Circle of Love: Soulmates Lost but Found Again

By Karen S. Camara

It was 1956 when Michael and Karen first met as teens in the streets of New York City. They were both determined to escape their dysfunctional families, buoyed up by dreams of success. Their four years as soulmates would have been forever except Michael was addicted to heroin. After walking away, Karen buried all her feelings from the pure joy of their love to her dismay of drugs as a third partner yet she still lived with the heartbreak of going separate ways.

 

When Karen realized her history as a New York City street kid was atypical, she wrote a memoir, Songs from the Street: A Native New Yorker Comes of Age in the Fifties. She reveals how writing this memoir unleashed powerful memories of her teenage love as well as a curiosity about what happened to Michael after they parted. Karen sought closure and describes how she found Michael, now clean, sober, and professionally accomplished. Through this reconnection, their love was reborn and their life together as soulmates came full circle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480866287

Karen S. Camara

Karen S. Camara is a native New Yorker, born in Manhattan. After attending P.S. 41, Hunter College Junior High School, and The Bronx High School of Science, her higher education included The City College of New York, Pennsylvania State University, and Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. Following a first career mainstreaming low-income science students, she had a second as a software developer. This is her third book as she continues her life-long passion for writing.

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Circle of Love

Soulmates Lost but Found Again

Karen S. Camara

with

Michael D. Camara in Spirit

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Copyright © 2018 Karen S. Camara.

Cover design by Karen S. Camara.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-6627-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6629-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6628-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018908932

Archway Publishing rev. date:  10/16/2018

Contents

Foreward

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1     The Innocents

Chapter 2     Roots

Chapter 3     My Memoir’s Memoir

Chapter 4     Phone Friends

Chapter 5     We Meet Again

Chapter 6     Senior Teens

Chapter 7     At Last

Chapter 8     Numbers

Chapter 9     Our Unborn Children

Chapter 10   Alcoholics Anonymous

Chapter 11   The Other Side

Chapter 12   Out of My Closet

Chapter 13   We Continue On

Chapter 14   Engaged!

Chapter 15   Staying Alive

Chapter 16   Married!

Chapter 17   Another Dream Comes True

Chapter 18   Still Trying to Stay Alive

Chapter 19   The End

Chapter 20   And Now …

Chapter 21   Material Things Before

Chapter 22   Material Things After

Chapter 23   A Different World

Chapter 24   A First Year of Grieving

Chapter 25   Dreams

Chapter 26   Moving On

Chapter 27   Near and Far

Chapter 28   From the Beyond?

Chapter 29   Love Letters

Chapter 30   Reflections: If Only and Yet

Chapter 31   Reflections: Drugs

Chapter 32   Poems

Foreward

It was the fabulous fifties and Rock and Roll was king. And I was lucky enough to have been a paid witness to the times as a rock and roll disk jockey on WMCA in New York City. Karen’s first book was a memoir: Songs from the Street: A Native New Yorker Comes of Age in the Fifties. There she chronicled her life from age eleven to age twenty. Now Karen has written Circle of Love about reuniting with her teenage soulmate over four decades later and how they fulfilled their destiny as lovers. You will laugh and cry as you read this powerfully written book.

Burt Sherwood

Fifties WMCA Disk Jockey and Six Decade Plus Broadcast Veteran.

Dedication

Our Dance of Life

Come let us dance

As we did then

When our love

Was a many splendored thing.

But now let us dance

To new tunes

As well as old,

Such as the song At Last.

And as we begin again,

Let us dance with familiarity

To rhythms past and present

And songs yet to be written,

Embracing each other

To enrich our world of love,

Moving along together,

First fast, then slow.

Let us dance

To the blend of music

With the beating of our hearts

And the sound of our love.

Oh my darling

Let us keep on dancing

With delight as we do

For nothing is so wonderful.

Let us dance for life

With the context of the past

Enriching all our days,

Present and future.

As always, I will nurture you

As you nurture me

While we move through

Our time on earth.

And let us dance forever

Even when all that remains

Is to spirit dance for eternity

Rejoicing in our love.

Introduction

Circle of Love

A circle of love

Is a miracle

In an eternity,

A first love lost then found again,

Brokenhearted soulmates

Now healed forever.

Who would have thought

That a last goodbye

Would become a second hello

With past joining present

And the pain of discontinuity

Distilling into pure joy?

Who would have thought

Insurmountable barriers

Could finally crumble,

That inevitable separation

Could be contradicted

With reconnection?

Who would have thought

We could walk through time

Together, apart, and together again

With eyes rejoining eyes

Heart rejoining heart

And soul rejoining soul?

Who would have thought

Continuity would finally replace

The pain of separation

With loneliness disappearing

And joy exploding from within,

As we walk as one again,

This time forever?

1

The Innocents

M ichael’s birth wail and mine were both prophetic since we had to travel sorrowful paths in life before reaching happiness. Michael was nine months older than me, so I was conceived at the time of his birth, and that was the start of our life journeys, apart, together, apart, and then together again. As newborn innocents, Michael and I were both healthy and bright. With loving parents, we would have thrived as happy children and then as teens and adults. However, that was not to be.

Manhattan is an island only 13.4 miles long, 2.3 miles wide, and 22.7 square miles in area. Yet the dimensions of Manhattan belie it is truly a universe. In our day and despite being born in Manhattan, we were not only divided by neighborhoods but by the blocks where we lived. So, at first, we never knew of each other’s existence.

I was born in Jewish Memorial Hospital, and my family lived on Arden Street in northern Manhattan until I was about five years old. After a brief foray to California, my family returned to the city, and we lived on Sixteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues until I was grown.

Michael and I represented the typical diversity of New York City and believed in the American Dream like everyone else. My father’s father was a Polish Jewish immigrant, who died before I was born. I have a photo of him, but although a clear physical representation, his somber expression only adds to the mystery of who he was. My father’s mother, a Russian Jewish immigrant died when I was five, but I do remember her. She was a big busted woman who always surrounded me in a warm loving embrace. And whenever we visited, she also baked little Challah bird breads with two round balls for the body and a head with a small pointed beak.

My mother’s father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who ultimately owned a three-story building in Harlem, with his variety store on the first floor, living quarters on the second, and a rental apartment on the third. Yet my grandfather’s persona also remained a mystery since he was not very open. Whenever we visited, he gave me some small item from his store. And when I was older, he sometimes wrote me a modest check from his large check ledger.

I never thought to ask my grandfather about his history. It was only three weeks before he died, and I was grown when I had a single discussion with him about his past. Then I learned he had seen Tsar Nickolai when he was five and the Cossacks had chased his family around Russia. My grandfather’s last name was a bastardization of the Russian word for gypsy rather than a typical Jewish name, but I never learned why. My mother’s mother was a Polish Jewish immigrant, but I mostly knew her as bedridden with Parkinson’s disease and withdrawn. So, I have no sense of who she was either.

My father was a situation comic in vaudeville and burlesque. He was the youngest of six children, two girls and four boys, and had been born at home. His mother had said he was an accident, but she obviously loved him. Since my father was his parents’ youngest child and twelve years older than my mother, my paternal grandparents died early in my life, and why I had relatives much older than average. And since most of my father’s family was dispersed all over the country. much of this family history also remained a mystery.

My mother had a twin brother who died at birth. In one of our infrequent conversations, she said she was so small at birth her parents kept her in a shoebox padded with cotton. This was my grandparents’ third childbirth after two girls. With no sons at that point, my grandfather said her brother should have lived instead of her. As it turned out, my mother’s two younger siblings were boys, so in addition to being premature, had my grandfather restrained himself, my mother might have had a better start in life. My mother stayed home when my sister and I were young but later headed the filing department in a large New York law firm full time until she retired.

My father was an alcoholic, and my mother once said his first wife had taught him how to drink. This was the only comment she ever made about my father’s drinking; otherwise, it was a taboo topic. Even my sister and I never discussed my father’s alcoholism until we were grown although evident to each of us as children. My father snuck drinks during the day and staggered to bed every night, obvious to me even as a preteen. He never took control of his life until five years before his death when a doctor said he would die if he continued drinking.

My mother treated me and my sister very differently. I could do nothing right and my sister nothing wrong. I was the family scapegoat to distract from the real problem, perhaps because I was five years older and more high-spirited. Besides insulting my physical appearance, my grades were never good enough. When I started dating, my mother would look at me accusingly whenever I returned home. So, I became overly concerned about remaining a virgin. My mother continually chanted, You were never any good and will never be. For example, I took very good care of my pet parakeet, but when he died after an average lifespan, she blamed me and I was heartbroken. Another of her favorite expressions was, You may be laughing now, but you will be crying later. This was when I dared to laugh or otherwise show I was happy. Naturally this tainted any positive emotions I felt, both then and sometimes in the future.

In contrast, my sister coped by being passive and was rewarded by being my mother’s favorite child, but that ultimately led to her making some bad choices in life. At first, I considered my father loving and consoled myself by believing I was his favorite child. Later on, I realized drinking was his top priority and he protected himself by never objecting to how my mother treated me. And with my father away on acting jobs part of the time, my mother had even more license to do whatever she wanted.

We rarely went out as a family and then only to visit a few of my mother’s siblings. And the few times relatives visited, I was sent to my room except for dinner. As a consequence, I had no connection with normalcy as an antidote to my everyday life. Only once grown did I understand how my father’s alcoholism directly and indirectly corrupted the life journeys of both me and my sister.

As a consequence of my home life, I always felt insecure in school. I never seemed to measure up to any standards, defined or undefined. I thought most of my classmates were pretty with perfect figures and nice clothes but considered myself ugly. Moreover, until I earned babysitting money, my sparse wardrobe was a combination of weird hand-me-downs from an actress cousin. And whether my low self-image or others’ criteria, no classmates ever welcomed me as a friend, and in gym I was only reluctantly selected for a team after everyone else had been chosen.

In the beginning, I assumed my only options at home was avoidance and silence. Somehow, I thought confronting my mother would make my whole world shatter. Weekdays were easier since I had to go to school. In contrast, on weekends I had to figure out ways to avoid my mother’s abuse all day long. I even pretended to sleep longer to begin my weekend days with a small amount of peace. Yelling at me continually was the norm, with the silent treatment at times my only respite. However, in being a free spirit by nature, I rebelled more and more over time, first by making strong connections with my girlfriends and later on through street life.

From an early age, I believed education was the first step in escaping home. This led to an incredible drive for success, and I soon became an overachiever, a pattern I have kept for life. Yet there were other consequences of my mother’s abuse. One was developing a lifelong penchant to avoid conflict and please people instead of standing up for myself. I also became extremely self-reliant since I knew I had to figure out life and still consider myself first for solving my problems. And without mentoring, for better or worse, most of my life decisions were based on ignorance.

Even as a teen, I never realized my parents’ pathologies were related, and I was not the problem. And although my mother was sometimes physically abusive, the emotional abuse is what scarred me. I am convinced we all can choose to take out our life frustrations on our children or do everything possible to nurture them.

As vaudeville and burlesque began disappearing into American theatrical history, my father’s work vanished, and my mother became the primary breadwinner by the time I was a teen. So, I believe she could have left my father but chose not do so. As a consequence, I also believe my father could have protected me more.

Now I have to qualify my knowledge of Michael’s history since it is only what we shared as teens, my few encounters with his parents, and what he revealed once we were reunited. Michael was born in the Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan and grew up on West Eighteenth Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, only five blocks and a quarter of mile away from me.

Michael’s father was a Mexican immigrant who later became an American citizen. Michael said his father was from Veracruz and one of his grandmothers actually Aztec. Michael’s father was the Port Stewart for Grace Lines shipping and away from home part of the time, just as my father was. Michael said his father was good to him, but whenever he cried his father smacked him in the head since being emotional was not macho in Mexican culture. Yet this was the antithesis of Michael’s loving and sensitive nature.

Michael’s mother was American born. She was cold and negative and kept her past a mystery from everyone. Michael said as a child he once went outside to play only to discover his mother had thrown out the few toys he had. As he recounted this, I felt the pain he was reliving as he spoke. And from the time we met, Michael often commented how she loved her two cats more than him. Michael had a half-sister, who is still living. She had a different father and was much older. Once adults, Michael and his sister remained close, but she was already out of the house while Michael was growing up and so not much of an influence on him.

Throughout public school, Michael and I were still in different universes, unaware of each other’s existence. Michael attended a parochial elementary school, but this was no positive recourse to his home life since he was constantly hit for being left-handed. One day he had enough, told a nun where to shove her habit and was expelled. Afterwards, he attended P.S. 11. Due to our birthdates and the proximity of our residences, at age eleven we were both tracked to begin seventh grade in P.S. 3 at the same time. Since we were both bright, this was for the one and only rapid advance class, for completing seventh, eighth, and ninth grades in two years. But some unknown person in my public school, P.S. 41, recommended five of us girls to take the Hunter Junior High entrance exam, and I was one of three who passed. Since Hunter had a better reputation than P.S. 3, I chose Hunter while Michael went to P.S. 3.

And so, I never met Michael in junior high school. A justifiable question is whether we would have been friends and then lovers if we did, and my answer is absolutely. In elementary school and with my interest in science, I had initiated a conversation with my classmate Tim one day when I was curious about the brown stains on his hands. He said this was nitric acid from his chemistry set, and I was fascinated. Afterwards, we often talked about science. Not everyone had this interest, but it was a connection for us.

A consequence of Michael’s family life and mine was neither of us having any mentoring at home. And so, by junior high school we turned to the street not only for nurturing and love, but also as the only venue for exploring life. Early on, Michael joined a gang. He said he never wanted to but saw no other alternative to belonging. In contrast, my turning to the street was relatively innocuous. I became friends with two Puerto Rican girls on my block, and with their warm culture, I was also welcomed by their families, receiving positive feedback for the first time in my life. While this reinforced positive values for me, the opposite was true for Michael. Gang values for boys included being cool with bad behavior, smoking, and sometimes using drugs. As a child and teen, I always thought my peers were immature. In fact, they were just being normal children. And Michael always had an uneasiness about the only solution he found. So, Michael and I never had real childhoods.

Like me, Michael always understood the importance of getting an education. He even chastised his friends for not being focused on their futures, but they laughed at him. By tenth grade, I wanted more science than Hunter offered and went to The Bronx High School of Science while Michael went to Brooklyn Technical High School. But although Michael and I still suffered the pain of our childhoods, our reactions evolved quite differently. I always stuffed my feelings and mentally chanted the years I needed to wait