I Fell In Love Today

I tripped out of flannel sheets into the chilly morning and I fell in love. A pile of blankets on the living room floor, two small heads poking out, little eyes focused, little lips moving silently, hair and breath that spoke of early rising - quietly cuddled with each a book, patiently awaiting the day.

I fell in love today with the street. Unseasonably clear and wide open skies - the kind I forget exist when the clouds always crowd the edges - a yawn of trees, sparkling sentinels in the uncharacteristic morning sun. They waved their arms in alarm at me and pointed to the west. And there she was: stony, stark, crested with white just the palest shade lighter than the icy sky - the mountain. An opulent dowager presiding over the city.

I fell in love today with a pile of wood. Maple, cherry, alder. Just a few sticks of cedar for kindling. I fell in love with my arms and legs and back again as I hauled and stacked and hauled some more. These bundles of potential energy in my arms, promising their hard and seasoned warmth in this, the most uncertain of our seasons.


I fell in love today with a little boy. His dimpled chin and crooked grin. He winks and does the pointed finger thumbs up at me. "Is there room to stand up there?" he asks of the mountains and barely waits to hear before he's off - climbing mountains in his mind. There is, doubtless, heavy machinery and technical jargon involved. He catches me watching him think. He winks at me and I melt. In everything he's casual. "I feel kind of chokey and I have a headache today," he says calmly while he plays with my hair, "Do you think it would be all right if I didn't go to school today? I think I need to rest." So rest we did. I lost myself in those dark, dark eyes and cocky grin and forgot the question.


I fell in love with a tall tale today. My proud little girl declares "Mine was the tallest!" Indeed it was. Well over six feet tall, this tale was. A tale spun by a precious Bird of a hero, Violet. She uses her new-found super power to save her village, but she undertakes the task of the saving before she even knows her ability. This tale that says so much about its author. I swoon over her dialogue, expression, her metaphors. I swoon over her own super-power, that great big heart that bulges through everything she does. She shows more gums than teeth when she gives me her proudest grin. Hers is the tallest tale.

I fell in love with myself today. I walked into the kitchen to get my vitamins, I ate some jelly beans and forgot. I told the firewood guy I was waiting for him to leave so I could roll naked in the beautiful wood. I spoke with nerves and without filter as I often do when confronted with talk that is small. He laughed and said "Look out for splinters!" and drove his truck away quickly. I spent an hour doing something that should take a minute. I wandered the paths in my head and found myself standing in strange places wondering why I had opened the fridge. I giggled with monkeys and exasperated them and then scolded them and told them to clean up the mess. I contradicted, I forgot, I drank too much coffee and spent too much time staring into space, imagining what I will wear when I'm famous. My pants fall down, my socks don't match, I am a grouch. I love it all.

I fell in love with a man today. He works alongside me every day. His work is away from here, mine is always here, but he's there. He phones to tell me ridiculous things. He comes straight home from work and stacks wood with me, shooing me away to take a break. He reads my words and glows. He knows me, with my pants and my socks and my wandering open fridge and he laughs. He hugs me. He hugs them. He knows withheld affection personally and will never withhold. He bathes and he tucks and he reads and he prays and he kisses good night. And then we speak of things that grownups do when children have gone to bed: the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the merits of maple wood, sauerkraut and Ricky Gervais. He sets my hair on fire. He calls me by my true name that no one else knows.

I fell in love today. I fell in love with the horizon, the mess on my living room floor, the dirty socks beside my bed, the chaos of a smile, the silence of a telephone call, the projects left unfinished by my chair, the books I have yet to read, the words I have yet to write. I fell in love with possibility, with endurance, with compassion, with awkwardness and grief. I fell in love today. I fell in love with today.

Steel Cage Grudge Match, Revisited

Oh, David Foster Wallace, how you remind me of college.
Not because of your high-blown prose and dense, deeply meaningful meanderings.
Not because sometimes you literally make me sweat while I read.

But because you are that boyfriend I can't let go. You are bad for me. You warp me. I hang in there with you through your every breath and then realize it was going nowhere; that you didn't love me after all and that you are just going to leave me hanging.

I leave you for a while, swearing that I've had enough. I walk away, in search of healing. I promise myself I will only put that much effort into someone who loves me back, who is kind to me and appreciates my loyalty.

I reluctantly trudge away and I leave you there with your Hideous Men. Then one day, out of nowhere, just when I think I've gotten over you, I Consider the Lobster and my heart melts and I'm overcome with fond nostalgia. The sweating nights gripping you tightly while you ramble in a fevered daze, trying not to throw you across the room in heartbreak and rage - all forgotten. And I tell myself I've grown. I tell myself I'm more self-assured now. I tell myself I'll just check in and see... I can always walk away if it gets too heavy.

You haunt me even when you're not around. Your wit, your way with words, your darkness. Oh, the darkness. My heart teeters on the precipice of your darkness. It's magnetic to me and treacherous. I want to save you over and over and revel in your sadness and cynicism all at once. Even when I turn my back, whispers of you are everywhere. My friends like you, casually mention you in conversation. Your quotes turn up like snapshots - unexpected. They pierce me and I hide my pain behind a laugh that is a little too loud and a dismissive wave. But you're always there somewhere, lurking around the edges of my consciousness.

Our last tryst was short. Two solid weeks in the beginning of Oblivion. You spoke to me directly. We had that connection. It can't have been mere coincidence that I should have just taken part in a focus group only days before running into you and your Mr. Squishy again. I thought we had an understanding. I thought it would be different. I suffered with you to the end only to be burned again. To be unceremoniously left with no explanation, no closure, not so much as a backward glance or even any resolution of why on earth that man was climbing up the building!?!? I swore it was the last time. My heart can't take this abuse anymore.

And then...

As casually as you please, my husband - my husband who knows my every weakness, of all people! - asked me to pick up his holds while I was at the library. And there you were, heavy and looming like Everest. My resolve is weak. Just a few pages while I wait for the monkeys to finish up, that's all. And just like that, I'm head over heels falling, doomed, into a long-term relationship with you.
Aptly:  Infinite Jest.