A piece of my heart

Like a lot of people, I grew up a little intimidated by poetry. I read it, and had it read to me. When I went to college, I studied a lot of it in my survey courses. But once I got into my junior and senior years, I fled poetry for my real love, novels. Most particularly, American novels. And ultimately, modern American novels. I took far more American lit courses than I should have, sneaking under my advisors’ radar to use all my electives on them.

When I started my Masters program, I knew I had two weaknesses: British Lit and poetry. Since I’d be teaching poetry as a TA, I decided to take the plunge. I immersed myself in the poetry of one fantastic British writer after another, and I had superb teachers to keep me from drowning.

I discovered that poetry wasn’t really an intimidating mystery at all. It was, instead, the most beautifully economic form of language. (I have never been much good at economizing with words; have you noticed?) I suppose if there’s a down side to the respect I have for poetry, it’s that I’ve been exposed to too much of it that’s flawless. Therefore, I have little patience with my own efforts at writing it, and usually with anyone else’s.

When I first got online, aspiring writers often wanted to send their poems for me to criticize, and I would usually beg them not to. I can teach and edit like nobody’s business, but having done that for a living, I didn’t really want to do it in my spare time for free. Especially when I was using that spare time for my own writing.

Late one night, I was in THAT chat room when I spied a screen name that used the initials and a book title belonging to a famous British author. Of course I had to check it out, so I opened his profile. Then I got confused. His name…his boyfriend’s name…his city…his occupation… They were all the same as Tim’s. Even without the different birthday, however, I was sure it wasn’t Tim under another screen name. After only two months of reading Tim’s online chat, IMs, and e-mails, I knew his writing well. This person didn’t have the same voice or style.

I was intrigued by their other similarities though, so I honed in on the newcomer. It wasn’t long before we were having a lively discussion, though I have no memory about what. At some point, I mentioned that I wanted a photo so I’d have a face to go with the conversation, but he said he didn’t have one scanned. When it was time for me to sign off, I said goodnight to him, unsure whether I’d ever see him online again.

The next morning, I had an e-mail from him. I don’t have a photo, he wrote, but maybe this will do. I groaned a little when I saw that he’d sent me a poem. I didn’t want my good opinion to be colored by bad poetry.

Then I read it.

And read it again.

And then I had tears in my eyes because it was such a finely crafted, moving poem. It was the real thing.

I’ve been reading his poems for ten years. And his fiction. I’m even the caretaker of all his private journals. It doesn’t disturb me that over the past couple of years he’s taken a breather from consistently writing. Everything he sees and experiences goes into the deep pool where this Pisces swims, and if it’s meant to be transformed into language, it’ll happen when it’s time.

I fell hard for his poems. I fell hard for him. I met him at a time when I’d had to make my world small, and he helped me navigate my way back into a larger life. One of the kindest things he ever said, very early on, was after I expressed my anxiety that circumstances had left me emotionally needy. As a normally self-sufficient person, I didn’t like the feeling, and I feared it would drive people away. “I’m not afraid of needy,” he said. And he never has been.

We have cried together. Laughed together. Written together. We have shared ghost stories and love stories and family stories. We have argued. We have on occasion even hurt each other. I think I can make him mad. I know he can make me mad. But for a decade, this man who is young enough to be my son has been one of my greatest teachers in the courage of the human heart.

Thank you for not ever becoming permanently invisible, Timmy. I’m so glad you wrote your way into my life ten years ago this month. I will love you always.

Timmy and Becky on Striker’s Mountain, 1999