Dear Reader,
I had coffee last week with a gym acquaintance who is a generation younger than I am. I was telling him about Volume II, LOVE AND THE EPIDEMIC. He mentioned, almost in passing, that he and his friends came of age in the AIDS era, that they never experienced the freedom of an earlier time. Of course, I suggested that he read YOU’RE SURE TO FALL IN LOVE if he wants to know more about the 1970s.
But what I remember most about our conversation is that he asked me if I lost many friends in the ’80s. I started with my automatic answer, “I never had to watch a partner or a best friend sicken and die.” Well, that’s the truth, but it’s less than half of the story. And as we chatted, I was bombarded with memories of beautiful men who were felled by the Epidemic.
Friends, acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, leaders, creatives in all fields. The loss was unthinkable. And perhaps I unthought a lot of it. I can’t even be certain how many men who sat at my dinner table did not survive the decade. I had a keen mechanism, back then, for distancing myself from my feelings. That distancing mechanism served me well in those years, and I was able to write books and teach classes and just get on with it.
But I have lost that buffer, and I wouldn’t choose to have it back. So, instead, as I dig deeper into memory and research, I pledge to honor the fallen with my very best efforts, and with my full heart.
Bruce
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