Synchronicities with Tennessee

Perhaps it is a sign of irresponsibility to search for answers in signs, but that’s increasingly all I have to work with. I’m now reading the letters of Tennessee Williams to long-time intimate Maria St. Just, and the signs (compiled from both this and the Leverich biography) just keep piling up. Here are some initial parallels between us.

1. Williams’ much bemoaned permanent umbilicus mirrors (to a greater extent?) my own attachment to my mother. Mine, however, is not given to pretending to faint to get attention.
2. Williams’ consequent admiration of strong, independent women who speak their mind regardless of the outcome represents his unfulfilled desire to be more like them, as it does mine.
3. Williams and I both prefer the company of one or two others and rarely large social events; both he and I feel compelled to play an exuberant role at such affairs and they are quite tiring as a result.
4. Williams and I both frequently bond with married couples or life partners, again living vicariously through others’ experience of arrangements we fear to undertake. (At midlife, Tennessee did find this home life – there may be hope for me yet.)
5. Tenn and I both struggle with ambivalent feelings regarding sexual urges (gratification vs. purity), though our tastes differ somewhat.
6. Williams and I both have a penchant for nicknaming. His include: The Little Horse, Five o’ Clock Angel, Miss Priss, The Texas Tornado, Choppers, and Le Chevalier Sans Peur. Some of my favorite inventions are: Little Bear, Sparky, Bean-pet, Pretty Boy, Face, Wildes Thing and The Kid.
7. Speaking of naming, both Tennessee and I have both invented nicknames for ourselves – his stuck.
8. Speaking of self-naming, Tennessee frequently employed the signature “10” as an abbreviated version of his moniker. As a fifth-grader, I played on my advantageous surname by scrawling at the top of each wide ruled page
“Chris x 106”. Spooky.
9. We’re both writers with little sense for managing money, though not indulgent.
10. We both live (or did live) a bit too much in our imaginations, without wholly sensible perceptions of reality and a poor judgment of character. But if you could only visit the place, maybe you’d understand…