apparently i have a type
boat builders
last night i had a dream that i was in Maine visiting the Wooden Boat Building School.
i was there to visit someone i’m seeing right now in my real, not dream, life.
on our first date, in real life, we talked about the future, our selfish desires. i told them about quilt camp, and spending my summer at the beach.
they said, i want to go to maine to learn how to build boats.
i almost spat out my drink.
you’re losing your specialness.
it’s a bit of a shock since i believed, for so long, you were the most special person i would ever meet. i guess specialness was one reason why we failed. you can’t think someone too special, or it all starts to become something sort of illusionary. and then you’re so afraid to lose them that you become a monster. and a different person.
tuesday night, i went on a date with the aspiring boat builder. he suggested we meet at the Tashkent off Brighton Beach. have dinner made from their elaborate Prepared Foods bar. eat it on the beach.
i didn’t have the heart to tell him that this is a date i’d been on before.
i remember when you brought me to Tashkent and it felt like a wonderland. a secret paradise. something only you could have known.
it’s a gift for things to become so obviously neutral, normal, just one of the same kind.
but it hurts sometimes to think about us losing our shine. both of us becoming another face in the crowd. a profile to swipe past after a momentary drop in the stomach.
i noticed you have a new charm on your necklace. the one with the miraculous medal. the one you always wear. now, rested next to mother mary is a seashell. a clam shell that looks stomach achingly similar to the one that i put on my altar the other day. and one that i wrote about in april. i suppose we might not be in control of the ways that we fade.
my tarot reader told me to stop looking backwards. which is funny because i’ve surprised myself by how often i’ve forgotten to look that way. but maybe i’m doing it without even noticing. like how i’ve dedicated my meditations to you since December. i stopped for awhile, but last week i started again.
everyone always used to say that you had a rich inner world. it was true. your inner world drew me so deep i almost forgot that i had one too. an inner world. i was always too distracted trying to find a door into yours. always worried you might get lost in there. always worried you might forget about me.
it feels good to be floating in my own mind again.
two weeks ago i called my ex boyfriend just to catch up. it was wonderful. pure sweetness. two kids who knew each other so well who took on the awkward job of growing up, together, at the same time.
i wonder if we’ll do that one day. if i’ll pick up my phone to an audio message from you. if i’ll listen as you recount how you walked past an old apartment of mine, how you’ve been dying to ask how i’m doing. and i wonder if it will feel normal and totally okay. i wonder if we’ll feel protected, held, by the way that time passes and the sobering knowledge that in this life the two of us were only meant for a perfect moment.
might we feel comforted by the stories we shared, the uniqueness of the time we spent entangled inside of the other. when we believed in daydreams and fell asleep inside of that courageous hopefulness. i can’t wait to tell you about boat builders and clam shells and the ways that you reminded me you exist in the moments where i had forgotten.
maybe afterwards, after this imagined call, we will join the others like us who are so good at being friends.
and maybe you and I, we, will get to be special again.
