the fight

I don't have the luxury to think about you.

Not until the day you show up to fight for me--a day that I'm altogether, completely unsure will ever arrive--not until that day do I have the luxury to even think about you.

But should you choose to--to show up and to fight--then, then I will fight for you. With everything I have, I will fight. I will fight with a ferocity unmatched by any woman you've before known. I will fight with a ferocity that will absolutely unmoor you. Such is my strength and my will and my grit. Such is my ability to heft and to heave and to drag the heavens toward the earth. That is how I will love you. Should you ever gather the courage to ask.

But until then, until your question and until that-day-that-will-very-likely-never-come, I will go out into the world and search for someone else. And my lips will forget your name.

photo by sam shorey

THE SMALL WELL

I don't know why it took me so long to learn to look up. To get to the period in my life in which I'd fall in love with men in the space of those few seconds of a held gaze. I don't know why it was so hard, for so long, to meet a glance and join in.

But I'm there now. I've made it. And I understand. They say there's nothing like a man looking at you. But that's not quite right. There's nothing like a man looking at you, when you want that man to look at you. There must be a tension to it, a silent waltz. There must be two people desiring for the the thing to take flight.

On Saturday morning, crossing the street, I met the eyes of a man who stood next to an older woman. His mother, perhaps? We stood on opposite sides of the street. All of us with coffee cups in our hands. He wore a hat and had dark eyes and he looked at me. While she spoke to him, he looked at me. And I looked back. Surprised and flattered and totally undone, I looked back. And god, his look became a flagrant thing--ballsy and forward and totally welcome.

He filled my cup. This total-stranger-of-a-man filled my cup. If only for a moment. He filled that small well between my hands that needed to be filled. That needed to be reminded that it does exist. That the impossibility of the two right people meeting at just the right moment might actually be possible. That love is the thing, after all.

photo by Sam Shorey

mistaken identity

i saw your face and i had this impression, in that instant, that i would know you. really, deeply know you. and that the person i'd been in love with for all those years--the person i'd thought i was swimming towards--well, i'd confused him with you. but i didn't know that and i couldn't know that because i hadn't yet met you. and then all of the sudden there you were. there you are. a slow, long glance across a crowded bar.

attraction and expectation.

Sitting in Court Street Grocers today, a turkey club the size of my face on the table before me, I kicked Kim under the table.

Kim and I have the same taste in men.

Taste: a personal preference or liking.

She looked up from her sandwich to me to then where my eyes were glued. He was tall with dark hair and a full salt and pepper beard.

We've gotten good at alerting one another when we find a man attractive. Gentle nods of the head, not so subtle elbows into ribs, and from there the two of us mostly just stare.

There are subtle discrepancies here and there--where she loves an Italian, I'll lean toward the Spaniard, but often we find ourselves stealing glances in the same direction and groaning as two grown women sometimes do when reduced to little more than hormones and awe.

When the full-bearded-man with his rolled jeans and broad shoulders finally left our viewing area leaving us to the sandwiches at hand, I asked Kim, Do you ever think we've had that effect on a man?

Attraction: the act or capability of attracting // the gravitational force exerted by one body on another.  On the subway tonight I began to think about attraction--about what it is I'm most attracted to and if that thing--that unnamable thing can in fact be named and conjured and spoken aloud.

And then I began to think about how if I attempted to write (or okay, let's call a spade a spade, blog) about attraction than Anonymous would be sure to skewer me because heaven forbid a woman knows what she wants--physically or otherwise. So we can then add knowing-what-we-want to the list of things women are not encouraged to do, which I'm pretty sure also includes aging-gracefully and the-right-to-vote (which this last one I thought we took care of in 1920 but I came across a tweet today which led to a blog and apparently it's a thing again) and can we then take a minute to talk about how it's women that are holding each other back? How each and every last one of us does not proudly admit to being a feminist is simply beyond me. I am a feminist. This does not mean I burn bras. This does not mean I hate men. This means I think women have a voice and an unparalleled strength and a unique set of gifts. Women have birthed empires. And if you try to use religion on me and start talking about your god versus my god and how it's the Lord's will that women submit to a male authority then I will simply lose my shit. I mean, I will. I will lose my shit right here, right now, right over all that's to follow. Because the whole your god, my god thing is enough to make me end the conversation right then and there--it's entitled and possessive and wholly small in a way that seems so very against the spirit of things.

Hmmm. Okay. So... I seem to have gotten off topic.

Derailed: to have left the rails. 

Attraction.

I went on a date with a guy recently. A lovely guy. Charming and kind. A guy that my girlfriends were convinced would surprise me and sweep me off my feet in a slow moving kind of way. But a guy that I knew after the first date was not the guy for me.

But why everyone asked. And I groped in that language-less land.

Because. Because, because. Because I just know.  But how do you know? To Tom I said, because I didn't feel safe and protected with him. And Tom, bless him, knowing when to press and when to simply listen, said, if he wasn't able to convey that within the first date then he probably wouldn't have ever.  Which is not to say that he was a man who could not convey that for many another woman--he most certainly was and will--of that I am sure.

Feeling: an awareness or impression.  Sitting next to him at the bar I was aware of his body. Of how I felt it no further than an inch beyond him. And how there have been men in my life I've felt the force and wind of from across the room. Their scope penetrating me in an altogether different way. Attraction. A meeting of small force fields. Some aware of others, some not. Some compatible, some not.

I struggled for weeks to tell him why we weren't a match. And in the end I was not terribly honest and not terribly courageous and I became a very small and ugly version of myself as I tried to push him away.

There just wasn't a spark, Tom said a few days after my fumbled attempt. Where you with that word when I needed it? I replied.

Spark: a quality or feeling with latent potential; a seed or germ.

Spark. It is either there. Or it isn't.

I want to feel enveloped by a man. I want to feel absolutely challenged. Valued for my size and femininity and flagrant feminism. And yes, I want him to have moved past the roommate-stage of life, the constantly-high-stage of life, the video-games-till-two-in-the-morning-every.single.night. stage of life. I want a real, gown-up Man--the capital M kind of man. And I will not apologize for that. I want a man prepared for a life with someone else. Prepared to fight and compromise and sweat till the sun does rise. I want him to know his worth and respect me for mine. And you know what? At twenty-seven I feel like these are things I have the right to want, and to say I want. Because I'm coming to the table as a more fully formed person. Because I grew up by myself, without a partner. Because I've been on a lot of bad dates and gone out with a lot of wrong men and moved past the sort of heartbreak that threatens a forever-sort-of-haunt. And so yes, I have certain expectations of myself at this age and of a partner at this age. Moving forward I have certain expectations. To not have them would be immature and irresponsible.

I might fall in love with a man who is none of the things I say I want. Who is so very much not what I ever expected. But I'm more skeptical of this now, as I age and know myself better. Details may change--where he's from and what he does and if he actually has that much coveted salt and pepper beard--but the core of a man who knows himself is a constant sort of thing.

This desire for a man and the specifics of this desire--of two people meeting and jointing together in a union where neither person loses himself in the other--well it feels like the best sort of attraction.

A feminist's dream.

 photo by sam shorey

the asking.

A good long while ago I liked a man, the reasons for which now somehow inexplicable. But such is the kindness and clarity of time—of knowing just enough or just a-little-too-much when all is said and done.

Because when the said-and-done had come he was not the right guy. He was not even a good guy. But before I knew too much or even just enough, I thought maybe.

And he thought maybe.

And together we lived in that delicious and fertile place that a maybe is--until we found ourselves on opposite sides of the same answer: no.  

Absolutely not.

And there in the wake of the said-and-done in the land where maybe became a no was the exposed mettle of a man just not good enough.

But I was lonely and had so long accepted his meager kindnesses that I confused his not good enough with my not good enough and that became the story I told myself. That I was not good enough.

Of the few men I’ve known and loved and cared for in this life I’ve stood before each and every one of them and asked them to love me. Not really asking, of course. Not giving voice to what fear rendered silent and desperate. But asking in the absence of those words. Asking in the silence of what I was too afraid to say. I asked by simply not having the courage to assert my worth.

And then I accepted their small and selfish answers.

Yes, but not now.

A little, but not enough.

Not really, but I’ll do what I can to make you think that I do.

None of these things stated explicitly, but derived from the morse code that is shifting feet, hands in pockets, half-smiles, gentle bows of the head.

But it was the asking that was the problem. Even more than the answers. It was the asking that unraveled whatever might have been.