Decalcification

A pair of tassels gently sway at the open window. The air is warm and moves about lazily. Because I had earlier burned some palo santo, my apartment smells strongly of the wood's distinct, ceremonious aroma. To soften the scent I opened the door to the balcony, in addition to the window in my bedroom, and the large, central window of the living room, so that fresh air poured in while the sound of sunny, soulful music from my speakers poured out. Soon friends will arrive, and no longer will I have the time to sit idly and enjoy the lazy richness of the day's unfolding.

Last night, after my friend James' performance at a local cafe, we went out with two other musicians who had shared the stage with him. One of them, named Petra, tall and slavic, had a jubilant disposition that was as contagious as it was charming. Her friend, Elaine, had been born in Ireland and then promptly moved to Canada before she could acquire the accent. She was shorter, dark-haired, and had worried blue eyes. Her voice, easily the most striking of the evening, had a pained quality to it which flared as she applied a delicate vibrato to a mournful song about the encroaching darkness. She and I walked the four blocks to her car before we drove to Upper Haight to park at James'. We spoke about music and art and the importance of creative expression. She told me she'd just moved here, back in June, and hadn't spent much time in San Francisco, save for the odd, late-night taco after a gig. Soon we arrived at James' where I dropped off my camera and tripod before the four of us walked to a bar on Haight Street where we'd talk until the wee hours of the morning.

At some point the conversation took a spiritual turn and we discussed the need for deeper awareness, empathy, the confronting of fears, growth. Petra told us of two experiences she'd had in South America, in the rain forests, on ayahuasca. So much is shown to you, she said, that it takes one, two, maybe even three years to fully process all that's revealed. The day after the trip, she said, you feel something unlike anything you have ever felt before; there is no hangover, no bad feelings, only a swelling sense of openness and love.

Her journey, as I understood it, had been a softening one, and her story served as a reminder to me that we should always seek to remain mindful of the world's way of hardening us - and how we should try to stay soft, no matter how hard.

La Ultima

Early summer. It was the last time I'd seen her. During this time of year the weather in San Francisco is generally pretty temperamental. Some days are gloriously warm, perfectly cloudless and calm, while others, marked by an unrelenting cast of grey, are chilly and dull and full of cold wind blown in from the pacific. At the western side of the city, the cold air, once it reaches the shore at Ocean Beach, picks up speed and travels east, carrying with it a gusting breeze that turns wrathful as it tears down Market Street in frigid streams. In San Francisco the sun makes all the difference. Many places in the American northwest are this way; Seattle and Portland to name a few. This day in June happened to be sunny, and unusually warm when I found myself freshly returned from a camping trip up north, in Sonoma. My friends and I spent the weekend in an idyllic green campground, hiking during the day, singing solemn songs to celebrate the sunset, and sleeping beside a chorus of bullfrogs at night. On the evening we checked in we had a lengthy discussion about the absurd nature of life, and why we go on grasping with a fierce desperation at meaning, when, at least ostensibly, the only thing to be found is meaninglessness. And as we wrestled with Camus, Viktor Frankl, the Existentialists, Nihilists and Humanists alike before contemplatively returning to our respective tents, we didn't get any closer to an answer. 

Driving back to San Francisco we'd seen a man struck and killed on a motorcycle. We arrived, my friend James and I, inching forward at a snail's pace, amid a flurry of ambulance sirens. Two police-cars had formed a blockade on either side of the accident, concealing as best they could the man who lie on the ground between the fallen motorcycle and badly dented car. To our right, having exited their crumpled vehicle and relocated to an uncomfortable seated position on the curb, were a white-haired couple who held one another and tried, no matter how hopelessly, to offer tearful consolations. From between the cars I saw the legs of the recently deceased, whom, with his back against the pavement and with one leg twisted at a cartoonish ninety degree angle, was being draped in a white blanket by two police officers. All I could think about, for a long while, was the body and the bit of blood glistening on the asphalt. What terrible melancholy I felt tunneling through my veins. How awfully my whole being shuddered at the thought of the man's crooked leg jutting out from the white sheet while sunny blue skies shined down on the now cooling body. My nerves were especially sensitive after two near-sleepless nights in a tent, and everything seemed suddenly more vibrant; the sun reflecting off the road; the hot air circulating through the car; the smudges on the windshield; James' silence; the eerie multiplicity of those never-ending rows of vineyards and, passing in equal intervals, the empty spaces between them. Overhead a large hawk cut the air in a slow spiral. "Makes you think," James said, "it could have been us."

Back home, and freshly showered, my appetite had finally returned to me. As I walked down the street, taking in everything around me with renewed gratitude, the city seemed to bristle with happy enthusiasm and, even though I knew it was impossible, I couldn't help but think it might have had something to do with witnessing the accident. People smiled brightly as they passed, cars with their windows rolled down drove by playing sunny songs, and the bars, packed full of patrons drinking glasses of golden liquid light, were glad to offer free shade. A small, three-legged dog, wearing an unnecessary knitted shirt and blue booties, awkwardly hopped down from a doorstep and waddled eagerly towards a tree, excited to unleash a spray of urine that would mark its territory, when, all of a sudden, a girl of twelve or thirteen, wearing a pink tutu and authoritatively brandishing a bubble-wand emerged from the doorway imploring the dog to cease and desist; "Charles, not on that tree!" Crudely adhered to the tree was a sign that read, please don't let your dog pee on the plants. The dog, uncertain, hesitating a moment as the girl charged him, managed to squirt out a thin yellow spritz before being shooed away. Nearby, on the sunny parklet in front of a local coffeehouse famous for serving outlandishly priced avocado toast, a waitress was collecting cups and wiping down tables. Women in sunglasses, walking by wearing black yoga pants and SF Giants baseball caps, talked idly of an absentee mutual acquaintance's poorly chosen summer apparel and how badly it looked on her.  

Crossing my path while stuffing a receipt into her tan leather bag, a blond girl, tall, with long slender legs and wearing a clay-colored shawl hanging loosely from her shoulder, came out through the door of a corner convenience store. Her hasty exit nearly caused me to crash into her. She looked up, and due to the angle of her head hanging down, with her neck craned toward the contents of her bag, her blue sunglasses had slid slightly down, allowing me to catch a flash of her brilliant green eyes. Our interaction had been short and conciliatory, consisting only of a smile and an apology, but as I entered the adjoining cafe to have lunch, I couldn't get her off my mind. Only after I had ordered a sandwich and sat down did I realize why. She bore a strange resemblance to Holly. Even the shawl she wore seemed the same cut and color as one Holly had purchased while vacationing one autumn in Portland. The association wasn't purely physical; Holly didn't have green eyes; but I detected some shared disposition, a sense of aloofness, a blank expression conveying that veiled childlike defensiveness which so typified her demeanor during our time together. 

It had been months since we'd broken up, but presently, we were stuck in that burgeoning, anti-amatory, growing-apart phase of our love. We oscillated between bouts of rapid communication and heavy silences, only seeing each other infrequently, usually at night, and only after she'd been drinking. Tender three-word messages would spring up on my phone in ambush, like late-night tripwire. I don't know what hurt more — receiving them, or not replying. Ours was a whirlwind relationship, a tornado of passion which, once it had ended, twisting and skidding maddeningly over the horizon, left us slack-jawed, standing with dusty faces powdered white with terror at the devastation; shaken yet grateful for the clearing skies. Early on I'd ignored the signs of warning, overlooking her faults and appealing instead to the sentiment encased in a timeless Hemingway line: I thought she was probably a little crazy. It was all right if she was. I did not care what I was getting into. 

When we'd first met, on a cool mid-September night in Lower Haight, instantly I saw in her a kind of kindred sensibility. “Sorry I’m late,” I began to say, noticing for the first time her big, serious eyes which, when paired with her hard Norwegian brow and braided blond hair, gave her pouty lower lip and high round cheeks a lovely compliment. She stood in front of a restaurant where we’d planned to go for a drink, but when I arrived we were greeted by a crowded bar and a waiting list. Having no interest in spending our time standing outside, I suggested we relocate to a nearby bar, on Page Street. As she spoke, certain character traits began to emerge; she was curious, playful, and evidenced by her persistent questioning, struck me as smart and strong-headed. She relayed a story from earlier that day, of having accused her best friend of drinking too much water. An odd criticism, I thought, not recognizing it as an early indicator of her ornery nature. Initially, when she would ask pointed questions and challenge even the most basic of assumptions, I found it not abrasive, but rather charming, impressed by her pursuit of truth even at the cost of comfort and grateful for how conducive it had been to conversation. After a few drinks I suggested we change venues to an art bar known for its live music. Holly agreed and we walked the two blocks to the bar. On the way the air was cool and pleasant, gently blustery in that forgiving, 'San Francisco in September' sort of way, and even though it hadn't been made obvious by any single occurrence or gesture, the sum of the night's sentiments seemed encouragingly permissive, unlocking potential with every sentence, step, smile.  

"We'll go," she said, "after one more song," but when after fifteen minutes of continued dancing I leaned in and kissed her, Holly, in a gesture I still cannot understand, turned and ran out the door without saying a word. A man beside me, having seen the kiss and subsequent bloom of confusion on my face, shrugged in gentle commiseration. Glancing back at the vacant exit, suddenly her blond head popped into the doorway, and carrying with it an expression as puzzled as my own, she smiled and motioned with her hands for me to follow. "I thought you heard me," she started, assuming that soft air of infallibility I would come to know so well, claiming she'd very clearly said let's go, I just hadn't heard her. How familiar I would become, in time, with her numerous quirks and oddly enigmatic behaviors, those manic compulsions and intricate sensitivities that would come to liberate her from the oppressive confines of accountability and reason. Why, then, knowing this to be true, did part of me wish to contact her? Despite everything, I still loved her. And sure, the last time we'd spoken had gone poorly, the two of us severing contact in a way that left things feeling sour and unresolved, but there was something else. A nagging thought, one which had burrowed into my mind after the earlier highway fatality, regarding the three-ring circus of life, love, and mortality - particularly the tenuousness of life, the foolish, hopeful insistence of love, and the linear, terminal nature of human mortality. All of it had me wanting to smooth things over. So, leaving the cafe after lunch, I resolved to reach out. I sent her a text and we arranged to meet at her apartment.

Outside it was just as perfect as before. The trees fluttered gently in the sunny breeze. Dogs on leashes trotted by happily while their owners allowed them to indulge in nosey investigations at a nearby fire hydrant and, endorsed by the soft optimism of blue skies, toddlers in strollers cawed like crows at a spreading warmth which walked itself across hot cement and glinted off the polished hoods of freshly washed cars. Crossing the street I noticed a homeless man with a cardboard sign begging for change. His sign read, anything helps, except nothing, nothing hurts. Clearly a recovering Nihilist, I offered my condolences in the form of a few spare one-dollar bills, saving the remainder for a drink at the local market on the next block. It would only take a few minutes to get to her apartment from the market, and as I walked, deliberating, thinking about what I wanted to say, memories began to rain down on me while the crosswalk sign flashed. I remembered our first Halloween together, having just passed a bar we’d arrived at late that night after attending a bloody, bawdy theater performance, each of us dressed in animal onesies, drunk and laughing, touching, kissing, eager to tear our costumes off; which we would, once we got back to my apartment. Having seated ourselves at the edge of a table closest to the street, we had been drinking frozen cocktails which were as fruity as they were boozy, when a female photographer asked to take our picture and instructed us to climb into the on-premises prop coffin before snapping our photo. [Only in hindsight does the macabre symbolism of the gesture reveal its cruel hand.] The morning after, when I’d woken up and found her sleeping peacefully in bed beside me, I noticed something about her, especially around the eyes; a quiet intensity looming just beneath the surface. They were smart and sharp and, in a certain light, threatening. But now those eyes, sleeping, closed, hidden under the dark feathers of her lashes, moved softly and surveyed a dreamworld I hoped I was a part of. I recall smiling contentedly, not just at her inscrutable beauty, or the myriad mysteries of her dreaming mind, but at how we’d taken the metaphor of Halloween and inverted it, producing instead of disguise, a literal and genuine unmasking. 

A rather obese man, mumbling and huffing irritatedly to himself, emerged from my right side and forcibly alerted me with his mass and acceleration that the walk sign had changed to green. Once I started moving I realized I had been standing directly in front of the bar where Holly and I had our first runaway kiss. I reflected on the peculiarity of places, and how they have the tendency to take on a stature far larger than what can be perceived of as merely physical; memory imbues them with substance, existing at once objectively - in this case, as a bar - but also as an infinitely complex mosaic of subjectivities; our first date; that bar with the poor service; the place where I lost my credit card; where the DJ's spin Motown records. Now, only a block from her apartment, space quickly took on a new dimension, one fraught with worry, characterized by a pervasive sense of uncertainty. 

Where once the walk had elicited feelings of excitement, the happy recognition that I was soon to see the one I loved, now it brought only a feeling of aporetic doom. I wondered where our love had gone. Where did that soft, immeasurably charming, caring girl who cried with happiness when I asked her to be mine disappear to? The girl who, knowing my weakness for pumpkin pie, after Thanksgiving dinner had left her family and taken an hour-long train ride to my apartment just to give me a piece of the pie she'd baked. The one who, at times, especially after intimate lovemaking or a tender embrace, would weep with deep satisfaction at the closeness we shared. One night, we were out at dinner, at a restaurant in the Mission called Flour + Water. It was a trendy, Italian restaurant, and we were seated at the bar. The lights were dim, causing all the glass and metal surfaces to twinkle and shine in a soothing sort of way. She looked gorgeous, as she often did, her long blond hair hanging loosely over her black shirt as she leaned towards me, as if about to say something. But then, she didn't. 

"What's wrong," I asked. 

"It's nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she said, looking a little troubled. 

"It seems like something's wrong," I started after some silence, "but I don't want to push you to talk about it, unless you want to," I added, feeling more curious about what was on her mind.

"Yeah. No. It's silly," Holly said, laughing a little and taking a drink of her wine. 

More silence. 

"It's just that...you're going to think I'm crazy."

"No, I won't. I want you to feel comfortable telling me anything," I said, now worried about what she might say. Was there someone else? Was she pregnant? Had I done something?

"Okay," she said as her eyes began to well with tears, "I was looking at you, and for some reason I imagined you really old, and wrinkly, and it just mad me feel so sad."

Relieved, and overcome with warm emotion, I reached out to touch her as she reached out to touch my face. I hated to see her cry. Few things bothered me more. I disliked the helpless feeling of having been unable to prevent or dismiss her distress. Her admission was tender and sweet and I didn't know how to reply. 

"I just love you so much," Holly told me, composing herself, "and to think of you getting old makes me sad, and happy - because I can be old with you and take care of you. It's a weird feeling. I can't describe it."

Presently, I watched as she exited through the metal gate which stood between her and her front door. Wearing sunglasses, jeans, and what looked like a new, light-colored leather jacket, she waited for me to approach. I greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, one that, for some reason, seemed to produce a brief flutter of confusion on her face. It had then promptly disappeared before I could address it. Only later, while sitting in Duboce Park, would she ask with muddled irritation why I'd done it.

“So," I said, "I'm thinking we could go to Duboce instead of Alamo. It’ll be less windy.” 

“Sure,” she said, before noticing the drink in my hand. “Ah, I can’t drink kombucha anymore; I just stick with beer now.” 

“I see you’re doing well, then,” I said jokingly, and proceeded to tell her I haven’t been drinking much lately.

“I’ve been drinking a lot. I was out Thursday, on Friday I was out until 8:00AM, and I went to a show last night; feeling pretty slow today.” 

We moved on, talking idly of unserious things. Something about our recent interactions had left me feeling not like her long-time lover, but instead, more of an estranged acquaintance. Flirtation, levity, and a playful dismissiveness had replaced our previous good charity. Having traveled the world with her, I’d grown fluent in her subtexts and could sense, no matter how hard she tried to hide it, that she was hurting. In her speech were barbs of resentment, sometimes subtle and other times overt, which would spring up in little acerbic bubbles and burst. "I should see you more often," she said, sarcastically, "it's great; it makes me wonder why I missed you in the first place." 

Sitting beside her in the grass, we looked out and watched a pack of dogs play fetch and chase each other around contentedly until their owners called for order. Despite her proud, phlegmatic body language, I could see her eyes were damp with bitter sorrow. A memory flashed, of a time spent together on Baker Beach. A heavy fog, which had been set low in the sky, caught fire from the soon to be setting sun. We glided through the misty whiteness, floating like phantoms, laughing, whispering and brushing against each other's arms as the air, which seemed full with drops of suspended rain, painted the beach in an eerie, pointillated fog. The sun reflected softly against the water as silhouetted children chased a wet dog into crashing waves. Shadowy seagulls pursued the outline of a jogging woman while thin curls of foam frosted the shore. Far away hills seemed as flat and white as paper. Thick sheets of haze had been burning up from the top of a wrinkled ocean as the sky grew precipitously more chalky. Sand by the shore looked like spilled sugar, and the air around us, ghostly and glimmering, had the look of damp, dew-dusted cotton. We talked and laughed and kissed and nothing else in the world mattered. Sand got into our mouths and we kissed with crunchy, exfoliated lips. I said something inane and she called me an idiot and I wanted to kiss her again. Her eyes were wet with laughter then. Staring at the sky, we interpreted rows of raked clouds until a great and hissing sea swallowed the sun.

“You seem upset,” I said, back in the green brightness of the park.

“No, I’m fine,” she replied. 

But she wasn’t. It was usually that way with her. The details of Holly’s emotional state had to be extracted with great care, taking caution not to overwhelm her sense of volition, or else she’d be liable to suddenly shut down or lash out, often accusing me of forcing her to talk; as though I were some sort of interrogator demanding under duress information on the vagaries of her feelings. Her love had been like this too. I'd discover the skittish, birdlike nature of her affections; how the slightest movement or response to her approach, which was always slow and gradual, would invariably send her flapping away to a safe distance, where, after a moment's contemplation, and having seen the bread in my outstretched hand, she'd make her hesitant return. So fearful was she of being placed in a cage, that she met with open rebellion and contempt any attempt to draw her nearer to me. Perplexing as it was, seeing how I only set out to offer her warmth, kindness and heartfelt devotion, still, I persisted. In time, having grown accustomed to my good intentions, she began to trust me. Her anxious apprehensions never did completely fade though, and lingering on as strained micro-aggressions and perceived slights and indiscretions where there were none, they kept a distance between us that I never could quite close. 

I’d met with her to try that day, perhaps foolishly, to put in place a set of boundaries, which, in those times of uncertainty, could be referred to as a rough code of conduct; no more late night texts, no more sleeping together, no more flirting with the idea of a possible reunion. Anything that would blur this newly established platonic line between us was to be avoided. "I don't think it's healthy or helpful for us to continue interacting this way," I told her. She at first replied only with her body; a subtle wrinkling of the nose, a quick touch of the neck and turning away of the head, an uncomfortable shift of her shoulders. "Unless I'm mistaken," I continued, "I don't think there's a mutual interest in trying to repair things and make it work, right?" 

"Right," she said. 

Everything she'd communicated up until this point, at least verbally, had been opposed to the slightest hint of reconciliation. Secretly, and against my best interests, I'd somehow hoped her response would be different, that she might lay her cards down and candidly tell me she was feeling conflicted, that she really did want to give it one last try. How often I’d fallen prey to wishful thinking with her. It reminded me, in many ways, of the relationship I'd had with my father, and how he’d come to teach me, in painful detail, about the unreliable, fickle nature of love and human kindness. I’d chased her like I chased him, almost helplessly, hopelessly, always feeling like I was probably making a mistake, that I’d only get let down again, but wanting, no, needing so much to be proven wrong that I had little choice in the matter. From a young age it had been clear that I had been blessed with the colorful misfortune of a Romantic soul, and so each time I’d storm the castle and each time I’d be shot down, taking on a tragically Sisyphean aspect which, instead of acting as a deterrent, seemed to embolden my efforts; what greater show of heroism and valor than to face an insuperable adversary armed only with the knowledge of certain defeat? But repetition teaches a cold lesson. What had been courageous the first ten times quickly turned quixotic and then sad before becoming idiotic. I’d pursued her across the globe; from San Francisco to Mexico, under the dancing purple green auroras in Iceland, through the hazy, smoke-filled bars of Berlin, over the cobblestone streets of a grey and raining Dublin and around an ice-covered Vancouver, only finally letting go in the dense urban metropolis of Tokyo. We had broken up days before we were to leave for Asia, but we still managed, despite extreme emotional volatility and a high likelihood for disaster, to work as a high-functioning team. Perhaps because we had overcome the confusion, the helpless flailing, the collusive ugliness and corrosive grasping at salvaging our failing love, we'd been unexpectedly set free. Ironically, it was the time we loved each other best, without urgency or concern, when we were both most aware of and grateful for our chance capacity to work together. We'd be challenged by love in other ways, as is always the case, but in that twinkling, sleepless, technicolor city it didn't matter: we were all we had.

But, back in San Francisco, I would chase her no more. I think that’s what bothered her most. How pained and powerless it must have felt to know a disciple was no longer devoted. Maybe that’s why she cried in the park that day, why, instead of telling me how she felt about what I'd said, she just replied, “I don’t appreciate you telling me what to do. It’s weird. I only texted you twice. It’s like you’re trying to control me. I can text you if I want to; you don’t have to reply.” [Consider for a moment, reversing our genders in this conversation. Imagine a man telling a woman who had left him that he was going to continue calling her, and if she didn’t like it she didn’t have to answer.] But I understood: Holly perceived the breakup as a rejection not of the way we'd been treating one another, or of the way we'd stopped protecting each another, but of her. She was hurting and didn’t know what else to say. That might be why she’d tried, before and after that conversation, to bait me into petty fights and quarrels - because it’s easier to villainize than it is to acclimatize. For some, there is no difference. 

A memory came to me, as I walked away, of the day we'd arrived in Ireland. Wretchedly hungover from a late night out in Berlin, we'd braved the overbearing scrutiny of a militaristic German airport and landed in Dublin, where we descended into a massive, blowout fight which had almost undone us. About the specifics of the incident, I can not recall - as is often the case in hindsight - but one can assume it had something to do with human egos vying for safety and control, eventually devolving into a tangled knot of pettiness and fear which rendered us nasty, brutish and mean. It was the last night of the trip before we were to return to America, so we'd tried, begrudgingly, to sort out our differences and make the best of things. But the bear-trap maw of mutual injustice clung to us with a grizzly tenacity, and no matter how hard we struggled to pry ourselves loose, we were hopelessly stuck. We went out to dinner and tried but failed to get along. Leaving the restaurant, completely wiped out with exhaustion, we wandered in aimless silence around a narrow market full of stores selling souvenirs and those useless knickknacks only old ladies and children want to buy. Holly wanted coffee so we walked into a small cafe. It offered a humble assortment of ice creams, in addition to coffee and tea, and it was run by a stout Russian woman with a thick accent. We sat at the table, unsure of what to say to one another. Whatever we tried had gone wrong. She sat wiping her swollen, puffy eyes and cried into a brown napkin.

"I realized something," she said.

"What's that?"

"I must not be good at taking care of another person; at making sure their needs are getting met. I've just never been good at it."

Now, alone, walking home from the park, I wondered if she'd been right that day. I wondered why love never seems to last; maybe everything has to die and it's just that simple; maybe deep down love is just another form of hope, that things will turn out right, that everything really is okay; maybe it's been a conjured illusion all along, something we use to get us through the day; the acceptable, adult version of heaven; the idea that if we're good we'll be rewarded with the unfettered affections of another; perhaps because of those well-concealed insecurities which we try so hard to keep hidden from the world, we find ourselves in need of constant worship, of praise and validation, the recognition of our virtues, so that we might have verifiable proof of worth, eye-witness testimony as a testament to our greatness; maybe we just want someone who adores us to remember us when we're gone; a sort of short-term immortality; maybe love fails because we secretly want to destroy those who adore us because we truly detest ourselves; maybe we don't love, we just channel it - dirty mirrors reflecting love like sunlight - the light isn't ever ours to give; maybe we're all well-intentioned and imperfect, and because of this our love is too.

It was strange, when I first met her, after we'd been together for some months, I truly believed, based on qualities I'd seen in her and things which had been said and shared, that she might be the one I would spend the rest of my life with. We would be out somewhere, at dinner, or in the park, or sitting in bed at night, and all the world around me would melt away, leaving only her shining eyes staring back at me; eyes which, I thought, had acquired the same sort of uncluttered clarity as my own. We'd gone away one weekend, to camp at a hotsprings in Nevada City. The weather was warm and sunny, and we walked from the car to set up our tent in the woods. Holly was handy, handier than me most of the time. With her crafty company we effortlessly set up the tent and smuggled in some wine and beer, even at the cost of potentially attracting a bear. There had been signs prohibiting alcohol on the property. 

"Maybe this is a bad idea" I said.

"It's fine," Holly said. 

"Yeah, you're right. We'll just make sure we finish the bottle, so there's none left over. Bears can't smell wine in your stomach...I hope."

We stripped off our clothes and went wandering through the forest like naked nymphs until we climbed up a large, paved pathway where we found a private pool reserved for couples. It only took us a moment to perform the requisite shower and then I sank languidly into the water. As I watched Holly approach I couldn’t help but smile. She was gorgeous and radiant and glistening and eager to get into the warm water with me. The sun, shining behind her, lent an angelic softness to her figure as she lowered herself into the bath. Heat rushed in uneven ribbons over my skin where invisible currents stalked the tub like snakes. The tranquil sound of trickling water lent a gentle, intimate layer to our nakedness as it whispered above whatever words were spoken to conceal them entirely from any ears that might be nearby. No one was, though, and the only thing to be heard over the water was the occasional bird, or the soft rustling of wind through the trees. The thin screen door sometimes slapped like a wooden metronome against the frame if a quick breeze would come and, the breeze, before making its way to the water, would displace steam in a cool swirl before collapsing onto the surface of the pool. Holly touched me under the water and soon her subdued moans turned to breathy sighs. The slightest sound would cause me to look toward the door, afraid and half-expectant to see the reproachful glare of another guest looking down at our indecent intimacy with disgust, but that moment never came. Instead we held onto one other, pulling ourselves closer with every breath, thinking that maybe with enough force and intention we might bring together whatever was hidden under our skin and beating behind the bones in our ribs to touch. And as she wrapped herself around me and nestled her face into my chest, I couldn't tell that she was crying. Only later would Holly say, "before, in the baths, that was the closest to you I've ever felt - I cried."

Things felt right when we were together, despite our flaws. Her smile was contagious and charming and she had a certain funny way about her that often left me feeling amused and happy. Recently, while going through my phone, I found photos and videos I’d taken of her; a montage of meaningless moments captured during our time together. I smiled as I relived the memory of her dressed in a red gnome's cap and my pajamas and t-shirt while we walked down the stairs of my apartment on a quiet December morning. Other videos, of lying in bed and playfully annoying her by shining a light in her eyes, or catching her singing a song or making silly noises before she demanded I stop and delete the video. All of it contributed to a wistful blaze of nostalgia which left me wanting nothing more than to feel her skin against mine. What a whirl of bittersweet sensation it caused to think of her. I missed her so strongly, needed her so desperately, that, in that moment, I nearly believed myself capable of overcoming all of the emotional turbulence just to be with her again. None of it seemed to matter, because she was the one I loved, and if loving her involved some degree of suffering, well, I cared for her enough to endure it. I’ve never known a relationship to exist, especially a romantic one, that didn’t entail some heartache. Only the naive and inexperienced think of love as something purely pleasurable. Love, the seasoned heart comes to understand, once it has been sufficiently wounded, surviving the cataclysm of Cupid's arrow by huddling in dark isolation and subsisting off the fumes of love's memory, is responsible for much pain and ennui. 

I began to ruminate on my role in all of this. Despite the ironclad belief that I was the hero of my own story, I knew I was no angel, and that innocence, when it is used as a shield, is the enemy of empathy. On several occasions I'd said hurtful things to her that I shouldn't have. I knew my words had cut her deeply because of the pain I'd seen on her face. It is something which still shames me. I had been too protective, too worried about losing her. This made me mad with jealousy, fueling feelings of neglect, suspicion and doubt, and predictably, this got the better of me. During the latter part of our relationship, at night, when we would lie in bed and Holly would fall asleep, I would imagine the manifold ways our love might unfasten itself, and my heart, beating in small tremors as sleep took its time to reach me, ached with a considerable and inconsolable loneliness that served only to hasten the very thing I feared. Nightmarish thoughts of losing her, of being denied the joy of having her in my life, and of being without the infinitely precious thing we shared, filled me with terrible dread and foreboding. So desperately I wanted to reach over to her and somehow preserve the moment in amber, keeping us alive and in love, nuzzled up comfortably against one another under warm covers, that I contemplated waking her and telling her how I never wanted to let her go. I never did, though. Doing so wouldn’t have changed anything. In time, I grew distrustful of her. Her love, to me, suddenly seemed flimsy and insubstantial, lacking the comforting strength I felt in my love for her, and instead of providing the conspiratorial complicity necessary for love, it struck me as having all the conviction of a limp handshake. I stopped seeing her as an ally and, as she was transformed into an adversary intent on undermining and betraying my affections (which she inevitably did, and even blamed me for it), it became harder and harder to believe she truly cared for me. So I began treating her not as a lover, but as a threat. My ultimate goal shifted from loving her to disarming her, to preempting her, to uncovering her plan and protecting myself from whatever malicious scheme she was hatching. Defensiveness has no place in matters of the heart. Of this we were both guilty.

Holly disliked my prying eyes. I saw her nakedly and this troubled her, for no one wishes to be seen - especially in the eyes of a lover - as reducible to a plainly stated observation. Doing so erases a person's mystery and robs them of complexity, secrecy, and self intimacy. And, what else is identity? I tried, perhaps too aggressively, to get her to share herself with me, and my enthusiasm, although well-intentioned, had intimidated her and caused her to withdraw. Love is, at times, awfully counterintuitive. To apply love too liberally is a mistake one sometimes cannot help but make, for love is a thing meant to be given; a frugal heart seldom gambles, and, as such, scarcely enjoys the payout or pleasure of a risky venture. After all, who among us would knowingly covet a miser's heart?

But in truth, when I look at things honestly, much of what I perceived as wrongdoing was, in large part, due to her inexperience, not malice. "I haven't ever loved anyone," she once told me, "I've only really had one relationship, and it wasn't like this." Holly had never had to navigate romantic space or establish boundaries or clearly communicate her needs, and so she was relatively inflexible, unsure of who she was or what she wanted, believing, in that youthful, worried way, that if she were to give herself completely to her partner she would have nothing left for herself. She didn't know better, and how could she; she'd had too few relationships to know - and I, too many. My heart was dented and tired and, while it held the courage needed to brave the painful carelessness of an unpracticed hand, it lacked the endurance. 

Either way, it was over. Nothing about the day had changed much at all. The afternoon had grown long, and so the wind had picked up speed, sprinting and dashing down side-streets, leaving the heads of hatless girls tousled and thrashed while heralding with newfound urgency a slowly encroaching blanket of white clouds. A familiar sadness enveloped me then. It appeared to be truly over, yet I didn’t feel quite as terrible as I’d imagined. Initially this admission stirred in me feelings of guilt, and remorse, because it seemed to, at least tacitly, signify an undeniable dissatisfaction with her, one which had not only cast a disparaging pall over her memory, but functioned as a reminder that I had been unhappy for a long time; she took away my solitude but gave me no genuine companionship. What else was I to do, I wondered. I'd given her my best - it wasn't enough.

Approaching, again through the swinging door of a storefront, was the same tall blond I’d seen earlier, this time carrying a six-pack of beer and a potted plant. She possessed something unnameable and warm, and though I didn’t speak to her, we shared a secret smile of recognition. When she passed, leaving a trail of soft perfume which lingered on the air behind her like a bride’s train, in that moment, unbeknownst to her, she had become profoundly important to me. Not so much because of who she was, but what she was: possibility. At the conclusion of any worthwhile relationship it is not uncommon to feel alienated from and abandoned by love. What was once simple, suddenly becomes cluttered and inelastic, burdensome instead of beautiful. The heart of a woman seems to hold all the mystery and menace of a coming storm. It seems safer - and somehow also wiser - to retire from love’s game; to become disinterested in its pursuit. But I felt no such disinclination. I was perhaps more open to love now than I had been before. 

Sometimes failure is necessary to find new direction. When I considered that the love I wanted must surely await me, at least somewhere, I felt immediately wrapped in a real and unmistakable tenderness as firm and incontrovertible as consciousness itself. Suddenly everything had quieted. On my brow a knot of tension had unfurrowed, the muscles near my mouth softened. For the first time in a long time, the world felt wonderfully alive and bright, inviting. I no longer felt constrained, but instead free to be who I wanted to be without fear of judgement or offense or tearful reproach. I was unimpeded and falling into I didn’t know what, but it felt good. And that I believed it to be so was all that mattered.