Memories from the Waterfront
Journeys Not Taken; New Ones Beckoning
I sometimes get a Trumpish feeling when I clean out my email junk folder. I check it daily lest a message end up there that shouldn’t. But like the former president not wanting to let go of his boxes of mementos, I glance wistfully over the promises of free iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, a 15-inch penis, and a huge lawsuit settlement over bad talcum or Camp Lejeune water I never used.
Of course those and other offers intercepted by my email security are mostly phishing scams. It would be particularly egregious if I fell for them, considering my background in computer security. When I worked for the federal government, we had to repeat our security awareness training after former CIA Director John Deutch was found to have top-secret information on an internet-connected home computer.
Suffice it to say that my boxes of memories contain no national secrets—partly because I followed the rules, and partly because I never had a high-level clearance.
Politicians and their appointees are always getting civil servants in trouble. I was 18 when Richard Nixon resigned as president. I started college that fall, and my history professor wore a LOSE button mocking President Ford’s WIN button (for “Whip Inflation Now”) because he was mad over Ford pardoning Nixon.
I forget what LOSE stood for. On the other hand, I distinctly remember an older student who was kind to me, a fellow member of a musical ensemble who eventually became a lawyer for a Trump casino. He told me at a reunion that if I ever visited Atlantic City, he would introduce me to the boss.
I never made that visit. If I had, it would have had more to do with an old crush on my fellow alum than a desire to meet a vulgar, self-promoting New York businessman.
Straight guys I have loved could be a topic for a memoir. But the challenges of the present occupy me, and there is a man who loves me whom I intend to marry.
That oversimplifies things a bit, because four decades ago there was a straight fellow who loved me in his way. We developed a strong rapport. He simply did not share my desire. That mismatch impeded a close friendship, because—as he told me one night as we walked along the old DC waterfront after dinner—he was afraid of what his other friends would think. A few years later he moved to another city, and we didn’t reconnect until decades later when I found him on a professional networking site.
He liked my latest essay. He is looking forward to being a grandfather. His auburn hair has turned white, but he has the same piercing eyes.
That’s what the boxes of our memories contain, as much as objects that hold meaning for us but that others would just throw away.
My old friend has lived well, and I still have feelings for him that I have felt for few people in this world. One balmy day soon I will go down to the new waterfront for lunch and think of journeys not taken as I look at the boats in the marina. Nearby will be the spot where he said on that long-ago night, with a note of surprise, “You’re stronger than me,” after I told him about dealing with unrequited feelings that were still largely taboo. I was determined not to let my love be defeated by the world, and it still blooms.
Most of us find the strength we need. I say that to the LGBTQ+ refugees in Kenya whom I help, for whom I advocate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, after they are forced to flee homophobic and transphobic violence in their home countries. As I write, one of my refugee clients is on his resettlement flight to Iceland. Some of my clients call me Daddy, stemming from respect for their elders. They are estranged from their own fathers. It’s a chance to exercise my long-unused paternal instincts.
At the same time, my thoughts go to my fiancé, who was also displaced until his heart found a home in me. He is in mourning for a beloved uncle who died in Tennessee. As my East African clients increasingly lead new lives in places from Reykjavík to Vancouver to Oakland to Philadelphia, I have my own life to attend to. My man needs me, and I need him. New work calls, new journeys beckon. The boxes can wait. ▼
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at rrosendall@me.com.