For small-town girls and soft summer nights ...
I am feeling nostalgic these days ... for the girls I loved and for being in love; for a youth I squandered (is there any other kind?) worrying about being a grown-up; for not taking on life as lustily as I probably should have.
So many actresses I see on the screen remind me of the girls I knew in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. I want to write about them, but I don‘t want to hurt them (though why the ramblings of an old fart like me would hurt anyone, I don’t know).
I want to see if the experiences resonate with anybody besides me; I want to see if the writing resonates as well. After more than a decade on one kind of anti-depressant or another, I kicked the latest one – Cymbalta, if you care – last week. My dreams have come back – literally, sleeping has taken on a whole new aspect in recent days – and so has my desire to write.
Chalk another one up for the moderately good guys.
So here’s the premise: each blog post will be about one girl; perhaps a far-away longing or a close-in crush; maybe an actual affair of the heart; a couple where it was nip-and-tuck whether we’d marry.
To help you visualize (and me re-visualize), I will pick a contemporary actress; I will post a picture and I will use that actress’ name throughout the post as though she were the girl of 30 or 40 years ago. This will protect her anonymity and it will give me a crutch. In most cases, what it will actually be is me writing about a woman who is really a contemporary of that actress’ mother (or, please don’t cry, her grandmother).
As David Carr of the New York Times and The Night of the Gun, I will valiantly try to tell the truth about those times and those people. I won’t have hired private detectives nor independent investigative journalists; I will depend upon my memory and my willingness to look the fool. (Hence, the moniker and relative – if not absolute – anonymity.)
Also, as opposed to Carr, my life had much less alcohol and much less cocaine, though those elements will be addressed as well, because they were there too.
Drama? Well, whether I achieve that will be up to you, dear reader.
So, now, I will set out on the grand interwebs to find a woman who best resembles, both physically and tempermentally, a young girl with whom I fell in love in the fall of 1966.
I’ll be back soon, I’m sure.
FTT
