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My love affair with an older woman began with all the emotional entanglements, breathless energy, and exaggerated freedom of a real affair. It ended in silence and hurt. A writer’s imagination can sometimes work that way.
‘Agnes’ began innocently enough with my first real job after finishing college. There was an ad in the Minnesota Daily (the student newspaper) for a job opening at the Minnesota Department of Public Health. It called for a staff writer to create articles for their newsletter, write press releases and other sundry writing assignments. The job was on the University of Minnesota campus, just a quick bike ride from my rundown hovel nearby.
‘Agnes’ began innocently enough with my first real job after finishing college. There was an ad in the Minnesota Daily (the student newspaper) for a job opening at the Minnesota Department of Public Health. It called for a staff writer to create articles for their newsletter, write press releases and other sundry writing assignments. The job was on the University of Minnesota campus, just a quick bike ride from my rundown hovel nearby.
It was there I first met Glady; one of several office secretaries. Something about her that caught my attention immediately. She was older than me, dressed like mid-thirties plain-Jane that initially expressed little of what was remarkable about her. Yet we easily connected on some strange yet strong emotional level.
Glady reminded me of my old English Professor back in college who recognized in me a hunger for writing. He was very encouraging and challenged me to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. Cool guy, he was. Glady reacted in much the same way about my vernacular scratching.
I knew if I was going to write about this imagined affair, I would not use the real names of the people involved. So, Glady became Agnes. Her gal-pal at work and our boss, both had name changes too.
But in order to rekindle this affair in my head, my writing had to became very visceral. If it was to be real in my mind so too it had to be for my readers, I had to feel the deep emotions Agnes and I were feeling. Our arguments, thoughtful discussions, love-making and ultimately our conclusion had to be real to my inner soul as my finger-tips tapped out our all too real love story.
The premise for the storyline is simple enough. An immature twenty-five-year-old kid meets and falls hard for a mature thirty-five-year-old woman. Opposites attract but what else might have attracted this kid to this mature woman and visa-versa? That was the journey I had to retrace inside my head to make it real and ultimately painfully true.
As a famous song lyric goes: ‘It was sad and it was complete…’ Then it was over, ending on some love-scarred bed in Old Town, Chicago. I wept in my mind for the loss I felt. It was real and emotional and impactful… like most love affairs.
In the end, ‘Agnes, Remembrance of First Love’ was one of life’s painful journeys often taken in order to feel the joy and pain of loving another person. It’s an intimate journey I hope my readers will enjoy with the same intensity that I did revisiting it once again with them.
'Agnes' is now available on Amazon
Kindle Edition
Kindle Edition
Names have been changed to protect the innocent in this dramatized reminiscence of young love set in 1960s America to the real-life backdrop of Nordeast Minneapolis, Dinkytown, folk music, war, women's liberation, and the sexual revolution.
Paperback
Paperback
Names have been changed to protect the innocent in this dramatized reminiscence of young love set in 1960s America to the real-life backdrop of Nordeast Minneapolis, Dinkytown, folk music, war, women's liberation, and the sexual revolution.
Minneapolis, circa 1964
Minneapolis, circa 1968
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