CAMELOT DAYS

It's May!

My freshman year in college I attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland. There were a lot of firsts that year, the biggest one being my first year living away from home for more than a camping trip or church ski event.

Thinking ourselves so incredibly grown up, my roommate and I were daring ourselves all sorts of things. For the most part, we did them. I took off my bra in my International Affairs class and tossed it at the person I was required to. This was all done when the professor, the legendary Carlin Capper-Johnson, who had been a close personal friend of Winston Churchill, was out of the room.

I wore a nightgown to a concert.

I think Melissa had to moon someone from a friend's room overlooking the entrance to our dorm. We both marched ourselves down to the infirmary and got birth control pills, because we were on a mission of another sort too. Both of us had very mixed results.

We'd lay on our beds and look up at the ceiling and wonder who we'd fall in love with, who we'd marry, what our life would look like. We'd listen to Rod McKuen and think about finding someone that would love us so deeply, and never go away.

I spent an evening with the guys of Sandpipers (Guantanamera), who came to perform at the spring concert, and had to crawl back into my room at night. I got the job of cleaning the basement that Saturday because someone turned me in. But it was magical! I hear that song so often these days, and wonder what happened to them all. They were nice guys.

In high school I met Joan Baez at a friend's house in Palo Alto. The dreamer in me thought I could sing just like her. I love the music of Sweet Sir Galahad came in through the window in the night when the moon was in yard...I can't tell you how many times I've sung this in the shower. Probably 2000 or more. And here's to the dawn of their days... Just love the lyrical expression of this singer. Made me take up guitar for about 2 minutes... But the voice in my heart is still there, even though I can't sing like that. I still want to...and do you think I'll fail at every single thing I try.  

Sweet Sir Galahad went down with his gay bride of flowers, the prince of the hours of her lifetime.
And here's to the dawn of their days....

Ah, those days when I was barely over twenty, when I had my whole life ahead of me, looking through clouds, looking for that thing that's hardest to find, looking for love even then...

SUNDAYS WITH SHARON: Goodbye to Rod McKuen

I totally missed the passing of Rod McKuen this January. Just like so many things in life, we miss important events when we're rushing off to do all the stuff we do, those endless activities we do to stay busy, become successful. I literally forgot to stop and smell the roses and missed this milestone.

A roommate of mine in college turned me on to Rod McKuen, in the height of his popularity. A poet who dared to say things about love and loving, he moved my heart in ways I knew were important, and would be more important later on. Filled with those flower-filled days of first new loves, I look back on that time with fondness, somewhat immune to the many heartaches that are now faded memories. The passion for love and the love of life lingers in all its living color, happily, even though the pain of loss, but more the loss of what could have been, has softened. 

I always wanted to meet Rod McKuen, who was born in Oakland, California, abandoned by his father at birth and ran away from home when he was 11. He would go on to write for Sinatra, and was recorded by Johnny Cash, Madonna, Barbara Streisand and many others. He sold out Carnegie Hall, and used to do a birthday concert there every year (I always thought it was fate that he and I almost share the same birthday). Who can forget his lovely song Jean from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie? He wrote about places the Bay Area used to be. Stanyan Street is one of my favorite poems here:

 

 

http://youtu.be/233rTu8wdhg

Some other great quotes from McKuen:

“This is the way it was while I was waiting for your eyes to find me.”

“I have fallen in love with the world
And I am aware that I have chosen
the most dangerous lover of them all.”

“No map to help us find the tranquil flat lands, clearings calm, fields without mean fences. Rolling down the other side of life our compass is the sureness of ourselves. Time may make us rugged, ragged round the edges, but know and understand that love is still the safest place to land.”

Thank you, my love, a lover I never met, kissed or held hands with. Thank you for sharing the insides of your soul, for awakening in me that true passion for life. I vow that, no matter how busy I get, that I won't forget to remember, and to listen to the warm, or forget the sea.