The 1982 film “My Favorite Year” belongs in the unheralded, hugely underrated column. I’ve watched it countless times and the same emotional responses always resonate: laughter mixed with melancholy, melancholy mixed with elation, and elation bracketed by the brilliant, hopeful performances of Mark Linn-Baker as Benjy Stone, Jessica Harper as K.C. Downing, and Peter O’Toole as Alan Swann that transfix and mesmerize. It is a bittersweet tribute to a bygone era of Hollywood, accompanied by the eternal themes of love and devotion, that will turn even the most hardened, weathered scowl into a grin.
What was my favorite year? There have been several. More than several. I’ve been blessed, lucky.
Too lucky. And mesmerized.
1996 stands out. City and state championships in soccer as a player. Whitewater rafting in Colorado’s Royal Gorge. A trip to the UK with teammates for Euro 96 including the tournament semifinal at Wembley between England and Spain that went to penalties. Late nights on the second floor of Waterloo Brewing Company in downtown Austin playing pool, shuffleboard, air hockey, and hitting 7401 on the jukebox for “Fisherman’s Blues” by The Waterboys. Heroic moments at The Tavern (you’re never too far from 12th and Lamar). Lots of friendly groupies, too. Lots. The first month of 1997 was fairly awesome, as well. The rest of that year not so much.
2004 was rather remarkable. I moved to Boston and the Red Sox immediately broke an 86-year curse. Went for a Saturday afternoon run downtown and happened upon the UCLA alumni club to fortuitously meet the legendary Frank Keller. Achieved the trifecta of seeing the Bruins, Celtics, and Patriots on the same weekend. Also got head-butted by a lesbian on New Year’s Eve. I started running again, too, and that eventually led to the 26.2 from Hopkinton to the finish line on Boylston (several times, in fact). I decided that I was a writer in 2004, too. A poet. A real writer.
This remains the best photo from that year: Fontaine and me with the 2004 World Series trophy. My hair is not that dark now, not even close, and there are many wrinkles on my face. Fontaine is gone. I’ll never recover from her death, or her sister Marie’s, but I was blessed with two decades of their love.
The best people I’ve ever known, save one.
2017 was the year that saw the top spot on my life’s bucket list checked off: attending The Monaco Grand Prix. Spending Thursday on a yacht in the harbor drinking champagne and eating prawns for seven hours with Mr. Zeglen didn’t suck. Saturday across the track from this photo’s very spot at Tabac Corner and Sunday at Turn One on the other side of that grandstand weren’t too shabby, either. Those three days made the other 362 nearly invisible. We watched the FA Cup Final at a pub in Nice that weekend, too. It was all rather magical.
There were some fine childhood years, too. And in college, the Marine Corps, etc. And more than a few bad ones. Sad ones. Devastating, debilitating ones. Damaging years that have left still unhealed wounds and deep scars upon my psyche. I am to blame for most of them.
Seventh grade at The Buckley School was the worst. Earning the top scholarship award for the class did little to repair nine months of terror/hell. I still feel that the honor was a sympathy card from my teachers and the administration, perhaps a parting gift after eleven years there. The real parting gift has been the enduring friendships since then with Mike Goulet and Bert Syre. Cultural anthropologists will be examining our text group’s messages in a century or so: it’s really something else when three contrarian bastards get on a roll with decades and decades of history together as a backdrop.
But what was my favorite?
It’s been the past 365 days. This past year. This past year is my favorite.
The only way to describe it is to state the following: I long to feel this way forever. More epochs just like this one. All of my future years will possess the desire for this exact feeling, indefinitely, and that is the only way I can live. There can be no other way. There can be no going back.
As the matching tattoos with Christian Schraga state, Ни шагу назад!
And I long to sit on this bench. But not alone. I can never be alone on this bench, with this view. I never will be.
I long to hear these words sung to me, or whispered to me. I’ll take them in written form, too. Smoke signals, cloud writings, all ways.
Please deliver them.
The past year has been the best year because I have finally learned just to love and be loved in return. And that’s more than enough. We are what we really are.
This tribute poem was written on May 5:
È lunedì, un lunedì piovoso
Il mio corpo è ancora sotto shock
Gambe pesanti, piedi doloranti e vesciche
Ma il mio cuore è forte
Forte per te
E ogni giorno diventa più forte
Dai piovosi lunedì mattina
A ogni notte passionale e sognante
Quando sono posseduto da sentimenti rarefatti
Che solo tu puoi ispirare.