"It HAS Been Twenty Years. I Have Been A Waif These Twenty Years"!!!!!!!!!!

                        Girls, let me tell you, the most heartbreaking part of "Wuthering Heights", both in the Bronte novel and the 1939 film, is when Mr. Lockwood hears the voice calling, "Let me in!  Let me in!" as the snow is swirling outside his window.  He goes to open the window, and feels a cold hand touch his, from which he repels and quickly shuts the window, and bolts it, as the spirit of Catherine Earnshaw Linton cries the line in the subject bar above.

                         This takes place early on, and is but the first of a series of incidents to follow, but it more than anything sets the tone for the rest of the book.  And it always brings to mind the question of what ghosts we may have faced in our lives, and how many of us are affected by them, like Mr. Lockwood.

                           I think of one time last Spring, little more than a year ago.  The previous Fall, of 2010, the  gay community, the entire world, in fact, had been rocked by the tragedy that was the death of Tyler Clementi. As has been reported here and often, it haunted me in ways I have enumerated, from its immediacy at the time, to parallels in my personal life.  But I wasn't prepared for it to give me a Mr. Lockwood experience, but it did.  And I offer no explanation.

                            I was leaving my workplace, which is on the premises of Lincoln Center, for lunch. I passed a group of people--visitors, I imagined, gathered.  Standing off, away from the group, was a bespectacled young man, with reddish hair, who smiled at me, his eyes burrowing into me, as if he wanted me to say something to him.  I paused for a moment, but something told me to move on.

                              No, dolls he was NOT cruising me.  The day I am cruised by waifs is the day I get a face lift, like Joan Rivers!!!!!!!  Nevertheless, something gnawed at me, and, when I got out onto the street, I realized something  The young man's face resembled that of Tyler Clementi, or rather Tyler in a picture I had seen of him, with his brothers, overlooking what I imagine is Niagara Falls.  Could I have been visited by a ghost? And what did he want?

                               It was only then I began to get scared. Why should the most famous decedent of the day choose to show himself to me???  I was not worthy of anything, like Bernadette.  I wondered if there was a connection between Tyler and Lincoln Center, and sure enough, there was plenty.  Not only did he, in his young life, enjoy and experience the opera and the ballet there,  but one of the orchestra groups he was in during high school had played at Avery Fisher Hall.  Around the time he was sixteen.

                                Obviously, a point in time had had to have intersected when Tyler and I were on the premises at the same time, unknown to the other.

                                    But there is more.

                                    The person whom I thought stood before me, was taller than I imagined Tyler to be.
And was, in actuality, as I eventually found he stood at a mere 5'6".

                                       The glimpse was so quick that maybe I was wrong.  Or maybe spirits show themselves in somewhat different ways.  In any case, it was a fascinating and unsettling encounter, which I have never revealed, till now.

                                         Twenty years past Tyler's death will be September 10, 2030.  If still alive, I will be all of 75, quite a bit older than Mr. Lockwood in "Wuthering Heights.  I will,  if around, be certain to watch for a knocking on the window, and a voice calling to be let in.

                                              And, you better believe, darlings, I will let him in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!