Jon’s friends lived northwest of Owen Snore in a small town called Wiarton at the base of the Bruce Peninsula, the spit of land that forms the southern boundary of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay.
As it was dark and rainy for most of the drive up from Toronto, this was my first real opportunity to take in the Canadian countryside. Despite the gray overcast morning, the sights and smells of autumn brought back strong memories of my teenage years in Western Pennsylvania.
As Jon and I made our way up to Wiarton, Brain kept breaking my concentration by repeatedly asking, “What do we do now? How do you plan on having this talk in presence of two strangers?”
“I don’t know,” I snapped while listening to Jon talk about the degree of difficulty with one of his classes. “I’ll think of something.”
“Don’t worry boys,” Griselda said calmly, “it will all work out.”
Once in Wiarton, we pulled up to a large beautiful home set back from the street, resting on a slope overlooking Georgian Bay. There was a balcony that ran the entire width of the second floor giving the rooms behind the near floor to ceiling windows an unobstructed view the bay.
Our hosts, Jim and John, were two charming middle-aged men who seemed to be as happy to know Jon as he was to have met them.
I was introduced as “a friend from Palm Springs,” which, of course, led to a round of questions regarding my leaving warm temperatures and near perpetual sunshine for the cold, gloom, and gray of Canada.
As we entered the spacious ground level of the house I was struck by its roominess, and was amazed to discover this was not the main living area. Upstairs a large stone mantled fireplace anchored one side of the great room and a semiformal dining area the other. A kitchen, about the size of my Palm Springs flat was at the back.
Introductions over, we dove into lunch, which had been prepared earlier that day. There was lots of small talk and chit chat, “how did you boys, meet,” “how long have you known each other,” and so on.
It was clear these two men knew something about the nature of the relationship between Jon and I. It was equally clear they knew there was a big piece of the puzzle missing, i.e., Toronto, and this made them even more curious.
I began to panic at the thought of saying something that might contradict or at least conflict with something they’d been told by Jon.
A quick look around the room gave me the perfect out.
Both the living area and dining area were decorated with an array of Disney memorabilia, everything from theme park souvenirs to expensive collectables.
I covered events at the Walt Disney Company first for fan blogs and then my own for nine years. Did I have stories to tell? Jim and John couldn’t get enough of them, I spent the remainder of the day and most of that evening regaling them with the comings and goings of the House of Mouse.
We slept in Sunday, in separate guest rooms. I really wasn’t expecting otherwise.
Despite being assured there was a sofa and table with two chairs, in addition to the bed, Jon emphatically rejected the idea of going to my hotel room.
Brunch was a group effort, well except for Jon, who head chef John banished from the kitchen for getting in everyone’s way. More chit chat over brunch, then washing up and finally it was time to return to Owen Rent.
Halfway back I told Jon I wanted to talk—pregnant pause—about us.
While he agreed without hesitation, it took nearly the remainder of the drive to decide on a neutral territory at which to hold our summit. As Jon’s was a shared-housing arrangement, lack of privacy instantly eliminated his place.
Despite being assured there was a sofa and table with two chairs, in addition to the bed, Jon emphatically rejected the idea of going to my hotel room. Finally, we settled on a nearby Tim Horton’s.
“This is what I want to know,” I said to Jon as we sat down with our coffee and dry donuts, “why do we, or more accurately you, keep behaving like we did during those first weeks after we met online?
“I’ve tried to be as honest as I can with you about the way I feel. I’ve told you that I’ve come to understand sharing feelings isn’t as easy for you as it is for me and that I accept the fact you will be more open with your feelings when you’re ready.
“Instead what I got after one of the most joyous experiences of my life was this sorta, ‘it’s not you it’s me’ sendoff followed by a return to swapping texts.
“Hell,” I continued, “even if I don’t text you or you stop texting me, we end up having proxy conversations by liking and commenting about one another’s Facebook posts.”
During all of this Jon maintained eye contact. Now that it was his turn to speak, he sat there silently at first, fiddling with his now nearly empty coffee cup.
“I’m glad you had such a great time in Toronto,” I shot him a sharp look, “in the beginning,” he course corrected before continuing.
“I was having fun sharing one of my favorite cities with a friend,” his voice began to trail off as he tried to finish saying, “but you seemed to have read..” hesitation, “so much more,” pause, and then faintly, “into it.” He could clearly see that I wasn’t buying the old but you misunderstood routine.
He sat there for a moment and must have been switching tracks in his mind for when he began speaking again it was in a firmer tone.
“You just caught me so off guard in the pool that night in Palm Springs,” he said with conviction. “I didn’t think anything like that would happen.”
Fully expecting to hear this from him, I was just about to remind him of the tender togetherness he initiated the following night in the exact same pool, when I could feel the gentle touch of Griselda’s hand on my shoulder easing me back from the brink of confrontation.
With no immediate response from me, Jon began to build up steam and launched into the story about his having a series of unsuccessful, long-distance relationships.
After going on about relationships, and his having moved to British Columbia to gather his thoughts about the direction he wanted his life to take, he continued, saying, “I just feel that all my life I’ve never really finished anything I set out to do.
“I’ve set a goal of studying for these certification exams.
“I used to do things, sports that other people thought I should do more than what I wanted to do. Now I want to continue strength training–for me. To see what I’m capable of, and not find myself wondering someday what I might have accomplished if I’d only stayed with it.
“I made a promise to myself not to stop until I finish doing these things, and I don’t want to let anything get in the way of that.
…at the bottom of the board, it had one of those little feel-good expressions that seemed to reach out and touch Griselda, Brain, and I.
“Another long-distance relationship would just be another distraction and eventually come down to deciding what I wanted more, a relationship or…” He finally ran out of steam.
“I told you this once before,” I said softly and calmly, “it sounds to me like what you’re talking about is fear. I can’t know that for certain, but let’s just for a moment assume I’m right about this.”
Suddenly the room began to feel warmer, my breathing became deeper and more methodical, and while I could feel the emotional tension rise within me, my voice did not rise with it.
In my mind I could see Brain and myself stepping back as Griselda, my heart, stepped forward and began to speak through me.
“If you are afraid, there’s nothing I can do about it. If you are afraid, there is only one person on earth that can do anything about it. That person is you.
“If you are afraid and want to stop being afraid, I want you to know while I can’t do it for you, I will be here for you every step of the way.
“I’ve told you I’m willing to come up here, get a small place to live, and try dating to see how things between us might go.
“You know, or should by now, I don’t want you give up studying and pursuing a career. As far as your training goes, I’ve also said I don’t care if you want to gain a hundred pounds and toss Volkswagens around, or drop down to a hundred and fifty, don a tweed jacket, smoke a pipe, and teach math to pimply faced boys who think they want to be engineers.”
My eyes began to fill with tears, which I tried desperately to keep from rolling down my cheeks. It neither phased nor slowed Griselda.
“I’m not the man who would make you choose between him and a career. It’s as important to you as mine is to me.
“I’m not the man you’ll have to justify and explain your training to.
“I’m just the man who loves you just as you are here and now.”
By this time I had lost the battle with my tears, and I could see some of the people in the dining room in that Tim Horton’s beginning to stare.
I made a joke about it being a good thing I would be leaving Canada once again the following day as I seemed to have made a spectacle of myself. Jon laughed. I laughed. We hugged and said goodbye, and I returned to my hotel room.
A few minutes later, after parking the car as I walked across the small lobby of my hotel, I noticed a wipe board on an easel. It had the weather forecast for the coming week written on it and, at the bottom of the board, it had one of those little feel-good expressions that seemed to reach out and touch Griselda, Brain, and I.
“Always believe something wonderful is about to happen.”
Edited by
Kenneth Larsen
Join us again on December 4 for: Thunder Dawns.
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