1973

A MEDICINE FOR GROWING PAINS

   It never used to bother me. Lately, though, it had become like a recurring dream that was clearly clairvoyant but without recognizable significance. I couldn't quite manage the feeling--vague, fleeting but often containing a sudden sharpness to it that seemed to be a warning signal.
   Three times a week, I go to the laundromat. I set my book on top of my laundry cart and walk four blocks to Sepulveda where there is a corner shopping area. The people at the laundromat are not a regular crowd or of any distinctive group, probably because it is not right at the beach. I like to watch the sorting of laundry at the tables and speculate on life-styles. Sometimes I have struck up remarkable conversations. Often, I have sat reading my book.
   On Valentine's morning, I was feeling sad.
   My small son Erik yells goodbye all the way down the street as he starts off to school; I answer until I can't hear him. On Valentine's morning, he had a bag of Valentines that he had spent a week addressing. He had not wanted to simply print the names; he had insisted on making great swirling letters with the first blocked off in the manner of Benedictine manuscripts.
   I hoped he'd have a good day. I kept thinking about the pencil-box episode in How Green was my Valley. Valentine's Day was going to be no easy task for me.
   As I left for the laundromat, I considered not taking my book but at the last second I shoved into the cart with a mad thrust as if to say, "You're the cause of it all."
   It was a windy morning. I walked over quickly.
   As I loaded my set of washing machines, I noticed a man at the table near me. I was riveted for a full moment to his small stack of laundry.
   In the time I've been going to the laundromat, I have come to the conclusion that sheets are an interesting indicator of lifestyle. There has been such a variety that I have been amazed. In all the time I've been going, nobody has had the same sheets as I, which puzzled me.
   The man had my sheets only his were blue.
   Mine are yellow but I'd like blue better. I wished I could trade. It made me laugh to think what he'd say if I asked him. I found it hard to concentrate on what I was doing. The little bunches of blue flower clusters on the sheets reminded me of the pattern on the coat my mother made for me when I was eight years old, the coat I had snuggled in under on the night train to Paris. Everyone then had gone to sleep a few minutes after we left Geneva. Except for me. Snow had begun to fall. I had never seen snow fall in the night outside train windows. The snowflakes were soundless and gentle; and I was warm under my home-made coat. I wanted to wake someone but I was afraid. So I lay awake all night crying quietly because I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.
   I noticed briefly that the man had reddish hair and then I sat down to read.
   I needed my book. I have become, in the last year, very defensive about my book. I've wanted to put a brown wrapper on it, curl in the corner by the #9 dryer and close out the world.
   I set the book on my lap so no one could see what I was reading and bent over it. I became completely engrossed and was soon far away and long ago in France.
   I heard a voice say to me, "My God, you're reading Proust."
   I had the urge to growl, "You want to make something of it?" but I glanced up because I couldn't figure out how anybody could tell I was reading Proust unless he had himself read Proust. It was the man with the reddish hair and the blue sheets trimmed with eyelet.
   "Yes," I said and then timidly, as if I really weren't up to knowing, I asked, "Have you read him?"
   "I read the whole thing. Took me four years."
   I braced myself, "How was it?"
   "Unforgettable."
   He began to talk. He talked about Proust's village of Combray, about the wonderful characters and how he had read Proust in Kansas City.
   And I began to talk. I told him that I had always been very much nested in my house, coming out and into society like a groundhog to volunteer piano playing for seasonal musical events. I had been content. But when I started my writing class, I had a strange thing happen to me. I was confronted for the first time in a long time with my taste. Unknowingly, a new feeling had taken hold. I was meeting with a group I liked, intelligent, witty, and I had been overwhelmed by a longing. A longing for affiliation. I kept wanting these people to be "my people." I had begun to question my judgment because so much of what was important to me turned out to be important only to me. I had been shaken by this.
   He asked me why I didn't pick out a particular group to belong to that liked the same things I did. Was I aware that there is a Proust society? No, I hadn't known but I would hesitate to do that. I wouldn't know why they were there. Was it for the writing or the strange, gripping transactions? Besides, what if not one Proustian also liked Chandler? Would I want to be narrowed down to only Proust?
   He stopped in what I felt was the middle of the conversation and we went along about the business of laundry.
   I felt immensely better. I wished I could say, "Thank you for the chat; it will probably change the direction of my life. A sentence here and there can do that, you know." I thought I should at least say goodbye. I didn't say anything. I thought he had left so I sat down again as my clothes were drying.
   "Listen," I heard him say, "here is my card. If you ever feel like talking Proust, come on in."
   I looked at the card. It was engraved with the name of an antique shop, south, on the hill. The Graffiti Gallery.
   "I've been by your shop a million times! It's on the way to McDonald's. I can't believe it."
   "I know. You looked so different without your hat and your children but when you were talking about your class, I knew it was you. Every time you stopped at the window and pointed out that clock to your children, you had that same look. You don't know how many times I've thought of running out and giving you that clock! My assistant knows of you. She said if I so much as came to the door, you'd run off and find a new route to McDonald's."
   "It's true," I laughed. I told him I was glad for the card and the chat. I told him that I would never go, couldn't go in his shop but I  promised I would wave as I went by.
   Erik came home elated. He had gotten 32 valentines.
   It had been a good day. I was relieved.
   It was as if I found out twenty-eight years later that I was not the only one watching the snow fall on the night train to Paris. There had been no need for crying.