Taking a picture of a picture and playing with reflections can reveal a portal into the past. The young man in the forefront is all of 18 years old, while the older, grayer man in shadow, looking like he is peering amusedly over his shoulder, is heading toward 48. Three decades of difference and wondering at the world around them is revealed in this single shot. It’s easy to say that with age comes wisdom, and largely that may prove to be true, but when I look back at myself at that time, there was a certain wisdom inherent in innocence and not knowing things that carried its own weight and import. Of course, that was often overshadowed by the misguided pride and exuberance of youth, and the unabashed revelry one finds upon returning home for the summer after a year at college.
On my headphones, and originating from a walkman we once had to carry in our hands, this Janet Jackson song, ‘Love Will Never Do (Without You)’ played its booming melody and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis magnificence. With a video gorgeously directed by Herb Ritts, complete with more than a few erotic undertones (and some homoerotic ones for those looking really hard) this song became a summer anthem for me, and still brings me back to those carefree days…
Our friends think we’re oppositesFalling in and out of loveThey’ve all said we’d never lastStill, we manage to stay together
May had arrived in all its heady glory. Faced with the luxurious prospect of three summer months of freedom, my Virgo nature also understood it needed some sort of structure and plan to feel completely comfortable, and so I started a daily jogging regime, followed by a swim in the pool. It kept track of the days, provided a basic blueprint around which to organize a day, and kept me in shape.
While I would never quite be devastatingly cute enough to be a proper twink, I teetered on the brink of twinkdom on my best days, and in the warped, overcompensating method of finding self-confidence through faking it, I flagrantly began to revel in my youth in the way everyone should during its brief years of dominance. The robust confidence that came after a single year away at school left me feeling undeservedly superior and slightly smug, and I’m just thankful I didn’t turn into a total monster.
Pounding the pavement as delicately as I could muster while jogging (and doing my best to avoid shin splints) I embraced the warm days and looked forward to traveling around my small hometown, which felt even smaller after a year’s glimpse at more expansive places. Halfway through these runs I’d doff my shirt, as much for pleasure as it was for comfort – the sun felt wonderful, especially when I recalled practically crying when the 20th snowstorm of the year barreled across the campus of Brandeis just a few short, and cold, months earlier. It was also a relief to be freed from sweaty clothing – nipple-chafing is a very real and painful thing – I don’t care how deeply one might enjoy some nipple-play. There was also something vain in it – the body and mind wanting to reveal themselves for reasons that went back centuries, and it felt as primal as it did imposed by a society that celebrated sex for all its selling points.
There’s no easy explanation for itBut whenever there’s a problemWe always work it out somehowWork it out somehow
They said it wouldn’t lastWe had to prove them wrong‘Cause I’ve learned in the pastThat love would never do without you
Other guys have tried beforeTo replace you as my loverNever did I have a doubtBoy, it’s you I can’t do without
I feel better when I have you near me‘Cause no other love aroundHas quite the same, ooh, oohLike you do, do, do, do babe
Winding my way back home, I slowed as I neared our block, beginning the cool down that would culminate with a dip in the pool, dousing the fire that burned all about the body – a delicious denouement to the only work I had to do that summer. It was an indulgence – a harmless decadence that took place mostly in my mind because all of this happened in solitude. After years of doubting myself, and having others doubt me, it felt like a beginning of something else – a more genuine sort of self-love, of learning that I could be ok on my own. I didn’t see it then, but this song would not end up being the soundtrack to some great romance with anyone else – it would be the giddy and surprisingly reliable accompaniment to the love affair we should all be having with ourselves.
They said it wouldn’t lastWe had to prove them wrong‘Cause I’ve learned in the pastThat love would never do without you
And so that May passed all too quickly – and that brief time in which I thought I was hot shit, and maybe I was, would prove to wither like so many spring blossoms that weren’t designed to last in the heat. Did I make the most of it? For the most part, yes. Do I wish I had realized more fully what a lovely thing it was to be young? Yes. That too. Do I miss the underlying wonder, panic and worry at not knowing what I should be doing and not knowing what I wanted to be doing? Not a bit, because it still fuels me to this day.
As for this song, it’s still a bop, still a summer dream, still a portal to the lusty month of May, when a young man once ran away from his youth, on the hunt for love.
(They said it wouldn’t last)(They said) hey(They said it wouldn’t) what do you want?(They said it wouldn’t last)
If you believe in love, sing(Love will never do)(Love will never do without you)
