On the down low

June 13, 2025

Photo by Saulo Meza on Unsplash

It’s not dark yet,
but it’s gettin' there.
—Bob Dylan

I tried writing fiction when I was in my early twenties. I guess you could say I had an Apple IIc and I wasn’t afraid to use it. Fortunately for the reading public and my literary reputation, none of the pages cranked out on my old dot-matrix printer have survived.

Funny, then, that some of the fictive dreams I concocted forty years ago still run through my mind. One short story I wrote concerned a date gone badly, and in the final scene, as the female protagonist walked home in the pouring rain, sobbing, I ended with what I thought was a hopeful note: The night would come to an end and it would just be a memory, I wrote, adding, “Even sadness is something to give.”

We can set aside for the moment what would prompt a small-town boy newly planted in the city of Boston to write such a story. The point is that I think I remember that last line even now because I still believe it’s true. In a country built on plunder and production, it should come as no surprise if we equate our self-worth with what we have, and with what we have to give, and that we think it all needs to be topnotch. We sometimes act as if we can present only polished apples or finished final drafts, or only show our faces when we’re wearing a smile. Someone asks, “How are you doing?” And we, who have just come from a funeral for a friend’s child, say, “Oh, fine.” We are withholding the best we have to give: our wholeness.

Ever notice how, when someone tells you they could use a hug or need to vent, how good it feels that you, with all your own troubles, can help? Or when someone confesses that they’re having a tough time, you are surprised that suddenly you’re the strong one? Who’s gifting whom? And why deny someone else that chance?

Love wants it all. Perhaps that is because, like water, love runs through everything and seeks constant release. Love gives us the courage to allow imperfection and to share our downsides as if it were absolutely necessary to do so. For it is. Forty years ago, I thought that short story was finished when I wrote, “Even sadness is something to give.” I realize now that the real story was just beginning.