the not hello

  You meet a person and immediately you go from strangers to something else.

And maybe you meet again. And something is shared.

And then one person, or both—but rarely both—decides they no longer want to share that thing with you.

And poof. You are strangers again. And somehow stranger than before.

And you live in this small city for months or years and you have these parallel lives that never intersect.

And then boom. One day, when you least expect it, you look up and find you’re looking right at this man who was once not a stranger, but is again.

But you don’t yet know it’s him. You just know enough to look again. And awareness creeps round the edges of the mind. And then you see the chain around his neck.

And that’s all it takes, a small, silver strand, and the blood drains from your body.

Because here is a stranger who was, for a moment, not.

Here is a man who decided he did not want to know you anymore.

You pretend not to recognize him. Wonder if he’s seen you. Perhaps not. Your hat is large and your sunglasses dark.

And you turn to the sweet boy next to you and ask him to look at you, for just, like, ten minutes, as if you’re the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. And you wrap your rapidly burning shoulders in his oversized button down because suddenly you feel so very exposed, naked to more than just the sun. And he gives you that loopy, lazy grin that comes so naturally to politicians and movie stars, before returning his gaze to the group. And you are left to your own experience, a very private one, in this very public place.

You weren’t meant to come here. You had no intention of coming here. Sort of dragged by a group of half-friends.

He’s with someone. And she’s so obviously cooler than you.  Lithe and pretty and funky in that way you’ve always lusted after in other woman.

And you cannot say hello.

But isn’t it his hello to give?

Your mind wanders to the man you’ve been dating since back when it was still cold and you’d escaped into a small West Village restaurant, sat at the end of a long table with your best girlfriend. He’d been at the other end, part of a larger group, and as he was leaving he’d paused, chatted, called you charming (and you were, you were so charming that night—it’s so easy when nothing is at stake) before inviting you to dinner the following week—his invitation more a request than anything else. And you had been done in by this. By his supreme confidence. His absolute nerve. In the time since, he’s said again and again how shy he is and you know he’s not, but you play along: Why then did you approach me that first night? you ask coyly. And he answers with one word, Irresistible. And somehow that one word is enough—somehow in his less than perfect English that one word is absolute perfection. And it is a little truthful and a little not and you know this--you are smart enough to know this, but it is enough true that you smile in that way that is just for him and tuck your head into that space below his chin.

But whatever it is the two of you have been building is a flimsy thing, a we’re-never-going-to-love-each-other-but–isn’t-this-nice-sort-of-thing. Already you know you are on borrowed time--that it's only lasted as long as it has because you've been so lonely (and you so liked telling the story of how you met). But you’ve learned so much from this man who never loved you—this man with no intention of ever loving you. This man who always paid for dinner and when he smoked never did so in your presence. This man who offered to call the airlines and reminded you to wish your mother a happy mother’s day. Who always gave you his jacket and always ordered dinner and always asked  just what it was you wanted to do with your life. This man who was so not the right man, but cared for you as he knew how, and held you close when he could. This man who you will meet one lazy Saturday years from now, who will buy you a drink and say hello and kiss you softly and ask how you are and really want to know. This man you will never pretend not to know.

Because I don’t really get it. How we can so totally make a stranger of another person. How we can pretend not to know them so completely.

I mean, I was a little afraid and I was a little hurt and I was a little embarrassed—so not terribly courageous, but I don’t know what the hell you were.

the feeling of it

i dreamt about you the other night. i slept all of like four hours and just before i woke, there you were, in my dream. and we were dancing, or hugging, or doing something-totally-sensical-in-that-hazy-place-that-is-dreamland, but doesn't quite translate to real life.

all i know is we were standing impossibly close.

and standing impossibly close to you felt... thrilling. was in fact the most thrilling feeling i've ever known.

it felt like...flying.

the feeling of standing close to you felt like flying.

which i recognize is like, the most ludicrous and simplistic and inaccurate thing to say.

and it is. it totally is. it totally misses the point.

and yet.

it gets closer to to what it was than anything else i know.

funny thing about love, there are no words for it. only cliches. and short, nonsensical sounds that feel a lot like really bright colors.

image credit unknown

what i'm listening to | the lone bellow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HhqZrQJJ8w  

back in march i went with my dear, dear friend kim to see the lone bellow. i didn't know their music terribly well, so when they began to play this song, my stomach sort of bottomed out when i heard that musical phrase that makes up the title.

every-once-in-a-while a man will do something or say something and set a new bar and i'll think i should have been treated this well all-along and how did it take me this long to figure it out, or this long to find a guy who not only knew to do that--but actually did.

i think if i could find a man who might say: you can be all kinds of emotional then i'd be wooed and won by those words alone.

in new york and on the subway

sometimes i wonder how many men i've fallen in love with on the train just because i thought they looked like you.

a thought on which to end the week. (and to carry forward forever more).

 

i have come to learn (the hard way, always the hard way) that there comes a point in fledgling romantic endeavors in which i become just-attached-enough that i start. to lose. my mind.

fear takes hold and my deepest insecurities take root and a very small and very ugly version of myself emerges--a woman who acts out of fear and need.

and the sight is. not. a pretty one.

and what ends up happening is the very things the men were first attracted to get strewn about in the wake of my...terror.

there's a line from one of my very favorite Avett Brothers songs that i often think about:

If you're loved by someone you're never rejected. 

how satisfying it is to be adored by a person. how seductive. it is grounding. a lightening rod of sorts that harnesses the big and scary and unmanageable things and drags them down to earth. makes everything a bit more doable.

but in the absence of that adoration--in the absence of that person, we must be our own lightening rod.

and i suspect, even with another person, we must constantly remember that on our own, alone, we have the ability to ground ourselves.

i came across this earlier in the week and wanted to share. it is a father's letter to his little girl (about her future husband):

i can't get this out of my head (nor do i want to): your only task is to know deeply in your soul--in that unshakeable place that isn't rattled by rejection and loss and ego--that you are worthy of interest...If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word. 

what powerful (dare i say, holy words). easier said than done, of course. but man do i want to strive to be that person.

read the full letter here.