REGRETS

REGRETS
C 2009 JoJo

There are very few things I bitterly regret in my life, (thank goodness), but I’m going to write about one of them.

The event I’m about to relate happened when I was 18 years of age.

An ocean going sailing boat called the “Jenny Wren” sailed into Guanabara Bay harbour, and anchored in the waters off the Yacht Club in Niteroi. Niteroi is a city located on Guanabara Bay, directly opposite Rio de Janeiro. My parents, sister and I lived there for four years.

The “Jenny Wren” was a brand new sailing vessel, that had been commissioned from a shipyard in the U.K. by a millionaire in Sydney, Australia, and a special English crew had been hired to sail her down to her new owner. It consisted of the Captain, his girlfriend and three other young men. David Hall was one of them, and he came into my life, when he attended my father’s Church one Sunday.

As lead soprano, I sat at the font of the choir stall, and when I first saw him walk into Church my eyes nearly popped out of my head. My God, he was handsome! Tall, burned bronze by the tropical sun, with piercing blue eyes, an aquiline nose and full sensuous lips, I openly stared at him as he sat in the congregation. But what was especially striking about him was his mass of sun bleached, bushy, curly hair. When I say “mass” I mean this guy had a full head of hair, worn in an afro that stuck out all over his head. He looked like a cross between a Greek God and a Viking! I was smitten!

After Church, my father invited David to join us for Sunday lunch at the vicarage, and he accepted with alacrity. I reckon food on board the “Jenny Wren” wasn’t up to snuff, and the prospect of a home cooked meal appealed to him, almost as much as I did!

I sat opposite him at the dinner table, and the chemistry between us was electric! We couldn’t take our eyes off each other, although we hadn’t yet exchanged a word.

He told us all about the adventures of sailing this boat down from England, and I hung onto his every word. I realize in retrospect, that he was trying to impress me, and let me tell you, he succeeded! I was totally awed by him – in all respects, he was … magnificent.

After lunch, when he took me aside and asked me to go to the movies with him, I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven.

And so we started dating. And then the teasing began from family and worse yet, friends.

“So Joanna, are you going out with Hairy today?”

“Joanna, who’s your hairy friend?”

“I swear a dozen birds could make their nests in your Hairy boyfriend’s hair.”

“Hasn’t your hairy boyfriend ever heard of a barber?”

In those days, men just didn’t grow afros, and short back and sides was de rigueur. David stuck out like a sore thumb – Brazilians gaped at him everywhere we went. People used to whisper behind our backs.

Of course, I should’ve ignored it but at age 18, I was self conscious, somewhat gauche and I was desperately concerned with what people thought about me – and him. Nowadays, I don’t have these concerns, but back then I did.

I urged David to get a haircut, but he just laughed and said he wouldn’t – he liked his hair just the way it was.

One day, he told me they would going to take the “Jenny Wren” for a sail around Guanabara Bay, and did I want to come? Of course I wanted to, so on the appointed day, I took the bus to the Niteroi Yacht Club where I met up with David on the jetty and he rowed me out to the “Jenny.”

We got on board, and set sail. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the sensation of zipping along the water, with nothing to be heard but the rustle of the water against the bows, surrounded by the majestic beauty of the Rio skyline and backdrop of mountains was awe inspiring. I was enraptured.

“Do you think you could come with me below to put a kettle on for some tea?” David murmured against my neck. I was only too happy to oblige and show David how domesticated I could be. To be honest, at that time, boiling a kettle of water for tea was more-or-less the sum total of my abilities, because we’d always had servants (everyone in Brazil has servants) so I didn’t even have the least idea how to boil an egg, much less do anything practical in the kitchen.

We put the whistling kettle onto the galley stove and while waiting for it to boil, David kissed me, which would’ve been really nice, had it not been for the fact that, while I was up on deck, I was fine, but below deck I felt decidedly queasy. I told David I was feeling sea sick and he said “Hold on, I’ll get you some Dramamine.” As he bent over to fish some out of a bag, I espied, right there on the counter, a pair of hair cutting shears. Without a second thought, I grabbed them and creeping up behind him, cut a swathe up the back of his head.

He let out a yelp, and said “What did you do that for?” in a controlled, but angry manner.

“Because you need a haircut,” I replied, “And now you’re going to have to get one.”

That was the end of my romance with David Hall, and I didn’t blame him in the least bit for refusing to have anything further to do with me either.

The next time I saw him, he’d had a haircut, and he looked … diminished and not nearly as dashing and handsome as he’d been before. The thought crossed my mind that the sense of shame, pain and anguish over what I’d done might’ve been how Delilah felt when she chopped off Samson’s hair.

One day, I heard that the “Jenny Wren” was going to leave on her journey to Australia. I went to the Yacht Club, hid behind a palm tree and watched her sail out of Guanabara Bay, crying bitter tears of regret. I never even got to say “goodbye” to my Viking and needless to say, I never saw him again.

To this day, I am bitterly ashamed of allowing the teasing and other people’s opinion to make me ashamed of a really wonderful guy I loved, just because he dared to be different and marched to his own drummer. But I learned from my mistake, and never again, allowed other people to influence my opinion of anybody.

I always hope that one day I will meet David Hall, in person or online, so that I can apologize profusely for my actions on that fateful day.

Well we all have regrets about things we’ve done or haven’t done, and this is one of mine. There are others, but I won’t go into them, because they pale into insignificance compared to this, my most bitter regret.