Sweet Baby James

I’ve once again returned from my desert paradise, and on the ride down, on my playlist, a song came on that brought back memories of my very first boyfriend in San Francisco. It was a time when I was much younger and full of hope of what my life would become. 

It was a classic covered by the country band Highway 101, the James Taylor song, “Sweet Baby James”  – and, when Donald played the song for me, he changed two of the phrases. “Dreaming of women” became “Dreaming of The Women” (because I was obsessed with the 1939 classic) and “Glasses of Beer” to “Glasses of wine.” I was a young cowboy then, deep into the country music scene and he called me his sweet baby James. Each time I hear that song, I am transported back to a night overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a candle in a hurricane lamp so it would not blow out in the cold San Francisco night and a man beside me who thought the world of me. How could defenses hold fast against  such a show of affection?

I’m not sure when it all ended  - maybe it was the night in Hawaii when he told me not to  worry if he finds me sexy or even that we weren’t having sex on an island full of lovers, because he can sleep with any one of the men that “the world finds attractive,” instead he chooses to focus on “only those that I do.”  Did that mean I should be lucky to be with him because the world would reject me? It was a drama filled night that fell further with the worst turbulence of my life across the Pacific. My only thought was that the plane was going to crash into the ocean and I recited the Hail Mary over and over until we were safely on the ground. (It is perhaps, the last time I have recalled that programmed prayer with any fervor.)

It seems that all my attempts at relationships in those years were filled with drama. Maybe I thrived on it – perhaps it was all I knew? When you ended what you thought was something special, the screaming matches and hatred were what made it easier to end things, right? I can still see myself, standing in the middle of Castro Street in yet another chapter– my tear stained face still as vivid today. There were others that I thought would be the love of my life and when those too ended in chest pounding anguish, I took a long break from the world of the plus one. 

Looking back on all those dating experiences, I realize that the present will repeat the past if I let it. Growing older has put an end to the drama in my life, and taking control is empowering, because what matters most, in any facet of life – is action. So when I recently called a halt to my latest attempt, it felt mature and the right thing for me. There were no screaming matches, no words of hate to make the other person feel lower than you to raise yourself up, just a simple statement that the two of us were on different planes. And I, for one, don’t want the turbulence. Sure, there was a tinge of sadness, but I am Sweet Baby James, and since that over look at the Golden Gate, there are more than ten miles behind me and for sure, not ten thousand more to go before I reach what I know is waiting for me.