Florence

Kingsley was not my first experience with heartbreak. In 1966, at the beginning of my sophomore year in college, I met Florence and found her immensely attractive. Why? Because she said she had a boyfriend back home. Remember, this was 1966. Like most students, I knew almost nothing about birth control. In 1966, no students I knew were living together. A guy had to be very careful not to end up married.

Flashback. In 1965 at the beginning of my freshman year, I met Judy. After my first date with her, I felt as if I were walking on clouds. I’d never felt that way before. But there were problems. Judy played hard to get, or maybe she was hard to get. I don’t know. She was never around when I phoned, always out shopping, out at a coffee house, out somewhere. I quickly realized that if I were going to have a relationship with this girl, I’d have to pursue her—but what if I caught her?

In 1965 marriage meant babies, and that meant financial responsibility. I didn’t have any financial responsibility: I had a scholarship, I had a loan, and I had whatever I could earn from a summer job. But I still needed additional funds from my parents if I were going to finish college in four years. And my practical mother had warned me that marriage was a financial declaration of independence. If I got married, no more money from home.

When I felt as if I were walking on clouds, did that mean I was in love? It didn’t matter. I did what I had to do—I avoided Judy. Was that an over-reaction? Well, let me tell you—at the end of sophomore year, Judy met a graduate student. Before she completed her junior year of college, she dropped out of school to get married.

I could have been that graduate student! Obtuse as I may be, I detected Judy's desire to marry, and that insight convinced me that I should only date girls who did not like me—at least, not like me enough to want to marry me.

Florence

So when Florence said she had a boyfriend back home, I thought, This is safe. I can date this girl and avoid problems. But before I intended or even admitted, I fell in love with Florence. Of course, I repressed this dangerous feeling. I kept telling myself, “We’re just friends. We’re just friends.” But the problem with Florence was different from the problem with Judy. Florence wanted to finish school. She wanted a career. What she feared was that romance would trap her, and she did not want to end up a housewife with five kids like her mother.

Florence and I dated throughout sophomore year, and we always handled burning passion with thick oven mittens, careful to set it aside to cool. What did we do to pass the time? Mostly talk. Conversation with Florence was always easy and pleasant.

But Florence was not happy at St. Louis University. I longed to come to the rescue, to drive away her dragon. But I couldn’t find a dragon. I didn’t know why she was unhappy. I suspect that even Florence didn’t know why she was unhappy.

When I asked her out on a date, I think I cheered her up a bit. She always seemed happy then. But to tell the truth, most of our time was spent, not with each other, but in scholarly solitude. I often wondered if Florence felt as lonely as I felt? Was loneliness the only thing that made her unhappy? I don't know. But at the end of our sophomore year, when she told me that she was transferring to University of North Carolina for her junior year, I felt oppressively sad. No doubt about it, she needed more than me to be happy.

Flash forward to 1979. In August, Kingsley had dumped me and once again loneliness was my constant companion. On a Saturday night, when I was home alone, I’d sometimes fantasize about Florence. I especially remembered a spring night in 1967. We had gone to a movie and afterwards we were at a restaurant eating cheesecake. Suddenly I looked up, I looked over at Florence, and she was glowing. Nobody else in the room was glowing at all. Isn’t that amazing.

In 1980 both Florence and I were divorced, but we couldn’t exactly start dating. She lived in Boston, I lived in Houston. In the winter of 1980, I went up to Boston to visit Florence. Once again, conversation was easy and pleasant. We took up right where we had left off. But one time I tried to hold her hand, and she rebuffed the gesture. Our romance took up right where it had left off too.

So what did we do? We played tennis. Florence worked for Polaroid in Boston and made a pretty good salary, so she belonged to an indoor tennis club. It was quite nice, with climate control and hot tubs.

Florence Evolves

In the summer of 1982, Florence came to Houston to visit me. I was working as a teacher and didn’t belong to an indoor tennis club, so I played on outdoor city courts which were free. Now if you play tennis outdoors in Houston in the summertime, you start at seven o’clock in the morning when it’s cool—80 degrees, 95 % humidity. But I couldn’t get Florence out of bed, so we played closer to noon—in 95 degree heat, with 95% humidity. We barely made it through one set. Needless to say, Florence was not impressed with Houston.

After Florence returned to Boston, we kept in touch through letters—I mean, real letters, not one-sentence emails or text-messages. In 1991, we were both in Atlanta to celebrate Christmas with our families, and one afternoon we met for lunch at Lenox Square. This was the first time we’d seen each other since that Houston summer in 1982.

F: Are you dating anyone?

J: Yes, but nothing serious. I guess I’ve adjusted to the single life. You’ve always lived alone, haven’t you?

F: Except for the time I was married.

J: I forgot about that.

F: It barely lasted six months. A big mistake. You know, I got married because of you.

J: Because of me?

F: I always saw us as a possibility until I got your letter saying you had married. I felt you rejected me.

J: I didn’t reject you, you rejected me! Even when we were both divorced, that time I visited you in Boston. In your living room, on the couch—we were talking. I tried to hold your hand. You pulled away. If you wouldn’t even hold my hand, what was I supposed to think?

F: If we held hands, then you’d want something more.

J: And you didn’t? See, you didn’t like me.

F: You live in Houston. I live in Boston. What if we kissed? What if we got married?

J: Married? I wanted to hold your hand, maybe a little more.

F: I was confused. I liked you better than anyone else. You were decent, considerate.

J: Should I have been a caveman? Grabbed you and groped? Mad passion, unchained desire—is that what you wanted?

Florence Evolves

F: Some guys did that. And I didn’t stop them. If I hated them, then I wouldn’t be trapped.

J: You made love to guys you hated?

F: Good men scared me. My father was a good man. A good Catholic, my father. No birth control for him. Because he was a commercial pilot, he could escape. But Mom could never escape. Dad was faithful, didn’t drink. He gave Mom his salary, a house, a car—and five kids. While he flew from city to city, she had to manage. What a terrible manager she was—too nervous. Sometimes she just hid in her room, and then I had to watch the kids, fix dinner. My father had no patience with her crying or her incompetence. He finally agreed to send Denny to an institution, but he felt guilty. That’s the problem with good men—they wallow in guilt and self-righteousness, but they expect the women to sacrifice and care for disabled children.

Only occasionally did Dad have to cope with Denny’s Downs Syndrome. When it snowed, Denny sat on a chair by the window and stared out at the back yard. No one could walk on that snow, and we never let him look out the front. He wanted a smooth, untouched white surface. He hated footprints in muddy slush and would pitch a fit if the snow wasn’t smooth. Once Dad gave him a box of blocks and dumped them on the floor. Denny immediately put the blocks back in the box, all in order, neatly arranged. When Ann and I were home from college, if we left clothes lying on the bed, he’d come in and hang them up. If Mom had jars and dishes on the counter to prepare dinner and left the kitchen for a few minutes, Denny would come in and put everything back in the cabinet.

Often something was missing for weeks because Denny had put it away in a place logical to him but not to anyone else. After Denny was born with Downs Syndrome, Dad bought twin beds. He could have gotten a vasectomy or used a condom. But no, that wasn’t moral.

So tell me, what’s moral? Did God say not to use condoms? No, God never talks. Some wrinkled tyrants who like to impose their will on everyone else, they’re the ones who don’t like birth control—the holy clergy. Mom needed some affection, some kindness. She couldn’t handle the stress. Maybe she created the stress—so nervous, and that screechy voice. I didn’t want to end up like her. If I’d married you, I’d be trapped.

J: I didn’t want to trap you.

F: And I could never live in Houston. That time I visited, the heat was terrible, and you didn’t even have air conditioning. Then there’s your art—it’s chaotic, abrasive. I don’t mean to insult you, but I want my home to be relaxing without werewolves and nudes and chaos on every wall. You like the most awful things. Like that print you sent me for a wedding present. I was upset at the time, trying to reconcile myself to a marriage that I wasn’t sure I wanted, and then you sent me a painting of an orgy.

J: I sent you a reproduction of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Printed on canvas. I love it.

F: Sometimes you seem like an alien from another planet. Why do you like nightmares?

J: Art’s not supposed to be relaxing.

F: Face it. I wouldn’t move to Houston, and you wouldn’t move to Boston. You’d have to give up your friends, your job, your cheap house, and probably your art. It would never work.

J: I suppose you’re right—but I wish you weren’t.

Although we weren’t meant for each other, I still looked forward to seeing Florence more the future because her mother lived in Atlanta, my brother lived in Atlanta, and a few years later, my mother moved to Atlanta. But my mother usually traveled at Christmas time. She’d swing through Houston to visit me, so I didn’t go to Atlanta at Christmas. When I went in summer, Florence wasn’t there. Then in 2004, my mother told me she was getting too old to travel, so I had to come to Atlanta all the time. In January of 2005, I wrote Florence a letter and mentioned that I’d definitely be in Atlanta at Christmas time, so we should plan to get together. I didn’t hear from her right away, but that wasn’t unusual. Then in the summer, a letter finally arrived. But the letter wasn’t from Florence, it was from Florence’s sister. She wrote to say that Florence had died of breast cancer in April.

Even after so many years, I feel sad about Florence’s death. I’d like to see her again, to talk to her. But that’s impossible. So I decided to create a memorial, a work of art she would like. Why? I know she’s far beyond caring about whatever I do. Nonetheless I felt compelled.

In Memoriam: Florence Farnsworth (1947-2005).

Making a memorial for Florence was especially difficult since she didn’t like most of my art, especially my early paintings which had erupted from my unconscious. She didn’t see any of my art after 1982, so maybe she would have liked some of the later stuff. Maybe.

After some deliberation, I decided a portrait might please her, at least a little. So I started with a photo taken when she visited Houston and colorized it. Would she like it? Possibly. But I didn’t. It wasn’t ART, just a photo made yellow. So I began to transform it.

The very last image, “Pink and Black on White,” is nothing recognizable—just colors and shapes. If you hadn’t seen the images evolve, “Pink and Black on White” seems totally meaningless. If hung alone on a wall and retitled “Portrait of Florence,” only a few in-the-know would understand it. Yet it seems appropriate for a woman who was always ambivalent, whose love was as undecipherable as those shapes and colors. And yet that final picture was significant because it had come from a memory that was both wonderful and sad. Is “Pink and Black on White,” spiritual? I want it to be, but I’m not sure. If Florence is anything, she’s a spirit. Or she’s nothing—but I don’t want to think about that. Whatever the interpretation, I’ve created something—and that’s better than nothing. Isn’t it?

Even today, I remember Florence as a special goddess. Although our relationship never flowered passionately, we did have wonderful conversations.