a not-such-a-valentine's-day-story.

she sat in the cool, dark theatre. surrounded by strangers. a book on her lap, waiting for the play to begin.

she had come to see him. in the play, on the stage. come to see him, tell a story.

but she was sitting so close. and wanted so desperately to move, just a little. wanted to be further away--wanted to make it harder for his eyes to light upon her during some great scene or important moment. didn't want to be privy to a moment in which the fourth wall broke.

perhaps it was that she knew they were breaking. maybe that was the real impulse to move, to run, to escape to the light beyond the theatre.

but she stayed, marveled as the words of the playwright tumbled around in the actors' mouths, and then  sat across from him at dinner.

and when things were good, there was nothing she liked more than sitting across from him, sharing his space, being close enough that his laughter could land on her--she had forgotten that all these many months later--she had thought she had nothing nice to say. and that that was the real tragedy. that she had fallen for the markers of a man and not the man himself. but she had forgotten that without him ever even looking her way she could feel his awareness, his enrapture. total and complete. and it felt good.

life and its many shades of grey.

because for all the warmth he aroused, he also stirred something deep and sad within her. and he didn't want to know that. to touch that. to taste that. so he'd flirt with the bartender as she sat quietly on the adjacent stool. or so it seemed.

in fact, it all seemed a bit ridiculous now. the few extra blocks she'd walk out of her way in those first few months after it unraveled--charged both by the dread and hope that she might see him. or the now untouched bottle of perfume in bottom drawer of her dresser. she couldn't stomach the scent; he had so liked it.

she ran into a friend recently. a friend who had sat in the same cool, dark theatre on the same winter-swept night. and watched the play with the same tumbling words. said friend asked about the guy, remarked that her own attendance at the play had sparked a series of messages between the two, culminating in their own ill-fated date.

and there it was.

she had sat in the theatre, worried that his eyes would find her too easily. what a needless worry. for in fact his eyes had found someone else that night.

yes, yes. it all seemed a bit ridiculous now.

space. and his silence.

there have been two boys (two men, i suppose) that i have cared for. deeply.

two boys (men) who i think of.

though, not often.

not anymore at least.

but two nights ago i dreamt of one. and then today i thought i saw the other.

my mind must be sorting. figuring out where to place these two phantom figures.

and because the cup of the subconscious runneth over (so to speak), i (against my wishes) find myself thinking (consciously?) about both. with one i talk and argue and laugh and with the other we begin in silence.

and that silence is enough. always it is enough.

and so it goes. the two daydreams. the words and banter and laughter v. absolute quiet.

and the thing is, every time--every. single. time. the quiet wins. there is such peace, such love in a world where no words are needed.

image via flickr: eylul aslan

the simple truth.

she met him on the saddest day of her life.

it was never meant to work. never meant to carry forward.

it was just that, on that day, she needed a hand to pull her from the deep.

and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.

she was over men. over the idea of it. or maybe just overwhelmed by the idea of it.

she was tired and exhausted and intimidated into exhaustion.

wanted nothing to do with dating or meeting or having to smile.

didn't want to feign a certain level of interest.

suddenly loneliness didn't seem quite so lonely.

but preferable. safe.

but oh how she longed to feel a boy's hand in her own. just that. that simple act. the warmth and touch. mutual touch. and innocence.

yes, that was it, she longed for the innocence.

for the time before. when fingers intertwined was enough.

more than enough.

oh to go back to a time when the holding of hands was everything.

not quite closure.

she sat in a chair just a few feet from his.

she fingered the wine glass in front of her.

watched as he joked with his friends across the table.

listened to their conversations. smiled.

the bar was crowded. joyous in it's teeming capacity.

everyone knew everyone else.

the atmosphere was one of celebration and beginning. the start of something.

she felt so full with it all.

and yet.

she eyed the packet of cigarettes in front of him.

he hadn't smoked when they'd known each other.

he would turn to ask her a question, and she couldn't find the man she'd once cared for in his eyes.

she felt as though she was sitting next to a stranger. couldn't equate this person with the man she'd gone on all those dates with, the man she'd had countless daydreams about.

she knew what he was doing. well, she thought she did.

it was protection, this closing off. she understood.

he was perfectly polite. perfectly kind. it had been nice of him to include her. but he was so far away. the three feet between them belied a far greater distance.

had she hurt him? was that was this was?

she was having two experiences at once. she was enjoying her wine, enjoying meeting new people, laughing even. and yet, the person she had come for was changed in a way that she couldn't quite touch.

there was no sense of any history. any past.

and because the man sitting next to her was not the man she had loved she wondered if that man had ever existed. perhaps not.

and just like that, with that one thought, all the memories of the two of them together became memories of her alone. without. how quickly he dissolved from the images her mind paged through on slow, yawning afternoons.

it was then. and only then that she first felt her heart break. and oh how she hated that phrase. heart. break. but there it was.

never had she felt so alone. in the midst of the crowded bar. among friends and new faces she was unspeakably, unutterably alone.

she had loved him. just a little. or started to at least. she hadn't meant to hurt him. certainly not that. but mistakes are made.

so she finished her second glass of wine. kissed him on the cheek. and walked out. alone.

worth.

he was older. dated often. jewish. born and bred in this city of skyscrapers.

i was--well, am--still young. an inexperienced dater (to put it mildly). catholic. from a city situated on bayous.

so many differences.

if i had known these things--if he had known, perhaps it wouldn't have begun.

the age alone made it difficult.

but i liked him before i knew. and when i did know, well, then it became just a number.

i asked him early on if he'd ever been married. ever proposed to anyone. those were the things that seemed important. he said no, asked if i needed to know why not. nope. not important, i said.

later, without prompting, he said, i'm not a settler. and never had more perfect words been spoken. and i loved him for that perfect, unprompted response.

and yet. that became the thing. the thing that nailed me in the end.

it was when i realized i was just another girl not worth settling for that my heart began to break.

perhaps, that's too simplistic. but that's what i felt.

i miss him. and i think about him. more often than i'd care to admit. certainly, more often than i'd care for him to know. but maybe the hardest thing has been coping with the knowledge that for him i just wasn't worth it. which becomes am i worth it? which of course, yes, yes, i know that i am.

but it's never about knowing so much as feeling, is it?

and for a while there i felt...unworthy. mediocre. like the kind of girl you can't bring home to mom.

don't get me wrong, i was not looking to meet mom. i just wanted to feel... i just wanted to feel. i don't know. better than that.

the ego takes a hit. and it's coming back to yourself that takes some time.

but a week ago when american pie came on the radio it stirred the low-country girl in me. and i shimmied around my room chasing the sunlight and laughing at my oddities. and the journey home to self trucked right along.

but it takes some time, this truckin'.

it surely takes some time.

he (chekhov) insisted it (the cherry orchard) was a comedy.

{myself as anya with our lovely varya in chautauqua theatre co's production of the cherry orchard directed by ethan mcsweeny}

i went to look it up the other day.

the scene from the cherry orchard that i can't stop thinking about.

and there it was. page 382 of the plays of anton chekhov (the paul schmidt translation).

it's about ten lines long. takes up half the page.

it looks like nothing, this scene.

and yet, that was the scene that brought me to the wings each night. that was the scene i couldn't bear to miss.

the proposal. or rather the not proposal.

you see lopakhin goes in to propose to varya (who knows he's coming in to propose to her) and yet, it just, doesn't. happen.

but it's so full. the scene is so pregnant with the space around the words. with possibility. promise.

and so i would watch each night. from offstage. knowing how it would end. and yet hoping that maybe this time--maybe this time it might go just a little bit differently. that if varya turns around just a little bit sooner or if the final line comes just a little bit later--that it could all end... better.

i remember saying to the lovely gentleman who played our lopakhin (and who i was just ever so slightly, oh you know, just a little bit, in love with) just this once, actually do it. just this once propose, and let's see what happens.

and yet he didn't. he couldn't. and the emptiness that immediately follows the unimaginable fullness of those ten-or-so lines broke my heart night. after. night.

i've been doing this recently. standing in the wings of my own memories. watching the scenes replay. attempting to find the one variation that might just change it all. and thinking that if i can just get the actor playing yasha to call out for lopakhin a little bit later (or whatever my equivalent of that is) perhaps...

but chekhov was a genius. he knew what he was doing. and so i'm gonna choose now, in this moment, to trust that.

what better time to contemplate love than a friday?

note: {the quote} i first saw this via a couple featured on either once wed or 100 layer cake but now for the life of me i can't remember which one. i am passing it on to you via them and many others. {as for the video} i really just want to share the song (beauty by the shivers)and this was the least distracting video i could find. so turn it up and go about cleaning your room or surfing elsewhere. my roommate amanda just introduced me to it and now i have it on continuous play. i cannot stop. seriously.

somehow this pairing of quote and song just makes sense to me.

love is the ultimate outlaw.

it just won't adhere to any rules.

the most any of us can do is sign

on as its accomplice. instead of vowing

to honor and obey, maybe we should

swear to aid and abet. that would

mean that security is out of the

question. the words make and

stay become inappropriate.

my love for you has no strings

attached. i love you for free.

tom robbins

the kiss.

it had been so long since she kissed someone, she wondered if she had forgotten how.

because surely this was not how it was meant to go.

wasn't one person meant to go for the top lip, the other the bottom?

she couldn't figure out what was happening.

well, okay, she knew what was happening. sort of. she just couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do.

standing right there on 78th and Amsterdam, kissing.

she almost started laughing and gave up. she thought if she just disengaged, turned around, and walked away, she might be spared the embarrassment.

but eventually they figured it out. reached a tentative meeting of minds. and mouths.

she loved that he turned around right there on the corner--as if driven by his own wonder and curiosity. loved that he had to take his glasses off. loved that he was suddenly a boy, transformed by his own excitement.

because never had she felt more beautiful.

and so when it all ended, she would laugh about just how uncomfortable that first kiss was, but choose to remember that moment when he could just no longer wait--that moment when a grown man became a boy. and she began to fall.

i looked for obama. but i suppose he was, oh you know, kinda- busy with some important conference.

i had the most wonderful time spending monday and tuesday in washington d.c.

naomi, josh, and kingsley so kindly welcomed me into their home.

we picnicked in the park, cruised around town in the bug, headed to the docks for live crab, spoke about beliefs, visited the national gallery, carefully dissected cupcakes, (josh even attempted to illuminate the male mind for me).

but mostly naomi and i did what girlfriends do. we talked. at our picnic. in the car. meandering through museums. with mouths full of frosting (me).

and i returned to new york feeling new again.

it's funny that for as long as i've known naomi--as long as i've watched her grow and change and fall in love, and build a life, i am still constantly surprised by the depth of her goodness. because the thing is, it just keeps going.

naomi, josh: thank you for showing me d.c., making me laugh, and for filling me up with such love.

lot's wife

on our first date i wore a navy scalloped skirt. i wore makeup. eye-makeup. concealer, even, which would have been a great comfort to my mother.

and i thought, what am i doing? i was so nervous. but so damn excited.

i entered the restaurant and asked the girl at the front desk if there was a man waiting for anyone. she pointed to the other side of the u-shaped counter in the bar.

i exhaled. audibly.

i had met him only two nights before and while i knew i thought him attractive then, i couldn't remember what he looked like. i feared i wouldn't recognize him. wouldn't be able to pick him out of a crowd.

but there he was. sitting at the bar. and yup, he was cute.

and god i loved how i felt as i walked toward him.

i always loved how i felt walking toward him.

it was the walking away that was hard.

when i called to tell him that i couldn't do it anymore i tried to make it very clear that it was not that i didn't want to. i just couldn't continue in this fashion. and oh how i listened for the moment of hesitation on his side, for the moment that he would fight me. fight for me.

it did not come.

but i had his book. and he had my earring. and such things needed to find their way home.

i offered that he leave it on his stoop and i would carry out the trade. he said such a thing was ridiculous. we could get a drink. be adults about this.

but somehow the drink didn't happen. and because technically it was i who chose to end things, i swallowed this and accepted the short window he provided in which to do essentially what i had suggested in the first place.

i found myself swallowing a lot over the course of our brief courtship. and never failed to be surprised (even in how it ended) by the extent to which he could disappoint me.

my mother told me to let the earring go. to just let it go. ask him to put it in the mail, realize he probably wouldn't and make peace with that.

but the thing was, he had all my secrets. i'd be dammed if he got the earring too.

and so i went. and bumbled there at the bottom of his doorstep for about two minutes.

and then i walked away. and never have i understood the story of lot's wife so well. we look back because we want to know that we're not alone. and oh how i didn't want to be alone. but i didn't. look back, that is. i gathered every remaining shred of self-worth and dignity and walked away without turning around.

(and cried as i did so).

i know i did the best possible thing. the relationship was unequal and unhealthy. he was selfish and i was overzealous. he was not the right guy, and i was not the right girl. and so i walked away. and i didn't look back.

and yet i wished all the while that he'd come up from behind, take my hand, and say let's try just a little bit harder for just a little bit longer.

because for each of his flaws i have my own. i know this.

but he did not.

i lack imagination. in life, i mean. i can't ever imagine things changing. or meeting someone else. and yet i know these things to be certain--more certain than anything else. but my horse-blinders are big, dark and all-encompassing.

perhaps the thing to remember here is that in walking away from him, i am walking toward someone else.

studying strangers.

she was in love with the skin around his eyes.

does that sound strange? it wasn't. it was the most natural thing in the world.

in love with its perfect fragility. its paper-thin translucence.

evidence of something deeply felt and known. evidence of an entire life.

but lying side by side on the floor of the dimly lit living room she looked at that area just around his eyes and wondered if there was not too much life before her--too much life before this moment. a life so full there was just no room.

in the days and weeks and months and years following his disappearance, following the slow withdrawl of his presence, she studied the eyes of many a man she passed. on the street. in a movie theatre. sitting in restaurants. she would get herself into trouble by looking for too long at strangers on the train.

she was fine.

really okay.

but every once in a while she would look up and catch a glimpse of him in a stranger. see those same careless lines leaning in. leading up and around. providing some kind of indiscernible road map.

and it was that that she missed.

that which would undo her.

point to the blog.

i was a little bit in love with him that very first night. standing at the end of the bar, scruffy beard, glasses, leaning in to be heard over the din of the restaurant.

it felt so easy. as if we'd been sitting next to each other at dinner parties for years.

but we hadn't. it was new--and the juxtaposition of the new and old--easy and not--set my stomach aflutter.

i can't remember the details of that first night, only how i felt.

certain things, yes. but for i who remember almost everything, the loss of memory held its own power, it seemed important.

and so i held on to my idea of it--to his deep set eyes, and the gentle brush of his fingers.

i've been trying hard to remember of late. or perhaps, to imagine. just how i felt the first time i saw him. what he thought when i sat down atop the barstool.

because i'm quite sure that whatever he felt that night has long since passed. but the thing is, i'm just ever so slightly--just a little bit--in love with him.

and so i clung to what i thought could have been.

he was busy. this much i know. and i attempted patience. but before long i discovered the line between patience and the pursuit of a man not interested to be small, thin, and unforgiving. and there i was on the unenviable side where pride came into play.

and i am too proud. this much i know. and not patient, but we've covered that.

and yet i'm a little bit in love with him. and how to say that?

and because i couldn't--because i can't, i do silly things like fall apart on the subway.

or in church this morning. or in the cab ride home while my mother listens and my father inquires as to how i can afford said cab. (i can't).

my brother once told me the blog is more interesting when i'm unhappy. i'm the girl who doesn't get the guy and for the sake of the blog i can't be.

well, blog, today you win.

(for the sake of kindness,

and because i want to be

classy about this (and stress

that this is only one piece of

one side of a story) please

refrain from commenting in

any way about the guy.)

thanksgiving

"YOU SAY GRACE BEFORE MEALS.

ALL RIGHT.

BUT I SAY GRACE BEFORE THE CONCERT AND THE OPERA, AND GRACE BEFORE THE PLAY AND PANTOMIME, AND GRACE BEFORE I OPEN A BOOK, AND GRACE BEFORE SKETCHING, PAINTING, SWIMMING, FENCING, BOXING, WALKING, PLAYING, DANCING, AND GRACE BEFORE I DIP THE PEN IN THE INK."

G.K. Chesterson

i am so thankful for all the things i get to say grace before, and all the people who taught me that grace is an act of love.

understanding the bard. and bed. bed, too.

last night i dreamt of a man.

he placed his hands, open palms to my shoulders, equidistant on my back.

and they were clammy.

and this is how i knew he loved me.

and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

and i awoke thinking my world would never be the same. sensuality and shakespeare elucidated by a single dream? ha, a mystical mind have i!

the twist.

i think the boy who runs the corner store might just be in love with me.

he knows i love baseball and has determined (quite injudiciously) that 1. i am beautiful and 2. that these two qualities warrant his affection.

but the thing is--

my soda water (for this is what brings me to the corner store) always bubbles over explosively upon the twist of the cap.

and i can't determine if that is reason enough to marry him on the spot, or never return.

image via sabino.

first love.

i think you can fall in love by yourself.

i did.

once upon a time i loved a boy. a man.

and much as i'm loath to admit it, a part of me will always love him.

but yesterday as i was sitting on a toilet, halfway across the world, with my pants pooled around my ankles and i looked up to see a film advert with his name on it, two thoughts crossed my mind:

1. if only i'd never met him

and

2. the world is much, much too small

roots.

i found this beautiful poem written by la chrysomele reveuse's Dia and just had to share it with you all...

I woke up with a sweet pain in my left arm.

I thought the vernal sun beams mistook their way to the soul,

trying to sneak in.

But when I touched the burning skin

I felt long delicate strands protruding.

Thin strands throbbing in the rhythm of my heart.

Touching them didn't hurt,

but gave me an agonizing feeling of longing.

And I remembered that these last two days

we stood close to each other, our arms touching.

Adventitious roots are growing to reach you.

a feeling i know so well in words i wish i had written.

and on another note: i cannot thank you all enough for your kind words, insightful thoughts, unbelievably touching comments--they mean more then you may ever know. i cherish my memories. i love them all, even the bad ones. and i thank God each day for this because i can't imagine a more agonizing death than simply ceasing to feel. 

photo found here; and they found it on flickr

what if....

what if i hung my feelings like  photos on the wall just to remember 

what if i was a detective and searched my body for fingerprints and traces of your touch

what if i stopped right here, planted my feet, lifted my arms to the sky and grew leaves

what if i was a poem chasing its tail across the page

what if i disappeared into the crowd and swung from palm to palm like Tarzan through the jungle until i found a grasp that wouldn't let go

what if my legs moved on without me and i just stood right here, head over shoulder, waiting for the past to catch up

image fount at FFFFOUND!

by Stefanie Augustine

that's what she said...

"a man has to find a good woman, and when he finds her he has to win her love. then he has to earn her respect. then he has to cherish her trust. and then he has to, like, go on doing that for as long as they live. until they both die. that's what it's all about. that's the most important thing in the world. that's what a man is, yaar. a man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. until you do that, you're not a man."

Well, technically he (Gregory David Roberts) said it in his book, Shantaram. The book is a veritable treasure trove of quotes. But this is the one that stuck with me.

Can you tell I've been thinking a lot about love lately? Must be all those peonies in my love corner.

 And  then, he (husband-to-be) will learn to love my feet. All size ten of 'em.