“One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”
That’s one of the most poignant lines from one of our greatest films, a secondary character in “Citizen Kane” speaking of an amazing moment in his younger life.
I wonder if it’s natural for old men to think back on things not done and roads not taken. Even more, I wonder if old age is a time of regrets.
The man on the right in the picture is the one who saw the girl on the ferry. I have a hard time believing that one passing glance could create a lifetime of memories, but there are other things that stay in our minds.
In my 28th summer I was happily married, but I had a brief platonic friendship with a younger woman. She was 21 and we used to sit out in the evenings and have long conversations, mostly about politics and government.
We met in Austria, but we were from opposite coasts in the United States, and as I said, I was married.
When she left at the end of the summer, we didn’t swap addresses or phone numbers. I’m not even sure we said goodbye. She returned to the States for her last year of college and we never saw each other again.
I thought about her, though, and when my marriage fell apart two years later, I thought about her more. But I lived on the East Coast and in those pre-Internet days I had no idea how to get in touch with her. Even if I did, I had never had any indication she was interested in me as anything more than a conversation buddy.
She was my girl in a white dress with a white parasol.
I don’t know if every man has one, but I certainly did.
Irony heaped on irony. I didn’t realize it till many years later, but when I was single and in Colorado from 1986-88, she was living less than 100 miles to the south.
Ah well.
As I said, we never saw each other again. I located her on the Internet in 2003, but she was in Seattle and I was in Los Angeles. And of course, I was married again.
We eventually became Facebook friends, but that’s all that ever happened. We’ve never even had a conversation, although I admire her for her intelligence and her commitment to the correct side of the political equation.
Life really is all about timing.