BARBARA

            BARBARA


I never dated her but I may have loved her.  At least for introducing me to Leonard.  I've been thinking a lot about remembering lately.  I remember now.  I think it was 1968.  I moved into Bromley Hall in '66.  The first year it was open.  It was mostly rich Chicago Jews.  Very expensive.  I wasn't a Jew but my mother wished I was.

Barb was a russophilic Chicago Jew.  Of Russian descent and looking for roots.  In her room in Bromley Hall she told me about Leonard Cohen.  I think we had been playing tennis.  I remember I was sweating and I don't know why else I would be sweating.  She played a Buffy Saint Marie album for me that day too.  And Leonard Cohen.  I have the same albums and more now, on my computer, 42 years later.

I saw her again 25 years ago when she found me, looking for a dog to buy.  She had a graduate degree in ceramics.  An old man husband in tow.  He looked like Jerry Garcia right before he died.

Memory is strange.  I'll remember her and more of the '60s later.  More people, places and things, and. hopefully, more of me.

Barb was George's girl friend for a while.  I knew him before her.  I knew most people before her, and I knew them better than her.  I also loved most of them more. I just thought about her because I was thinking about Leonard.  Memory is strange.  Now I'm thinking about everything else, and I'm not sure I want to.