the fun of all the others

a few years ago i worked with a girl (one of the best i've ever known) who was engaged to a man she was mad about.

he was not the first to have asked for her hand in marriage, but he was the last.

they now have a beautiful baby boy.

there was a particular day at work when we were filling in the long and lazy afternoon with mostly useless chatter and she turned to me and said, if i had met the right guy, right off the bat, i would have missed the fun of all the others. 

i was navigating a particular sort of heartache at the time and didn't give it too much thought. i mean, when you've met the guy that you think could be the guy, who cares about the fun of the others? especially when fun so quickly, so easily, gives way to loss. and even small losses cost something.

but then i got over that guy. it took way too long and was way too hard, but i got over him. and then i fell in love with someone else. and then i had to get over him. and something about this feels really unfair because i gotta tell you, once you've loved someone and they don't--or can't--love you back, i cannot see the value in ever having that experience again.

but that's life. and maybe there is a point. maybe the hapless mess and chaos and unknown is actually ordered by a divine grace that is simply unknown to us. or maybe it really  is just mess and chaos and unknown. because i believe in those things.

(but i believe in grace too).

now i think of my dear friend's words when i kiss men for the first time.

because, thing is, i can remember every first kiss.

every first kiss, every in-between kiss, every should-we-really-be-doing-this kiss?

there was the kiss that took place just inside the front of my apartment building this past january. it wasn't terribly good and didn't last terribly long and i wasn't terribly keen on the guy. days later he had said that it wasn't his best attempt and i was baffled, guys think that way? i just  figured people kiss in all sorts of ways and either you fit or you don't. never thought of kissing as a thing of practice and false starts and poor attempts.

there was that one kiss when i was nineteen, sitting with my back against a row of tall, dark lockers. i had made an art form of fantasizing about a particular boy in school for so long. i always imagined our first kiss would be a sort of delicious collision: a little bit messy and a little bit dangerous--all-together something really good. but that day as he emerged from a classroom--old sweats and socks--he stopped in front of me and  leant down, pressed his lips against my forehead. it was simple. and soft. as gentle a thing as can be. and in the space between what i had so long wanted and what i actually got, was something all together better.

with the last man i dated we were standing inside of a liquor store at the end of our first date and knowing there would probably be more dates to follow, i had but one thought: this cannot happen here. our first kiss cannot be inside of this place from which we are buying a handle of whiskey (at my request). it didn't. it was just inside the door to his small west village studio apartment. he spent five minutes just below my left ear before he ever got to my mouth...                                                 (and that's all i'll say about that).

there have been so many kisses.

the i'll-do-this-once-and-check-it-off-my-bucketlist kiss.

the middle-of-the-day-is-this-really-about-to-happen? kiss.

the knee-deep-before-you've-even-begun kiss.

the we-can't-let-anyone-see-this kiss. the the-whole-of-my-face-will-be-raw-tomorrow-but-it's-so-worth-it kiss.

the i-don't-like-the-feel-of-your-tounge-in-my-mouth-so-get-out kiss.

the i've-just-met-you-and-walking-in-here-tonight-i-told-the-girl-at-the-front-desk-that-i-didn't-know-what-you-looked-like-and-now-here-we-are-sucking-face-(or some such)-and-i'm-a-little-bit-embarassed-but-not-enough-because-holy-shit-i-sort-of-like-you-and-it's-fun-to-feel-sixteen-again kiss.

the i-don't-know-your-name-but-i'll-figure-it-out-after kiss.

the five-am-post-karaoke kiss.

there were the kisses that never were. the kisses that hung in the air, silent what-ifs.

the last kisses that i didn't know--couldn't know--were such.

the this-is-just-a-kiss kiss. which is always so much more than just-a-kiss. always so much more than just-an-anything.

there were the kisses that took a little while to figure out. the kisses i laughed through and groaned during and pulled away from, before. trying. again. there have been unexpected kisses, and climbing-from-bed-in-the-morning kisses--those that mostly land on the bony and angular parts of the body. there have been the come-back-to-bed kisses. the middle-of -the-night-are-you-still-there kisses.

there was that one second-first-kiss that was eight years in the making.

there have been gateway kisses and goodbye kisses. kisses that feel like breathing, like water: easy and sweet. of-course kisses and  kisses laced with white wine and courage. and then there's the first kiss that feels like you're falling into the person--like you've kissed them a thousand times before and it's second nature and you think maybe, just maybe it's true. maybe the future does indeed have an ancient heart.**

and there are still more kisses to look forward to. more fun. more chaos. more mess. more that will make very little sense. until it does. until sense sweeps in. and the last first kiss is had. the this-is-home kiss.

this-is-home.

nothing more and nothing less than that.

which is pretty much everything.

**the future has an ancient heart--words by Carlo Levi, as explained perfectly by Cheryl Strayed

also, for what it's worth, no one has ever talked about kissing/kisses better than Jeffrey McDaniel when he wrote the poem The Archipelago of Kisses (which inspired much of this post--art is about borrowing and stealing from your betters, no?) and ended it with these perfect words:

"But one kiss levitates above all the others. The intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss./ The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss. Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the earth/ like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next t your bones."

photo by the ridiculously talented Emma Hartvig (who i'm honored to call a friend)

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.