A Shining Star

It was a strange day - that day - when I first met her. 

When I woke up, there was a tingling around my heart.  A strange anticipation.  I knew it was going to be a special day.  I just didn't know how.  That heightened the anticipation and increased the tingling till I was breathing in short gasps.  I didn't want to take a big breath; expand my lungs; and somehow get rid of those currents of anticipation wrapped around my heart.  They were fragile in their intensity.  And I was enjoying their effect on me.

I think I hadn't slept well, or maybe I had spent too much time indoors, but it seemed that I was having some sort of allergic reaction to the rampant pollen in the new spring day air.  The sun was too bright and made my eyes water.  I felt like sniffling and clearing my throat every few minutes.  It was like the ice was melting within me and the spring runoff was turning my solids to liquids.  Sniff.  Clear throat.  Pull at the cuff of my sweatshirt and wipe my watery eyes.  Blink.  Breathe.  So many things to hold my attention that I just couldn't be bothered with looking around.

The snow had melted away.  But spring hadn't sprung enough growth to get rid of the winter residue.  The grounds at the park were disgusting.  Mulchy leaves, bird droppings, bunch of litter, discarded cigarette butts, all mingled with the slushy earth and half-dead grass to create a mucky slushy surface.  As I walked on it, each step brought forth the musky scent of an earth struggling against the chokehold of winter grime and calling out to the skies to wash it clean once again with the spring showers.  But there were no clouds in the sky, and the earth would just have to wait.  I squished around enjoying the imperfection of it all.

It was strangely fecund.  Most uncivilized.  That brief natural state before someone called in to complain about the sorry state of the park.  Then the groundskeepers would descend and clean it all out.  Before they sanitized it all, I wanted to experience nature as it had come to be - in that little park - in the middle of that civilized residential neighborhood.  I admired the stalks of previous year’s annuals, all lying dead in a precise row that they were planted.  I envied the fierce weed its brief moment of life before it got pulled out.  I wanted to stroke the opaque body of the squishy earthworm as it wallowed and dug away in its shallow tunnels.  I wanted to scold the bird that carried away the industrious earthworm and made a meal out of it.

So that distant cry of "Heads up!" didn't quite register until the darn frisbee smacked against my forehead and sent me sprawling in the muck.

I have come to believe that the way to a woman's heart is actually through some scar she inflicts on you.  Whether by accident or deliberately, if you can get a woman to somehow cause grievous injury to you, you would have her!  And don't tell me it is guilt.  It is not.  It is definitely not guilt.  Oh, they would pretend to a good guilty emotion.  But they aren't guilty.  If it was guilt, you wouldn't see them again.  Because women actually don't deal well with guilt.  They would shut out anything that makes them feel bad about themselves.  So its not guilt.  It is their own little power play with themselves.  Your role is merely to be the punching bag of their outbursts.  Women are the real perverts in this regard.  For all their pretty little ways, the way into their hearts is actually through blood and gore.

They just want to break you, so they can fix you up again, and then break you once more. 

What followed after she fussed over me and profusely apologized for bringing me down with her Frisbee, is stuff of romantic mushy crap.  And so I'll skip over that part.  Just pick up any girlie book and read the middle chapters.  Or pop in a chick-flick and watch the middle hour.  They are all alike.  They are all the same. 

When I was actually living that middle part with the chemicals firing away in different parts of my body, I would stand on my head and things would still be right side up.  Fuzzy stars burst in thunderous applause at the most inane uttering.  And most trite of emotions become so profound that they can bring me to my knees in gratitude for the experience of it all. 

In hindsight, I am just appalled at the ridiculous picture I made as I stood in smitten awe holding on to her lime green raincoat while she ran circles around me.  At that time, if you would have asked me, I would have been actually suicidal at the prospect that I would never hold a lime green raincoat again.  Damned if I do.  Dead if I don't. 

I wonder when it was that I handed over this sort of power over my own self to someone else.  Someone who couldn't even read the "Fragile. Handle with Care." labels with a picture of a broken martini glass stuck all over me.  I mean, how blind are some people?  How sad it is that those blind people that bump into me and break me, are the ones closest to me.  These are the ones who know all my vulnerable spaces and can cause the maximum harm. 

They can cause fatal harm. 

Meree barbaadiyon key afsaaney
Merey yaaron key naam letey hain

Translation:

All the stories of my devastation

Implicate my closest friends

The degeneration starts off in small ways.  Meet me here.  Let’s do this.  Let’s do that.  I don’t like that friend.  I bought you a shirt.  I hate your jeans.  Let’s go shopping for better clothes.  Don’t say this.  Don’t say that.  Why are you sleeping?  Why can’t you sleep?  How do I look? I don’t like this.  I don’t like that.

It’s freaking all the time about HER!  And I become invisible.  My role is simply to provide all the right background sounds.  Her role is to be center stage and still somehow direct all the action.

What starts off as a series of requests, soon turns into a charter of demands, cast in stone like the commandments (except they are usually more than ten in this case) and I am a sinful criminal should I break any of them.

Before I know it, I am entertaining thoughts I won’t say out loud because she won’t approve.  I realize I’ve turned into a child constantly seeking approval and just not getting enough of it.

All our emotions expressed towards each other are like take-out food.  Ready and delivered in ½ hour or its free.  There is an abundance of it, but it lacks the nutrition for the soul and seems to fit our shrinking budget of apologies that needs to cover all of our expensive mistakes.

Like children, we wait for the miracles.  I wait for those moments to return when I matter too.  She waits for those moments when I care so much about her that I don’t matter anymore.  I wait for her to cook me a sumptuous meal that would satisfy me.  She waits for the moments when I learn to appreciate the crumbs she serves me so she can be motivated to do better.  I push the crumbs around on my plate, hungry for more.  She’s angry because nothing seems to satisfy me.  I am scared that if I run away, then even these crumbs will not be forthcoming.  She is scared that if she runs away, then I may not go looking for her.  Like a lonely child, I seek refuge in my imagination until the miracles come through.  She looks at me and sees a lying child - a reflection of her own inner self that she hates.

Still like two lost children – we hang in there holding onto the familiar – hoping to grow up and miraculously be happy.

One day I quit my senseless wait for miracles.  I look around and create my own miracles.  I open the fridge of our mind, remove all the old stale thoughts that are well past their expiry date and throw them out.  We go shopping and get new ingredients for a meal to cook together.  We start our experimentation.  Some days turn out good, others not so good.  We eat what we want, throw away what didn’t turn out good.  Some days we go hungry in our frustration and anger.

Then we accidentally discover the divine chef within – one who teaches us more.  We learn and grow our culinary skills.  There comes that point when we finally learn the importance of balance and timing.  We eventually learn to simmer it to perfection.  To taste with love and savor with joy.  We learn the fine art of living and loving.

Something I could not have learned with a self-absorbed star of her own show.  I could only have learned this fine art through someone who actually saw me for *me* and not an extension of her fantasy.  That person could only be me.  I was silly to expect it to be her.  She really couldn’t see me, if I was hiding me so well – even from myself.

And then the final piece falls into place.  Those who are capable of great passion will attempt to deflect with fantasy.  Because reality is that magical place where we can go any time with our eyes wide open in joyful anticipation, for we really don’t know, what will show up.  Truth is stranger and more powerful than any fiction we can dream up.  But it is also more dangerous in invoking our passion in uncontrollable ways.

I am thankful she didn’t call me on my lies then.  She is thankful I stopped waiting for impossible miracles.  I am thankful that we can still play like children.  She is thankful for never having to grow up.

We learn to not whine for what isn’t.  For what is, is enough.  More than enough, it is perfect for us in ways that we couldn’t even imagine.

That’s when we fall in love.  For real.  And I don’t mind holding her lime green raincoat anymore.  Occasionally, I even run circles around her.  But mostly, that’s still her role.  For I’m the eternal observer and she’s the eternal performer. 

I am the cloud with a silver lining.  She’s a star shining bright. 

*Note: This is a fictional story that started off as a rejoinder tale to be written from *his* perspective as a reply to blogs started by Dagny in the “Hriday tod de” series – and then it just sort of got away from me and morphed into its own self.  I dunno if it has any point of context left with Dagny's series of blogs at all.