PopcornJackTerry

After three years or so, I’m still not sure I’m sold on my Kindle. I’m not normally much of a traditionalist, but there is something to be said about holding a book in my hands while I read it. Granted, I’m sure some of that longing come from the fact that I’m a writer. People inevitably tend to be more nostalgic for talismans that relate directly to them. By the time I became a halfway decent typist, word processors and computers were already dominant on the marketplace so I feel no great sense of attachment to an old typewriter, but long before I was creating stories i was reading them, and it is because of those books that first fostered my imagination I am undecided on my Kindle.

It was at the time a reticent impulse purchase. The impulse came from the “Oooh, look bright shiny object” and the reticence was “Well, which one do I buy?” Naturally I spent the least amount of money that I could, and it shows. My computer savvy nephews laugh at me, and every time I turn it one I have a fifteen second debate about whether I should buy a new one and which one I should buy. Inevitably I think I will end up with the Paperwhite and not the super advanced Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 whoopie cushion version, simply because I won’t know how to use it and don’t need that many more distractions in my life. I bought the Kindle to read on.

From the outside, the Kindle looks like it should be my favorite possession, simply because it means I can build a library that stays with me for the first time in my adult life. Whenever I have moved the first thing to go (after the over sized furniture) were the books. Nobody wants to help carry heavy boxes and I was never sure I’d have room to put them out in my new place. That is, of course, half the reason of having a lot of books: showing off how smart you are by exhibiting all that you have read. And if that doesn’t tell you how self important I find myself from time to time, suck on this: my biggest regret with all of my moves are all of the books I’ve lost over the years. Not the fact that I have estranged myself from friends, not the fact that I missed my nephews growing up, not even that I have sacrificed stability in my own life. It’s the missing books.

My waffling on the Kindle can be reflected in the meager collection that I have on it, half of which i didn’t even buy but were gifts. I just finished reading one of those gifts, a biography on W.C. Fields, not too long ago. There was one passage that stuck out to me. Fields is living in Hollywood, late in his life, and he is visited by a couple he worked with earlier in his career:

“…The place was crowded and he was drinking very badly. Ray said to him “Oh Mr. Fields, I hate to see you drink so much.” He said “Raysie, what else can I do?…I want out of this cesspool.” This was in the place. And he gets up and screeches and carries on like mad…It was not like Fields at all. When he dropped us at the place, Mrs. Dowling said “You know, Eddie, I feel so bad. I don’t think I ever want to see W.C. again. That isn’t the W.C. I knew. Whatever happened to that wonderful, wonderful man?”

It’s certainly a powerful passage in the book. What made it more so was that very same day I received an email, in response to one I had sent, from a friend that told of an eerily similar situation. Only instead of being about someone else, it was about me. For as open as I have been through a lot of this, some of it will remain personal, so suffice it to say that my behavior (I was so bad at the time I can’t even honestly say when they visited, only that it was sometime in March or April) caused me to lose a friend I had known for over thirty years.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about this situation specifically and the reality in general of what happens between friends as they age and grow apart naturally, not to mention the added weight and stress caused by anyone going through something like this in their life. I certainly don’t expect to have an answer anytime soon, because I realized I’m even thinking about it in my sleep.

I dreamt last night that I ran into a friend from High School that I haven’t seen in at least ten years. (In the nature of dreams I ran into him while shopping at a Bradlee’s department store and he was walking into the office with two sodas, one for him and one for his Dad, because they were running the store. Don’t ask.) We talked about where he was living, and it was obvious that i couldn’t keep track of it, and when he asked why I was back in Connecticut, I couldn’t come up with an answer. I mean, I knew what the answer was-I’d fucked my life up, I was an alcoholic and here i was, 42 years old, living in my brother’s spare bedroom trying to get my life back in order-but the shame and failure that I felt couldn’t bring me to say that. I was saved only because I woke up.

I have pointed out stories (and in some cases made light of them) that show I should have been aware of this a long time ago, that I should have been paying attention and making changes many times over. How many times can you watch a friend walk into the fire, come out the other side and ask for help before you say enough? How many times can I cry wolf? What’s to make you believe this time is really any different? I ask these question not because I expect answers, or even deserve them, but because I am finally starting to see and understand the depth of who I have been and the pain and disruption I have caused. I have been afraid of hurting people only to find out that I already have, to the point where it no longer matters to them anymore. I have gone from being a friend to being a character to being just another piece of nostalgia, tucked away in the attic, along with the rest of their ephemera of their childhood.

And in the end, that just be the best thing for me.

Some music to meditate on.