Sweet Tempo

From the Prologue of Sweet Tempo
Call me Stephen. Please. Mom and dad call me Little Stevie, an embarrassment made worse by the fact that there is no Big Stevie in our family, unless you consider Uncle Steve who we havent seen since my first communion. My dad (Leopold by the way) named me after one of his army buddies who died in the Pacific campaign of WWII. I think he wanted me to be Little Stevie reincarnated or something; I often disappointed him. Its just as well that he didnt call me Little Leo. But its having the Little attached to me all my life that gave me twitches. I always wondered when I would grow up.

I thought it might happen when I first went to college, but my moms letters and phone calls spread the name through all the dorms and hallways. It took a major decision (the only one at that) for me to step out of Little Stevies pantaloons and into gabardine trousers of adulthood (although I really dont know what gabardine is, for I still wear denim). When I decided that I had enough of college and wanted to travel, they surprised me by not arguing. At that point I wasnt sure if I had made the decision or they had, but once they set me free, I was cornered into going. Decisions do not come easily to Little Stevie, so it was with great ironies and twists of fate that this decision would lead me to this.

My trip began as an adventure and this book, a travelogue. But as Providence would have it, it soon became a romance, and then some twisty sort of unromance, then (I wish it never happened) a tragedy. The reader, I hope, sees a comedy in tragic guise; the irony is there to taste. Much that is written here need not have been written; my preference is that none of it occurred. At this point much seems like a nightmare within a dream, and in fact the dreams I had while on this trip were as real as sin. Youll see. There are times that I wonder if it happened at all. But the story here needs to be told, if only to honor the memory of love lost. Perhaps the story will entertain, but it also serves as therapy and treatment for the tragic minded and chronically romantic.

I wonder now, if this is what it means to grow up.