Surrender to the Freckle

I write so much about other people, that it's sort of a shock to see when someone writes about me. It's happened a few times, like when my play was up in Seattle, and I had all kinds of adoring journalists calling me for the lowdown on the body-image thing. I think I was professionally happiest then.

I've recently come upon my ex-boyfriend's blog. I hold my breath with a voyeuristic caution, reading about his life now, since there's barely been a word between us since we split last fall. I'm surprised he frequently mentions whiskey, because I could hardly get him to drink a glass of cabernet with me. I wonder who the fresh-faced young things are in the pictures under the "friends" section of his MySpace page. (22? Honestly???!!!) I am reminded of his talent and beauty with words sung and written, and regret that I didn't get to see more of that when he lived here. His 20-second interpretation of our 12 or so years, weaving in and out of each other's lives:

I was working as a dinner host and a night auditor at the time, at a Hotel across town called The Red Bull Inn. It was owned by Paul Gimbel who was described to me years later, by the mother of one of my life's great loves, as the black sheep of the Gimbel family. Gimbel of Macy's and Gimbel's that is. The very same. Colleen had dated him back in the late Fifties when she was a globe hopping, jet setting, prima ballerina of the Milan stage and a fledgling film star who had managed to land a couple of small dancing roles in American films by Italian directors. This was before she met the strikingly handsome Patrick McGrady and married him and gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Vanessa, with whom I was to fall impossibly in love at first glance many years later when I witnessed her reading Dorothy Parker poems at an open mic in Port Townsend Washington. Life is just a little peculiar sometimes, no? I was to spend most of my thirties and half of my forties in love and incompatible with this vision in red hair and black leather, with porcelain skin, legs up to her hips and bodacious curves impossible to fathom without the sound of your own blood rushing through your ears. Truth be told, I love her still…as long as we're not in the same room. Every Italian boy surrenders to the freckle at some point in his life.

Sigh. And I think every freckle has surrendered to the horn of Fortuna ... at least a couple times.