I Think I'm Gonna Love You for a Long, Long Time

 

Music can evoke powerful associations and emotions, and some songs speak to us in powerful ways.  For example, every time I hear The Kingston Trio singing “Scotch and Soda,” I recall David Bass sitting in the living room of my parents’ house, strumming his guitar and singing it to me as I fairly swooned with love for him.  A song, I later came to realize, that he probably sang to other women as well.  So, the Peter, Paul, and Mary song “That’s What You Get for Loving Me,” more accurately sums up my on-again-off-again relationship with him. 

Most powerful of all such evocative songs for me, however, is Linda Ronstadt’s soulful version of  “Long, Long Time.”  When I hear her sing it, tears may spring to my eyes and, for a moment, I am back to 1972 when Jeff Seavey broke my heart.

My first glimpse of Jeff was from across a crowded room at a community reception for us new southern-Colorado VISTA volunteers.  He was strikingly handsome: tall, well-muscled, with long black hair falling in shiny waves to his shoulders and framing a perfectly-proportioned olive-skinned face.  He seemed to have been a phantom, disappearing before I had a chance to meet him.  Later, I wondered with my fellow volunteer and friend, Debbie Green who this Greek-god of a man was and which of us might manage to snare him at some future date.  It turned out to be me, but it would be nearly six months before I actually met him and another three months before we started dating.

I met Jeff at a party hosted by my VISTA friend Tim; the two regularly played basketball together.  I recognized Jeff immediately as the mystery man from that welcome reception.  I learned that Jeff was the son of a local judge, he had attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for a couple of years but had dropped out, and he now was working at the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo.  He was living with his parents while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. 

I don’t recall how we got together after that or how our relationship progressed.  I do remember that he stayed at my house several nights, since I couldn’t stay with him at his parents’ home.  I met them only once when I was invited to dinner.  I remember Judge Seavey as distant and imposing.  It was clear that he did not like me and did not think I was worthy of his son’s attentions.      

When the school year ended and summer rolled around, Jeff decided that he would move from southern Colorado to Lawrence and resume his college career at the University of Kansas in the fall.  As his girlfriend of the moment, he invited me to go along. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.  This beautiful man that I adored wanted ME!  I had completed my year’s VISTA commitment and, with a six-thousand-dollar severance paycheck in my bank account, I said sure.  I’d love to move to Lawrence, Kansas with you. 

But first I had to swing by Texas and spend a little time with my parents.  It was the summer of 1972.  The sexual revolution of the late sixties was well established among the young, but my parents’ generation remained staunchly attached to their traditional family values that included no sex before marriage. 

We had a pleasant few day, until I announced on Saturday morning that I would be leaving as soon as my car was loaded.  My fourteen-year-old sister Peggy, my parents, and I were seated around the old round table in our kitchen eating breakfast.  It was a bright June morning, and the room was filled with dappled sunshine coming through the sliding glass door that looked out on our tree-filled back yard.  

“Why on earth are you leaving so soon?” my mother asked, disappointment in her voice.  “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Lawrence, Kansas,” I told her in the most neutral voice I could manage.  I knew that a battle was coming.

“Lawrence, Kansas!” she exclaimed.  “Why Lawrence?  Who do you know there?”

I stood up, took my dishes to the sink, and said, “I’m going to see Jeff.”

They knew about Jeff.  I always told my mother about the men I “dated,” stopping short of telling her just how involved I was with them.  There were things she didn’t need to know.

“Where are you going to stay?” she demanded to know.

“With him.”

“For how long?  Where will you sleep?”  Her panic was rising.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I replied, “for as long as it works out, I guess.”

Now Dad entered the conversation with his most reliable response, voice loud, deep, and authoritative.  “No. You aren’t going.  You can’t live with a man.”

“Dad,” I sighed, “I’m twenty-two-years-old, and you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way,” he sputtered as I left the room.  When Dad got mad, his face turned red, his jaw set, and he seemed to spit out his words.

My things were all packed, and I picked up the first box to carry out to my little gold Datsun, parked in a driveway outside the sliding kitchen door.  Dad had followed me to the bedroom I was sharing temporarily with Peggy.  He now stood in the doorway, arms outstretched, blocking my way.  I ducked under his arm and went out to the car with my box.

Both Dad and Mom followed me, he red-faced and stomping, she a step or two behind, sniffing, as the tears ran down her cheeks. 

My mother pleaded, “Why are you doing this?  Do you want to ruin your life?”

“I’m not ruining my life, Mother,” I sighed.

“If you do this, no man will ever marry you!” she exclaimed.  “No one wants a used woman!”  She was crying now.

“That is no longer true, Mom.  It might have been when you were my age, but it isn’t now.”

“How can you say that?” she demanded.  “Have you lost all your morals?  What about your Christian beliefs?”

“I still have my Christian beliefs about many things, Mom,” I replied as patiently as possible.  “I still care about others and doing good.  I fight for justice and civil rights.  I don’t knowingly hurt other people.”

“Except for your parents,” she cried.  “Don’t you care about hurting us?”

“Oh, Mom, I’m not going to Kansas to hurt you.  I’m going to be with the man I love and see if we can work out a long-term relationship.”  I knew that she could never understand, but I still tried to explain.  “The world is different now.”

As we were having this conversation, I was continuing to carry things from the house, load them in the car, and return for another load.  Both of my parents were following me back and forth, back and forth.

Dad went to my car and closed the door I had left open as he asked, “What are his intentions?  What will our friends say if they find out you’re living in sin?” 

I walked around to the other side of the car, opened that door, and answered him. “None of them will know, Dad, unless you tell them.”

Mom was wringing the tissue she held in her hand and sniffing.  “Why won’t you just marry him?  If he was a decent man, he wouldn’t ruin you.”

“He is a decent man, Mom, and we might marry someday,” I answered her calmly, “but we aren’t ready to make that decision just yet.”

By now, my brother Michael was awake.  He had recently graduated from high school and was enjoying sleeping in on summer mornings.  Michael was tall and gangly with hair to his shoulders.  His feet were bare, and he was dressed in cut-offs and a t-shirt.  He joined Peggy on the patio where the two of them stood, silently watching us go back and forth; spectators to a too-familiar battle between me and our parents.   For now, Michael was safe from Dad’s wrath, but he wouldn’t be for long.  I would learn later that as soon as I drove away, Dad tried to force Michael into the family car and take him to have his hair cut, saying that Michael’s long hair made “everyone” think he was Charles Manson, the despised mass murderer of the time. Dad was as ineffective at changing Michael’s behavior as he was of changing mine.

At last, I managed to get in my car, start the engine and back out of the driveway.  As I headed north on Interstate 35, a sense of relief descended on me.  But the battle wasn’t over yet.  A few days after my arrival in Lawrence, a letter came from my mother addressed to Jeff.  It said, among other things, “If you are a decent man, you will either marry my daughter or send her home.”

“What the fuck!” he exclaimed as he handed the letter to me.  I read it, then wadded it up and threw it into the trash. 

“My mother,” I sighed, and we both laughed. 

Jeff had rented a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of an old house in the center of Lawrence.  It was hot and humid that summer.  Our windows were always open and a large fan ran noisily in the bedroom where we spent many a lazy afternoon on the mattress on the floor, talking or making passionate love, sweating profusely, and then enjoying the cooling breeze of the box fan in the window.  

There was no furniture in the living room, but Jeff had set up his reel-to-reel tape player and massive speakers, and we listened to a nearly-endless stream of Grateful Dead music while smoking joints, drinking beer, dancing, and singing along at the top of our lungs.  We hung out in the apartment, ate meals on the picnic table out back under a shade tree, took walks around town, and made half-hearted attempts to find jobs.  I couldn’t have been happier.

And then one day Jeff announced that he had decided to return to Boulder to go to school there. 

“OK,” I said.  “When do we leave?”

“Well,” he hesitated.  “I have to go by myself.”  He had the good grace to look contrite.  “My father says that he will pay my tuition if I come alone.” 

This was the first indication I had had that Jeff had been under any pressure from his parents.  I had thought I was the only one getting parental pressure for my immoral acts.

“I guess we don’t have to live together, but we could still see each other,” I replied weakly.

“No,” he said, “you can’t come at all.”

“What?”  Was this his way of telling me it was over?  He didn’t want me around anymore?

“It’s been fun,” he said, “but it’s over.”

I was devastated.  Not only was I losing Jeff, I had ruined my relationship with my parents, so I couldn’t go home again.  What was I supposed to do now?  I packed up my little Datsun once again, spread out my map of the United States, and thought about where my relatives and college friends were living now. 

Since I was close to Missouri where my grandparents lived, I stopped there first.  I’m sure that I shed a great many tears on that drive, but I put on a happy face for Grandma and Grandpa.  I couldn’t really tell them what had happened and why I was suddenly dropping by for a visit, but they happily accepted my sudden presence whatever the circumstances.  A few days with them allowed me to regroup, regain some perspective, and decide that I could live without Jeff, even though my heart was broken. 

Next, I contacted an old boyfriend, Ernie Lewis, who was living in Nashville, Tennessee.  Sure, he’d be happy to have me come for a visit.  Nashville offered amazing music and intense philosophical and political conversations late into the night with Ernie and his house mates.  The Vietnam War was still raging, and the protests continued.  Richard Nixon was in the White House, and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty had not yet raised the people across the south out of poverty.  The Civil Rights Movement had made some inroads, but segregation still reigned.  We had a lot to be angry about but few answers. 

Ernie and I had much in common.  We enjoyed one another’s company and had great conversations, but there was no passion or magic between us.  Before I moved on, we made a pact that if neither of us found true love before age thirty, we would marry each other.  At least it would be a companionable union. 

I drove north and visited my cousin Sue in Baltimore for a couple of days, and then my Aunt Dort and Uncle Toney in Stamford, Connecticut.  I ended in Vermont, where my friend Pruitt Ashworth was living.  He had recently married a fellow divinity student, Valinda, and taken a pastoral internship at a small church in rural Vermont.  Valinda served the church as pianist and music director.  Bethel was a beautiful, scenic place with green rolling hills, lots of trees, red barns, billowy white clouds floating above, and birds singing.  While Pruitt and Valinda were willing to provide me with free lodging, there were no jobs in tiny Bethel, so I moved on to the bigger city of Burlington where I landed a job as a waitress in an upscale restaurant. 

I rented a one-room apartment near the restaurant.  Returning to my room that first night, I was assaulted in the alley.  I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I think I thrust my knee into the man’s groin and ran.  When I got to my room and looked down from my second-floor window, my would-be assailant was just staggering out of the bushes.  Disaster was averted, but I was shaken. 

The next night, after hearing the story of my assault, a co-worker, Jay, offered his basement to me.  Jay shared the house with three other guys in nearby Winooski.  They would let me stay for free if I would clean their house.  What was a good deal for them turned out to be only minimally acceptable to me, but I was broke, scared, and lonely.  The “room” they gave me consisted of only a camp bed placed between the hot water heater and furnace. 

When I moved in, the very large kitchen was completely covered with dirty dishes.  I think that whenever everything was dirty, someone just bought another cheap set of dishes or pans.  It took a day just to wash them all (by hand; there was no dishwasher in this house).  And the kitchen was in good shape compared with the two bathrooms.  Once the initial heavy cleaning was done, however, we settled into a pleasant life together.  Each of the men had a girlfriend, and they (the men) were all respectful of me.  I was grateful for the bed, and I felt safe.

I began to think that I might stay in Vermont when a letter that had been forwarded several times arrived to shatter my peace.  Jeff wrote that he realized what a mistake he had made in ending his relationship with me.  I was stunned and then cautiously optimistic.  After a day or two, I called him.  Jeff assured me that, if I came to Boulder, he would make a commitment to our relationship.  Foolishly, I believed him. 

I quit my job, thanked my Vermont friends for taking care of me, packed up my Datsun one more time, and made the long drive back across the country.  When I arrived in Boulder, I had been gone from Colorado for four months, had put ten-thousand miles on my car, and had blown through most my VISTA severance pay.  While this was not the end of my journey, it was the end of my travels. 

In Boulder, Jeff and I re-established our passionate relationship.  He went to classes, I looked for work, unsuccessfully, did housework, and cooked.  I had only been back with him for six weeks or so when he picked up the phone one October evening while we were eating dinner.

“Are we still on for tonight?” he asked whoever answered.

“OK.  I’ll meet you in front of the auditorium at 7:15,” he said.  He listened, then responded with, “OK.  See you there.”  He hung up.

I was surprised by this conversation.  “Who was that?” I asked, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to a lecture with Linda,” he replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Can I come?” I asked weakly.

“No,” was all he said.

“You’re going out with another woman?” I was stunned.

“Yes.  I never said that you would be the only one I spent time with.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening.  Again.

“I thought that was why I came back.  So we could be together.”

“Look,” he explained.  He was still eating his dinner, but I had stopped eating mine.  “You can see other guys, if you want.  I don’t care.”

“I don’t want to see other guys.  I love you,” I was trying not to cry but my voice cracked.

He cleared off his plate, went to the bathroom, grabbed his coat, and left.

After a few minutes, I put my coat on and walked to campus, to the lecture hall he had mentioned on the phone.  Linda was beautiful, and they greeted one another as more than classmates.  I sat a few rows behind them through the lecture.  I have no idea what it was about, I only remember the two of them: sitting close, his arm around her shoulders, and their heads together.

He was clearly lost to me.  When I later asked Jeff, through tears, why he had asked me to come back, he only shrugged and said, “I never promised you that you would be the only one.” 

After several tense days and many tearful discussions, I decided that the terms he was offering were unacceptable to me.  I couldn’t live like this, but where could I go?  I had no money, no friends in this town, and no job, but I did have my pride.  And my heart was broken again. 

One night Jeff and I went to a college-student hangout, Tulagi’s on The Hill, to hear a new rock singer, Linda Ronstadt.  As she sang “Long Long Time,” her voice was filled with a deep, deep sorrow.   And listening to her words, I realized that she was perfectly describing my doomed relationship with Jeff.  As the tears streamed down my cheeks, I knew that it was over and I needed to move on. 

Love will abide, take things in stride

Sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side

And time washes clean love's wounds unseen

That's what someone told me but I don't know what it means.

Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time.

 

Caught in my fears

Blinking back the tears

I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near

And I never drew one response from you

All the while you fell all over girls you never knew

Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time.

 

Wait for the day

You'll go away

Knowing that you warned me of the price I'd have to pay

And life's full of flaws

Who knows the cause?

Living in the memory of a love that never was

Cause I've done everything I know to try and change your mind

and I think I'm gonna miss you for a long long time.*

I moved into Boulder’s youth hostel the next day.  It would take a couple of years for me to find my footing.  There was a succession of crummy living spaces.  There were menial jobs and low wages along the way.  There were one-night-stands and some longer-term love affairs, but no one that I loved like I loved Jeff.  (With the possible exception of David Bass, that is.)  I found new friends and rebuilt my life.  And I learned that I could weather all sorts of emotional storms, that I could take care of myself, and that there are more good people than bad in the world.  If I just trusted in my instincts and my inner strengths, I could do almost anything.

Many decades have passed, and I have found a truer, longer-lasting love, but I still have a visceral reaction every time I hear that haunting song.  For just a moment, tears fill my eyes and my heart experiences a pang of brokenness for that lost love.

*Gary B. White.  “Long Long Time.” 1970. Universal Music Publishing Group.