I’m doing that thing I do, where I ease out of my own skin and observe. I watch, seemingly from afar, but usually, exceedingly close. I’m not judging, just observing, noting. I can still see his twenty-something year old face underneath the mask of later life that he wears. All things considered, his prolonged time outdoors in the sun, his trauma, his face is mostly unchanged. There are the thinnest threaded lines next to his eyes and scattered on his tanned forehead, and only a sprinkling of gray is visible, intermingled with thick, honey colored hair.
Making the statement that I feel most at ease with men would be false. I don’t. I feel uneasy with most people, generally. But there are those humans who feel like home, no matter the passage of time, or the changes in life.
He has this lilt when he speaks. Somewhat midwestern in nature, but also, a smattering of all over. Of Boone, North Carolina, and the Sudan, and everywhere else, too. And maybe, an irregular speech pattern. When I ask him how he is, he pauses and pushes his black, wire rimmed glasses higher up on his unremarkable nose.
“I’m good, I think,” he says, pausing, not for effect, but in that thoughtful way that I’ve come to recognize as their way. These are thoughtful people. Words are rarely wasted and everything is contemplated and nothing is hasty, save a dream or two.
A laugh escapes me at the candor of this response, even though it’s what I’ve come to expect.
“You think?” I ask, knowing that there is something in that statement that is not meant to be explored further. To be good isn’t entirely honest, but to be bad is to complain, and there is something that lies in the middle. Some in between land that is filled with all the worries and stresses and uncertainty. Have the right decisions been made? Are we okay? Am I okay?
I pause and then, volunteer: “I was worried about you for a while.”
Most would tell me not to worry. That everything is fine. That is not their way. Ever. It’s not that they relish unnecessary worrying, so much as they believe fervently in the notion of community, of connectivity. Worry should not always be a burden. Sometimes worry is a gift, an opportunity. Sometimes when we tell someone that we are worried about them, we are really giving voice to our love. I am worried means I love you. My heart is with you. I carry you with me.
When he speaks again, his voice is gravelly; filled with the emotion of many years spent trying to figure it out. All of it. Working towards balance when the world feels upside down and inside out.
He tells me that mostly he is resigned to the decisions that he’s made. He shares that the choice to be present is one he has made peace with, even when he is haunted by reminders of his past. And I understand this in a fundamental way that defies the differences in our history. Sometimes the universe presents an opportunity to revisit the path that we chose. That opportunity comes in the form of heartbreak or surprise or sometimes, if we are lucky, resolution. Closure, they call it.
The description that he uses is a bubbling up and then, over. The emotions overtake me is what I think he said. I’m so taken by the pain that fills his face, that it’s hard for me to focus precisely on the words chosen to express this sentiment.
He slides his freckled hands into the front pockets on his denim and gives me a half smile.
“I know there’s nothing I could have done, not really,” he says, “and still, I feel like if I had been there, if I hadn’t left, then maybe I could have saved them.”
There is no reason for me to respond to this, as nothing I will say really matters right now. He doesn’t need my reassurance or absolution. The demons that live inside of him will not be soothed through some unnecessary placation. Plus, he knows. He does. He knows there is nothing he could have done, even if he was there. And anyway, he knows it was time to move on. She needed him and they needed him and he needed to be free from demands that were too often and too big.
And still, I understand this- the pain of wondering. The unknown. I understand it as much as I can.
I feel the space between us now- the pocket of hot muggy air that forms the shape of two mostly familiar humans standing next to each other. At some point, we subconsciously turned away from each other to face her, and still, we talk. Still, we understand each other.
“I love watching her when she’s like this,” he says. And I know what he means without requiring clarification. She’s in her element. Her smile is wide and genuine. Her mostly graying ponytail swings as she gently moves the bouquet from side to side so that her entire audience, perched mostly at the edges of their mismatched chairs, can see.
Above the din of insects, I hear someone ask about what flowers can be used for blue in a wedding bouquet. I’ve heard this question before and think delphinium and hydrangea. I recall this to be a wedding bouquet class and still, the sentiment strikes me as the best kind of silly. An aged gardening club stringing together nigella and peonies and eucalyptus for hopeful, young brides.
Somewhere inside of me, I knew she would be okay, always. My heart told me that she would fight and a higher power would be kind to her, as she had been so kind in return, always. The world wasn’t ready to carve out an empty space for her, and so, she remained in the way we needed her to. And still, I held my worry close to me like a bag of precious stones, knowing that’s never the way it works, not really.
Worry for her.
Worry for him.
Worry for them.
Worry for me.
She looks over at us then and gives us an almost imperceptible half wave before turning back to her enthusiastic students.
“Me too,” I say, knowing that some time has passed since he spoke.
And still, he knows.
x
L.
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