Throw Back Thursday...Rod McKuen...

   The summer I turned nineteen I discovered the poetry of Rod McKuen. It was 1968 and his free-verse style of poetry became my saving grace for the summer. 

    My college boyfriend and I had broken up...again. This time it was for good. Tommy had joined the Marines right out of high school and, as far as I knew,  he was still mad at me for something that happened when we were seniors. I needed to get a life, and  I needed to get a job.  There were not many options for an inexperienced, soon to be college drop out in Clinton, Kentucky. I applied at the shoe factory and was hired.  I hated every minute of factory work. Standing in the same spot all day long, doing the same monotonous work, hour after hour,  was as close to Hell as my 19 year old self could imagine.  In other words,  my life that summer sucked big time. Absolutely nothing was going right for me or so I thought.  

   One day, after work, I drove to the library.  I loved books and had read everything I owned three or four times.  I wanted something new to read. Something different to make my days and nights less dreary.  I picked up a small book of poems by a unknown author named Rod McKuen. The book was titled "Listen to the Warm". I read the first few poems and was convinced the man was writing my life. The book followed me home that day.

   For the rest of the summer I stayed up late at night, burning candles, sneaking smokes, while savoring his words. Often crying as something he had written twisted my heart and made me see life through his eyes.  When my first pay day rolled around, I drove to the nearest bookstore and bought two Rod McKuen books and one of his albums.  I can not remember the name of the album. However, I remember hearing him quote his poetry to music and to the sounds of thunderstorms and the roar of the ocean breaking against the rocks.  I remember thinking,"Some day I want to help people feel laughter and tears.  I want to stir memories and have them taste color . I want to write."

   Within a week I bought a blank journal.  It remained empty, I could not write in it, everything about it felt wrong and awkward.  Eventually I went to the dime store and purchased a spiral notebook and a new pen. I began to write and I have not stopped. I wrote snippets of thoughts, names, phrases and brief outlines of stories to be summoned when the time was right. Most of the stories I wrote  were in my head, never to touch paper. I still do this. I write all the time with invisible ink on crystal clear paper...for my eyes only.

   When Tommy and I married, my Rod McKuen books became our Rod McKuen books and records. They accompanied us everywhere we lived. We would listen to him recite his words in the dark when it rained, with only a candle to supply an elusive, flickering light. The albums are long gone, so is the record player. I think I donated one of his books to The Clothes Cupboard last fall. I wanted another teenager to share his magic. I hope his book found another good home, and another new heart to touch.