"Only a fool stares at a finger pointing to the sky." Amelie
This evening, I went out with some friends. We had coffee and walked through a park, stopping to swing like elementary kids. I haven't swung in years, but in a pre-gloaming hour I flew. I closed my eyes and opened them at disjointed moments and the world was like a flipbook thumbed too slowly. Feet. Grass. Sky. Cloud. Skyscraper. Eventually I became dizzy and had to land. My friends had stopped swinging minutes before me. There was four of us--Scott, Chris, Shawn, and me. Strangely, I feel more comfortable around them than I do most of my women friends. Perhaps it's because when I was with them this evening, I felt the stage beneath my feet, and I knew that I was performing, but in a way that wasn't unhealthy. It's a familiar role--I made them laugh. I was me with ten labels. A familiar facade is easy--the roles more defined. We tired of the park and went our separate ways--Chris and Shawn left for the dam, and Scott and I meandered to a local pub for dinner.
I've been communicating with this woman online. I know her name. The sound of her voice. Her visage is as mutable as the wind's direction. I've attempted, a couple times to imagine what she must look like while she's talking with me on the telephone. But I always come face-to-face with my mind's image of myself--small, vulnerable, and shy, though I'm not small nor vulnerable, so she might not be, either. Last night we were talking on the phone, and she fell asleep in the curve of my story somewhere between the climax and the denouement. I said her name once, twice, and then a third time. Silence. I panicked. Did I say something wrong? Did I bore her? Was she alright? I had decided to hangup, but I said her name one last time, pleadingly. And out of the silence, the darkness, and the horrible feeling in my stomach that something was wrong, she struggled into consciousness. She was ashamed and embarrassed. Through nervous laughter, after trying to convince me that her falling into unconsciousness was a compliment, she said, "I'm here, blushing in the dark." My mind grabbed hold and refused to yield that comment, because for the first time, Melissa's physicalness became real. Melissa is to me a blush in the dark.
Scott and I sat against the very back wall. The darkness of the pub contrasted so greatly with the brightness from the evening sun that everyone, except the tables closest to us, was cast in silhouette--moving profiles. It washed over me then like water across linoleum: Melissa could be at the table beside us, or she could be one of the moving charcoal figures against the evening sun. And I began to search the faces and outlined figures for a woman I've never met or seen an image of except for an imagined blush. Would I recognize her? Would she recognize me? Have we already passed each other a dozen times and not known it?
I don't know what I feel for this faceless, soulful woman, but to say that I feel nothing at all would be like saying that while swinging I didn't flashback to an asphalt playground full of past schoolmates. On the other hand, to attempt to name the feelings I do feel would be like looking at a photo of another's childhood playground and naming the children as if I truly do recall their names.
I can no longer write the story before I live it. And all I know of Melissa is that right now she is in this city working in a bakery on a lamp-lighted street. She might be tired and counting the minutes until she can go home and sleep, or she might be vibrant and looking, this very moment, at a minute detail of the world that most people would overlook. It's also possible that, while leaning against a metal-baking table, she could have fallen asleep over her textbook while studying for class, but that is her story to tell.