The Meeting

I was waiting by St. Paul's Cathedral; my ex and I were going to meet up there. I sat by one of the steps as the torrid afternoon slowly turned into dusk .

We met and went on a short ride from Flinders street to the park near the river. I wasn't sure how I felt about him. I didn't feel good about having even to assess this. Surely our love was unshakeable and constant and the one thing that doesn't change? Isn't love unshakeable and constant and the one thing that doesn't change?  He stood there with a small rucksack in his back, exhausted yet smiling. We hugged in silence and pulled him into me and remembered just how it was to know him as a breathing. living. independent being and not an abstract factor in my life. I almost bruised him, I'm sure, so tight was my embrace. I was reaffirming the amorous ordinates that had been obscured. I had been set at sea and I had lost all the familiar landmarks: the in-jokes, the caresses, the buttons to push, the textures, the tongue, the accent, the pet peeves,  the phobias, prejudices, ideas, dreams, memories, regrets, etc. I recognized them, but from afar and with increasing objectivity and thet were in motion. Befuddled, I could not find them... in the dark, wandering around blindly, feeling my way along wall-surfaces to nowhere familiar.

Oh, to have unquestionable faith, like those Yugoslavian pilgrims I read about when Iwas 12(seven years ago, which seems like forever...), they would rise at 6 am every morning and go to some statue, circling it, on their knees, mumbling, constantly unflinching. Yet how can I maintain a faith, a belief, how can I believe in him if my statue changes ever so often? Is love not impossible to one who feels loose to the world and belongs nowhere?

We were now both sitting at one of the park benches. We sat apart and we were facing each other, between us had been a familiar path which was overgrown and we were both on our knees vigorously uprooting the  messy weeds and pulling tufts of grass away, trying to rediscover, uncoverthe definition of the once well-kept path. We held hands and remained in silence just looking out across the Yarra river. Occasionally, a banal question, comment  or observation would come up. The silence was not uncomfortable.  We were busy doing the weeding. The path between us had never been straight so  when it became overgrown,  care had to be taken to uncover the path again and to find a way back to each other.

I realize this now, after almost a year, after we fell apart, that places and people change you; what I am today is an amalgamation of all the things I've done, the places I've been and the people I've met. Eleven months after, we found ourselves overcomed with vegetation, it crawled up our ankles and resisted, thick and stubborn  to our tugs, hunched down, knees greened, hands soiled, fingers chaffed, we looked at each other across all this, unable to find the way back, I couldn't apologize across such a mess. I couldn't explain the chaos. I couldn't even begin to untangle things. Our backs hurt and our fingers ached and we were making no progress. Take a rest: just lie down for five minutes and sleep. When we wake up the grasses will have grown beyond us. I can almost not see him anymore and soon I won't see him at all and I will only have an unstable, deceptive memory to depend on and then what?

It used to hurt to look at his photographs. It used to evoke a lots of self-reproach. But, if I had not moved away, I would not be becoming whatever I am becoming. I don't know what I am becoming but I am becoming. I can feel it. It's beginning to feel right.

I soon put my head on his shoulder and he put his hand on its usual place around the back of my waist. We cuddled chatted and looked forward to future meetings, fixed plans and the angst of the transitoriness of emotions, their fragility, their pureness and vulnerability was quickly forgottten and we lay flowers on our altar and learned again to walk blindfolded.

Comments

[Mighty]

That was awesome!

P.S. Thanks for the Ray LaMontagne tip! I love it.

[Quin]

Aw, don't mention it...