GK: What we crave, above all, is what's real
The Column: 07.16.21
The books about No. 45 are coming out and one says he was deranged and another says that his own people feared for the country, neither of which I doubt for a minute, but I’m not up for reliving those years for the same reason I don’t plan to spend January in Norway: been there, done it, life is short, no need for reruns.
The January in Norway is a story my wife tells so much better than I can. I was sick with the flu in a hotel room in the town of Tromsø above the Arctic Circle; she was the one who went dogsledding and ice fishing in the arctic twilight in a cold rain and the sun never shone and the food was gruesome and everyone worked hard to be upbeat and detached from reality, and now when she recites the miseries of that week, people laugh like crazy, whereas I was in bed, mostly sleeping. The trip was my brilliant idea and I missed out on it and her telling of the story is brilliant, epic but brisk.
We have no plans to return to Tromsø. It has served its usefulness as an example of how unfounded enthusiasm combined with loose cash can lead to a dark place.
I experienced vast self-confidence in my twenties, which may have been a necessity for an aspiring writer. I hung out with other young writers, hoping to absorb talent by proximity, same as you’d catch the flu. We met at the Mixers bar near campus and I drank Scotch because that seemed like the right liquor for the writer I wanted to be. And I smoked unfiltered Luckies. What we knew about writers was that they were prodigious drinkers. Eight or ten of us crammed into a big booth and drank while disparaging any and all successful living writers from Bellow, Updike, and Roth on down. The combination of alcohol and disdain boosted our confidence. I imagine there are bands of writers doing the very same thing today. I don’t want to join them, any more than I long for Tromsø in January or want to read a book about Mr. Yesterday.
What I long for is to go back to last Sunday when I had planned to read to my daughter a long passage I wrote about her birth and childhood and how she developed into a big personality, loving, jokey, reading other people’s feelings, keen about details, but events intervened, and then Monday was furiously busy, moving her into a new apartment in a distant city, and then suddenly it was time to go and we hugged and she burst into tears and so did I. I’m not a weepy person. There have been many farewell moments when I should’ve wept and did not. What moved me was the depth of her love for her mother and me, the emptiness of the apartment, the strangeness of the city. “You’ll be fine,” her mother said. My daughter hugged me and wiped her nose on my black T-shirt, which amused her and so she did it again. I said, “Is it snot? No, it’s not.” She laughed. I walked to the door and on the way I passed gas and she laughed harder and then resumed weeping. I went out the door, tears running down my cheeks.
We drove away in grievous silence, my wife at the wheel. I searched the map on my phone for a Dairy Queen, thinking that I deserved a Butterfinger Blizzard but there were none nearby. Since Monday we’ve gotten reassuring texts from her that she’s doing well but I’m still miserable. This is an experience I share with millions of other parents. Who ever realized that simple concupiscence could lead to so many interesting stories and such deep feeling? I think of her on a swing, swinging as high as she could, laughing in the moment of weightlessness on the upswing. I think of her tonsillectomy where I gently, over her protests, placed the gas mask on her and held it until she sagged and closed her eyes, and afterward, seeing me in the hall, she stuck out her tongue. I think of how hard she laughed on the raft ride when a wave sloshed me and it looked like I’d wet my pants. I miss her. She’s entitled to independence, we being mortal and all, but I cherish the moment, our arms around each other, weeping. Did I say I miss her? I do.
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This week’s featured A Prairie Home Companion show comes to you from the Blossom Music Festival in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, as we travel back to 1997 to be entertained by guests including Diana Krall and Leon Redbone. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith), and The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band.
Highlights include “If I Had You” and “Peel Me a Grape” from Diana Krall, “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and “She’s My Gal” from Leon Redbone, a medley of Beatles tunes, our talented acting company with “Celebrity Rock & Roll,” the house band’s version of “Everybody Loves My Baby,” and the latest news from Lake Wobegon. The link is posted on Saturdays at 5 p.m. CT each week on our Facebook page and is also available on the home page of www.garrisonkeillor.com.
Listen to the Show>>>
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This weekend’s post in The Back Room will be “How I became famous in Denmark.”
I'm crying as I read your story, and it's all your fault. Well....not really, but a certain PHC cruise in 2005, up the coast of Maine and into northeast Canada had something to do with it. I'm not sure if it was a stop in Halifax, St. John, or PEI, but Julie and I were walking the town and we caught sight of an open air-tour carriage (one of the shore excursions) with you and your daughter, who was probably 7 or so. The combination of serenity and joy overtook me, and I thought, love is always with us, regardless of age. Two years later, we adopted a beautiful girl at birth. Now, at my age of 73, and Julie, ten years younger, we have had 14 magical, wonderful years with our growing daughter. She's currently at a camp in Maine - a welcome break from the enforced pandemic inspired life that the three of us have been living. And, of course we miss her terribly and I shake my head as I revisit the household conflicts of too much screen time and too little math practice, and I promise myself to be the most loving, supporting father ever, when we pick her up. In the meantime, I'm crying as I read your article, and view the picture at the end, with her looking near the age she was on that Canadian trip. I wish your daughter well, and be sure to thank her, since it was that final picture at the end that prompted me to click "Subscribe"!
Oh, man. I know the feeling. I have one child. He is 27. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed after we left him at Macalester, two states away, for college. My husband had to do all the driving even though he was verklempt, too. I moped and teared up on a regular basis for the next month and couldn’t wait for Parents Weekend, when we again drove up from Illinois to see him — for about two hours total. He stayed up in the Cities for the next 5 years, and I and husband planned to move up ourselves this summer. Nope. Now he wants to come home. He’s here now for a long visit, which in my mind is a prelude. Oh. My. God. My husband and I clearly have adjusted to our darling’s absence way better than I’d ever thought we would. You will, too, even though it doesn’t feel like it now.