and numerous and travel across a vast plain of philosophies. I am deeply interested in the ideas expressed by Alan Watts, Rumi, Sadhguru, the Buddha, Carl Jung, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and many other big thinkers both dead and alive. These folks offer big ideas, be they religious or secular (I doubt that these two ways of thinking are separable) and they excite me and yet I have found, offer no solution to my questioning. Questions, in my mind, require no answers and never have. I sincerely do not harbor any expectations. I am satisfied that my mind/soul is stirred and that there are people ten thousand times more bright than me who have the same questions. To be a skeptic and not a believer, is to be open to learning.

So, perhaps that is enough about me and my friend for now, though knowing these tidbits as a prelude will go a long way in understanding the title of this post.

Our last late afternoon meeting was on, what I would call, a perfect, sunny and warm day with a strong breeze blowing. We were sitting in a café with our usual drinks, a mocha in his hand and a green tea in mine. We had come to a place new to me. It was beautiful; windows surrounding the entirety of the front and sides of the building with fully glass doors, so it was open to the gardens peeking into the softly lit interior. Folks were on their laptops and it was nearly silent with the exception of a few folks at one table speaking softly. Laden bookshelves surrounded the interior walls. It was clearly a place of inward pursuit. There was one table available just a little too close to the couple sitting just behind. I say too close because my dear friend has a voice that is resonate but at times can be construed as loud. I have noticed that at times it is in an effort to pull others into his conversation and other times it is simply his rich reverberate tones. I knew this day would be no different.

I pushed the table away from the couple engrossed in writing and saw that the man moved from where he was sitting, nearest to our table, to the far side of the table. Before he moved, I noticed that written on his computer screen was the word Milwaukee. I miss read it as Mil wau kee and thought he might be writing about the native American tribes of the area known as Milwaukee. “Interesting”, I thought, but nothing more. The table rocked and my beautiful tea rocked with it spilling creamy goodness across the table. Dismayed, I cleaned it up, lamenting that I would be missing a sip or two of the tea. Damn, I hate it when that happens.

Scott got his drink and bagel and sat down and we began to chat. I so look forward to our time together. I never know where our conversation will take us but I am assured that it will be stimulating. I know that I will leave our time together enriched. After years of conversing, I have come to a point in our relationship where I feel comfortable to challenge his assumptions. We got onto the subject of whether he should pursue his PhD., of which I am favorable. He is so smart and can reiterate just about anything that he has learned in the decade he spent in school, as well as the decades of learning on his own. But I know that he would thrive in a pursuit of his own arguments. From any conversation, this one included, we often approach the futility of discourse.

If I were to label my leanings it would be postmodernism. This skeptic embrace of the everything saturates my thinking, therefore my writing. I won’t go into it now but suffice it to say, one can run into many a cul-de-sac and even dead ends in trying to discuss anything at all. And I have to say that it is half the joy of conversation with Scott… getting to this point. We ventured into many notions of reality and non-reality bringing into the conversation, Derrida, Nietzsche, Sartre, as well as others, Stoics, Materialists, Idealists, all of whom Scott is much more on speaking terms with than myself. And soon, Scott invited Hegel into the discussion.

Hegel piqued the interest of the man sitting behind us. “I heard you speak of Hegel”, he said. “Not many speak of Hegel these days”, he continued. I turned to encounter a man who immediately caught my interest. His bright eyes were helped by round, red, spectacles. He had an engaging smile, with one missing tooth. His slight build seemed healthy. His hair, a curly salt and pepper. In our defense, I said, “We’re talking about how little we know about anything and how hard to is to talk about anything if we are even able to say anything at all.” He said, “No, go on. I’m curious and if you don’t mind, I will just eavesdrop on your conversation. Go on.”  This was an invitation to Scott to talk about what he has learned over the years, which he does very well. And finally, I said, “What do you know about Hegel; what are you thinking about what we are saying?”

This brought him to our table and the conversation continued venturing into the history of Russia, Stalin, Hitler and WWII… what fascinating men were sitting at our table. I was entranced by such illuminating stories. I did little but listen for at least an hour with small interjections… Scott and Joe (he later introduced himself simply as Joe) carried the discourse. Scott mentioned that I had been through some difficult times of which I had suffered greatly. Joe turned to me with sincere interest and asked about what difficult times I had suffered. I listed only polio and cancer. Joe said, “Do you think often of suicide?” My answer was, “Yes, of course.” It seems that this did not surprise him. I often quote Albert Camus, the French essayist, novelist, and playwright, from the opening line of the Myth of Sisyphus, “The only serious philosophical problem is suicide. Deciding whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.”

This idea of suicide is not new to me but is especially relevant since I retired. I have, statistically, another 20+ years to live barring a terrible accident or illness. My aunts on both sides of my family have lived long. But I know that if I were unable to live a full life, I would not want to go on living… in a wheelchair, hooked up to any kind of a machine or dealing with chronic pain.

As a child, I was placed in an iron lung. The view of the world from this perspective is through a mirror above one’s head. Fortunate for me, my body rejected the iron lung and I began to recuperate from paralysis within one very long day. As an adult, I have wondered about the love of a mother for a child. To what use is it for the child to be kept alive, to spend a life, barely alive inside of a metal tube that will compress the child rhythmically to imitate natural breathing. What love is this? Is it not the ultimate selfishness?

As an adult, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. After surgery, I suffered through eight months of terrible chemotherapy. I was sick beyond sick. I was sick to death and daily thought I would die of the chemo drugs alone. I turned the infusions into a fantasy of sitting under a shaman’s tree while poison dripped into my veins. I was drugged so as not to run screaming from the room. I was sick until the next treatment that tore out my hair, ripped at my nervous system, screwed with my everything. I would not do it again… no, not under any circumstances.

What I said to Joe, as I have said to Scott a hundred times is, it would not be hard for me to die. At this point Joe invited his companion to join us. He said, “Tell her what you have told me.” So I did. What I found out from them is that Margaret (I’m not sure this is her real name) is the twin sister of Joe’s wife. His wife/her sister died of cancer less than two years before. This woman meant everything to these two people. Joe said that daily life with her thrilled him. She was his soulmate. Margaret was devastated by this loss but what was worse, was that she also lost her husband about the same time. She often thought of suicide. Life without these two people was meaningless to her. We had many things in common besides the understanding that living another twenty years or so had no special appeal. I asked her if having a partner gave meaning and made a difference. Her answer was an affirmative, adamant, yes!

From here, we had many words among the four of us. Joe turned to me and looked me in the eyes as we discussed love, soul partners, psychedelics and their meaning for us at this time of life, what things made our lives joyous, what we do with our time, in what do we find pleasure. We found that we were very compatible. He asked if he could call me. He asked many more times and I typed my phone number into his phone. As he stood up to leave, he held my hand and said he would call. Margaret stood up to leave and we hugged one another. There was magic happening. As Joe walked out the door, he turned and said, “I will call you”.

When I left the café with Scott, I felt a sensation that had long been dead in me. I was almost giddy. Had I met someone who would be meaningful to me? Would this person be someone to make life worth living? Those who know me well, know that I had given up on ever finding someone to spend my time with. I had always said that I had been well loved three times and that was enough for me, but there was still that sense of aloneness that lingers. There is that, that I feel deeply, that I do, to accept where I am right now right here. But this encounter with Joe and Margaret stirred me.

My first feelings were insecurities. I am an older woman with the scars of life written on my body. I no longer fit tightly and smoothly in my skin. But would a man of his age, being with a woman of my age expect me to appear 20, 30, 40 or even 50… In the course of the afternoon, I found that he was 64. A man of ideal age, intellect and interests. I had always doubted that I would find an older man of interest to me. I was not interested in young men either but particularly doubtful that I would be attracted to a man of my age. But here I was, all dreamy, all soft and fluttery, hopeful that something might come of this.

I called Tannis excited, nervous. I told Hannah about the encounter, trepidation creeping into my story. I waited a day for the phone call. O.K. He’s not a teenager, he’s got a life, he’s busy, he writes, he reads, he has friends and family. I would wait I told myself, but I couldn’t help the great anticipation. Days have passed now, in fact a week has gone by and I still think about the awaited call but no longer do I believe it will come. My thought is that I typed in the wrong number. I am a magnanimous typo artist. I generously throw around letters and words that have hilarious and sometimes disastrous results. I won’t share any of my most embarrassing errors in order to save myself from ridicule. This, to say that I believe that Joe was being sincere and really intended to call me. But I haven’t ruled out that there could be many other reasons: he and Margaret talked and decided that I wasn’t the person to pursue. He had seconds thoughts and decided that he had jumped to conclusions about wanting to see me, talk to me. Most likely, I will never know why he hasn’t called.

This is not a sad ending, though it’s not the one I had projected. Through this experience, I have learned many things about myself. First and foremost is that there is a possibility that I might love and be loved again. At this age, I was convinced that I would never be attractive or be attracted again. Boy, was I wrong. All of the right things stood at attention… and I mean all of the right things.

I have had a revelation about my past relationships. Jack and I met at the age of 16. Though we divorced at the age of 46, I had never grown up. Growing up often requires being with yourself, to learn about yourself, to pursue your dream. Meeting so young and staying together for that many years, means for me, that I had never really grown into the person I might have been. I was never able to give myself in a way that I might have if I had known myself. Our ending, without intervention, was inevitable under those circumstances.

My relationship with Ramiro was meant only to show me that I was a happy, joyous, celebratory, funny, adventurous woman. I danced through those three years with him and shed copious tears at our demise. But our relationship was not meant to be long term.  I learned volumes about Cuban culture, which included everything from Santeria to Latin dancing and learned to speak fluent Spanish. But, I brought only my childish, emotional self to the table.

The thirteen years spent with Dhillon should only have lasted as long as his first lie. But my philosophy then was, “Stay as long as you can. Leave when you have to”. How sad is that? But I lived by that credo. Those thirteen years took a toll on me. I wish I could say that I learned a lot from this non-relationship, but I can’t. To be perfectly honest, I mostly just tolerated my time with him. And if I want to continue to be honest, it wasn’t his fault. It lay totally at my feet. He was just being him and I was not being true to myself. What else could come of it but a certain ending.

So those are my three great loves. I was not great at all in any of them. I was wholly absent. With Jack, I was clueless. With Ramiro and Dhillon, I have no excuse.

Just at the thought of maybe being in a new relationship brought a lot to the surface. I am glad to have more of me out in the light. I am a better person for my brief and serendipitous encounter with Joe and Margaret, even if nothing more comes of it.

Scott drew the interest of a truly deep man to our table, perhaps my ideal man. Scott, I’m so glad we’re friends for so many reasons.

Joe, if you’re out there and somehow the universe provides a way for you to read this… and if I did give you the wrong number, I am the sorry one.