The Loneliest Liberal: Old years end, new years begin

By James Knudsen

It is that time of year. It is the holiday season, the end of another year, the beginning of a new one. All around us, we see signs of time’s passage. Christmas Day, 2019, I am passing by a field, scanning it for signs of wildlife. Perhaps a squirrel is scurrying about. Is there a hawk watching from a phone pole? For most of this planet’s creatures, Christmas Day is just another day. But for those raised among the traditions of Christmas, it is a day filled with memories. If Christmas is not your tradition, winter has similarly important occasions to celebrate and reflect on. Twenty-eight days from now, The Year of the Rat begins. Humans, unlike the finned, feathered, and furred creatures we share this planet with, know that time is, depending on your perspective, passing, elapsing, creeping, or hurtling along.
    Besides reminding of us of all that we have yet to do, timestamps are created by us for those moments that change...everything. Some dates are lost, but the events are with us years later, the moment quickly recalled. The last fifth of 2019 is filled with such moments for this writer. I mean, me.

October 19, 2019. I am attending the annual Toasting the Arts fundraiser at Fresno City College. I am attending alone. Shortly after arriving, I am chatting with colleagues and she arrives. My first attempt at a coherent introduction is a pearl onion on a banana split. Later in the evening I offer my business card, which consists of my actor’s headshot along with my contact info. She remarks that my hair seems to have significantly more gray now than in the picture. It does. I still do not know her name. She has spoken her name earlier in the evening, but I cannot remember it. She enjoys lording this fact of my failing memory over me too much for me to be miffed at it. Before leaving the gala, I learn her name and drive her to her vehicle, some blocks away, where it is parked at her friend’s house. I leave for home, alone.

October 20, 2019, zero dark thirty. Fourteen miles from where I left her, I pull off the highway for gasoline. Before getting back on the road, I send a Facebook friend request to Ms. Andra Linder. She takes her time accepting my request.

October 20, 2019, normal waking hours. Andra and I begin chatting via Facebook Messenger. She suggests we go to the Fresno Zoo, today. We meet at the Chaffee Zoo on what we acknowledge as our first date. The date lasts about eight hours.

October 24, 2019. We agree to meet for a more conventional date at a Fresno restaurant. I request time to make myself more presentable. Andra makes much better use of the time than I do.

October 27, 2019. Andra is returning to Fresno from the Los Angeles area, and my home in Tulare happens to be on the way. She is going to visit my house. If she works for a health department, my house will be tagged as unfit for human habitation. I frantically begin cleaning when she is two hours away. Andra arrives at 12:30 p.m. and to my surprise does not turn and run away in horror. Before she leaves, some hours later, we agree that I will accompany her to an upcoming wedding in November.

November 1, 2019. I meet Andra’s mother and one of her sisters at the restaurant where we dined on the 24th. We have begun discussing the holiday season. Andra plans to spend Thanksgiving with her family in Fresno. I plan to be in Washington State with my siblings. Prior to Thanksgiving, Andra is going to Las Vegas, Nevada, with her mother and two sisters. I learn that flights from Las Vegas to Seattle are significantly cheaper than flights from Fresno to Seattle.

November 9 – 11, 2019. Andra accompanies me to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I am the respondent at a play in Hayward. We also visit a Liberty ship in San Francisco Bay and the Blackhawk Museum, in Danville, California.

November 12, 2019. I buy a ticket to fly to Seattle from Las Vegas.

November 16, 2019. Andra and I attend the aforementioned wedding. We Uber to the reception and after a few gin and tonics, I slip the DJ $20 so as to get the song “After All” played as soon as possible. It plays. We dance.

November 24, 2019. In separate cars, Andra and I drive to Las Vegas. We have a room at the Bellagio Hotel.

November 26, 2019, 12:30 p.m. This morning we visit The National Atomic Testing Museum, on Flamingo Road.

November 26, 2019, 2:35 p.m. Using my smartphone, I find the phone number of an “on-call” marriage officiant. Turns out we need a marriage license.

November 26, 2019, 5:00 p.m. We have a marriage license.

November 26, 2019, 7:07 p.m. Under the Arc de Triomphe, at the Paris Casino in Las Vegas, in the presence of witnesses we recruited from the casino, James Knudsen marries Andra Linder. Our lives will never be the same.

Copyright © 2019 by James Knudsen