“Just breath.”\u00a0 It was the first time that I had heard Lennie’s voice on the phone.\u00a0 It was a strong, masculine voice, but soft and comforting.\u00a0 After 6 and a half days of dozens of e-mails I had finally gotten up the nerve to phone him.\u00a0 He could hear the nervousness in my voice as I said, “Hello.”\u00a0 “You sound scared to death.”, he said.\u00a0 “Just breath.\u00a0 We’ll do it together… 3 times… take a deep breath and let it out.\u00a0 Again.”\u00a0 Three times we breathed together and I felt more calm.\u00a0 I had blocked my number before I called so that\u00a0he wouldn’t be able to find my address the way that I had found him.\u00a0 “Before we say anything”, I started, “I have to tell you something.\u00a0 My name is Kathryn, not Rebeca as I told you in the e-mails.”\u00a0 “I like the name Kathryn.”, he said.\u00a0 It was okay with him that I had started off our relationship with a little lie.\u00a0 I had made up an e-mail address and called myself Rebeca –\u00a0Rebeca Mead after the fictitious character in the movie ‘Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate’, the 1970s thriller about 4 little old ladies with too much time on their hands who invent a fictitious woman and submit her name to a computer dating site so that they can read the suitors’ letters, only to attract the attention of a serial killer who was plaguing the city.\u00a0 Lennie saw the irony and humor in my choice of names.\u00a0 And so began what he had wanted:\u00a0 a conversation that never ends.\u00a0 We talked that first evening – his time zone being\u00a05 hours behind mine – for 2 1\/2 hours, which was well into the night in Hamilton.\u00a0 I fell asleep that night knowing that I was starting to fall in love.<\/p>\n
From that night on we talked on the phone anywhere from 12 to 17 times a day.\u00a0 At one point Lennie asked me, “Do you mind me phoning you so much?”\u00a0 “No, I love talking to you.”, I reassured him.\u00a0 It was the truth.\u00a0 We talked constantly.\u00a0 We talked about mundane things and everyday things.\u00a0 He would wake me up in the middle of the night when he was going to bed in Hawai’i at about 9 p.m. and we would just lie there together in the darkness, each on our side with the phone\u00a0 lying on our ear.\u00a0 Sometimes we would say goodnight and at other times we would listen to each other breathing, having that trans continental connection of phone lines and satellites and just drift off to sleep.\u00a0 20 years ago we would have been running up thousands of dollars in charges, but with the packages we both had we could stay connected almost indefinitely.<\/p>\n
We phoned each other while we were doing the dishes or driving somewhere or while we were cooking and eating.\u00a0 As Lennie had told me, we were actually getting to know each other far more than if we were together on a date since a lot of time would be spent just sitting, gazing into each others eyes.\u00a0 Not being able to be in each other’s company we were forced to keep talking.\u00a0 We got to know each other very well and the more we knew each other, the more we liked each other.<\/p>\n
He had given me his cell phone number in one of his very first e-mails. \u00a0It’s amazing how much information you can get about someone over the Internet with just a phone number. \u00a0Through my super-sleuthing I now knew his address and his last name. \u00a0I started googling photos of ‘Lennie Schneider’ and was shocked as I saw photos of someone who looked very much like him, but a lot younger; a man in a newspaper clipping who was being taken away in hand-cuffs by the police. \u00a0Oh no! \u00a0What had he not told me? \u00a0Yet in these photos, the time line seemed a bit off; off by about 25 years if his age was correct. \u00a0From more snooping I found many newspaper clippings of Lennie Schneider – or Lenny <\/em>Schneider as the photos listed. \u00a0I would soon discover that this Lenny Schneider was the real name of Lenny Bruce, the comedian, social satirist and pot smoker. \u00a0In his younger days he looked amazingly like my Lennie.<\/p>\n “I know I use to look like Lenny Bruce. \u00a0Now do you believe me when I tell you that I have nothing to hide; or do you want to keep snooping some more?” \u00a0“Okay”, I said, “I believe you. \u00a0I just wanted to make sure. \u00a0Do you know that I have a friend at the dog park who knows someone who works for this agency in L.A. \u00a0They help people get back home when they have lost their passport or been robbed and have no money.” \u00a0I had his attention as he said, “And…”. \u00a0“Well,” \u00a0I continued, “Did you know that 50 percent of their business is helping women who have met some guy on the Internet who they ended up giving all their money to and flying to meet only to be left stranded?” \u00a0“Well, I’m not one of those guys. \u00a0So why don’t you start thinking about how you are going to make things happen and get over here.” he said. \u00a0“Okay”, I replied. \u00a0“I will come over.” \u00a0“You know”, Lennie said, “I could fly to Canada and meet you… it’s just that it would be so much more romantic if we met in Hawai’i.” \u00a0“I know Lennie, I would like that too. \u00a0So how about if we plan for 6 months from now?” \u00a0“No”, he said. \u00a0“I won’t wait that long for you. \u00a0Cut it in half Kathryn.” \u00a0“Alright, I will be there in 3 months.” \u00a0I had committed. \u00a0I was starting things in motion to meet Lennie.<\/p>\n Kathryn<\/em><\/p>\n www.kathrynsmith.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Just breath.”\u00a0 It was the first time that I had heard Lennie’s voice on the phone.\u00a0 It was a strong, masculine voice, but soft and comforting.\u00a0 After 6 and a half days of dozens of e-mails I had finally gotten up the nerve to phone him.\u00a0 He could hear the nervousness in my voice as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lennie-and-kathryn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hamiltonartist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}