Seven months ago this day, I set out on a journey. I woke to the rising sun, and threw my things into the car to begin my race for the train station. I was as nervous as I have ever been, and checked my phone vigilantly to see the time as I made my way to Boston. The bus creaked and groaned as it crawled through Friday morning traffic, but I made my eight o-clock train on time (and I didn’t even have to run). There is something magical about a train, an airplane without wings which glides low across the countryside. I watched from my window as the sights from a hundred years passed by. At every river I saw the sidings from another era, where goods would be transferred from barge to boxcar, and be coupled to the lifeblood that would move them throughout our homeland. It was a day to live in fantasy, and I let my eyes pass over the rust and decay, instead seeing things for how they once were: alive and thriving. I passed through Fairfield, and a mix of memory and emotion that I had bare understood flooded back. Where was that girl now. Nome, Alaska? What about the others, my friends and countrymen? Some lay ahead, in New York, but many I will never know their names. I texted Rob, my best friend from those days, and let my mind wander outside of the little metal tube still whizzing through the world. There was a beach, as I remember, and we drank Yellowtail wine (sometimes instead a Burgundy or a Côtes du Rhône if the day was special). We were all a little awkward and a little scared, afraid to make a mistake. I wish I could talk to my self from back then; tell me that there are no mistakes, and only opportunities to learn. I remember Hillary driving like a ninety-five year old man, and the night we all drank absinth (stay away from American absinth!). I remembered Billy from the Eighties, and the Memorial Day cookout that was my excuse for taking this trip. I then turned to why I sat in a small metal tube, careening through the landscape at a hundred miles per hour: The Girl from years ago. I met her by accident, a total fluke of established order and principal. A girl the likes of which I had rare met stumbled into my room one day. One that I had fallen completely and totally in love with, not just at first sight, but on every day I woke by her side. She had felt the same way about me, but being afraid to make mistakes we often create tragedies. We broke a heart, I broke her heart, and brought mine cold; a lesson in the nature of love. I wanted to see her more than anything, to know that she was what I knew she could become, and because I was still in love with her (although I didn’t realize this yet). My train entered the tunnels of Manhattan, and I cut my idle thoughts to finishing the trinket I had made for her birthday. It was a talisman of quahog shell and copper wire, special by the fact that my hands have made only three. The first went to a friend, the best to someone that I love and admire, and the third was for The Girl. This particular iteration was a little clumsy, as I had wire of too thick a gauge to make the twists as I wanted, but I made it beautiful. I felt new life as I emerged from the tunnels of New York City, the air about me buzzed with the lives of a million people all about. I didnt trust my knowledge of the subway to get me to the restaurant on time, so I took the most reliable form of travel I know: my feet. I walked the ten blocks through the concrete jungle, and met her at a favorite place. The Girl from years ago was just as I remembered, though not as she had been. We talked for hours as we nibbled at our food, and by the end I was left wanting more. After lunch I wandered in search of a coast, having lived on an island most of my life, and later on I headed north to stay with my friend in CT. I wanted to stay with her that evening, but circumstances pushed me away for night. On Saturday I stayed with her, to fix her stove so that she could make breakfast again, and Sunday I spent my morning with her. I was late to the Met for Sister Weekend, but my heart was swelled and I could not have spent my time more wisely. Dinners, sightseeing, trips to and from New York, I helped her move into a new apartment, and by the solstice we were with one another again. Whereas this journey began with a sunrise to rival the greatest masters of art, today the sun does not rise above the mists. Today this journey is at an end. I am out of love. There were many signs along this path which could have told me where it would end, but the foremost are my words at the beginning: “I see within your eyes the person that I once fell in love with.” It is true that who we are inside never changes, but that does not mean we are always the same person. To fall in love is to examine a being through all the layers of their existence, to come to their core, and to stay there. I was in love with Anny from three years ago, but that person no longer exists. Layer upon layer has been added, and who had once been so easy to love was now someone whom I could not stay with. Our relationship was over by the third month, but only one of us accepted it. I struggled and strived, falling just short of compromising my principals to see us maintain our bond, but there was nothing I could do alone. Strung along and cheated on, I’ve finally exhausted all that love demands of us in its service, and today I can honestly say that I’m doing well. The bonds through which channeled my stress and pain have all but dissolved, and the mists of the morning diffuse the light to let all be seen for how it is. I am glad this journey is at an end, but I will forever cherish that it happened at all. À vie, et amour. -Le Garçon D’Amour
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 12:42:31 +0000
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