2005-02-19 - 3:06 p.m.
C. and I met the summer we were 17 at summer school. She was from Chicago and we did the long distance thing our senior year in high school and part of our first year in college (she went to Stanford). She really was the first time I understood what being in love meant. I could still go on and on about how great I thought she was. The most fun person I�d ever met. Cooler than me, smarter than me, certainly wiser (although the latter probably didn�t take much back then). I remember so clearly the sunlight hitting her hair through the trees outside her piano teacher�s window while she gave a recital of Debussy�s The Girl with the Flaxen Hair. I was never more in awe of someone and never more proud that they thought that I was cool enough to be their boyfriend.
When I left school the next year, I moved to San Francisco and we started going out again. She began to realize that I was maybe crazy beyond the point of charming, while she was cool as a cucumber (maybe a little too much) and that maybe we weren�t the best match. I was as heartbroken as I�d ever been, probably as I would be until Alithea. (I suppose she was the first time I realized that I loved someone maybe more than they loved me.) Of course, she was quite right � I was getting to be rather too crazy (indeed, shortly thereafter I went on to be arrested for burglary, but that�s a story for another time).
I found her online for this thing over the summer and we emailed a bit. I was surprised to find that she too had gone into urban planning (I never would have predicted this) and was living in New York. She�d apparently been with the guy she left me for for years and had gotten engaged, but had broken it kind of at the last minute. While I found it interesting that we�d followed similar paths (she�d also been really into college radio like me), I honestly didn�t find it quite as revelatory as recontacting my other exes and didn�t think a whole lot of it.
Until last month. Another friend I hadn�t seen in over a decade emailed me out of the blue and invited me to her 30th birthday party in New York, where I was at the time. She had been best friends with C. back when. I emailed C. and suggested that, since seeing each other in the flesh at this party for the first time in so long would surely be weird (especially with me as a gimp, which she knew about but might find jarring to actually see) and I didn�t want us to impact the birthday, we have lunch beforehand.
She agreed. At my suggestion, we met a bar that I liked because, in addition to a fine beer selection, they serve ostrich burgers and other exotic game meat (the Waterfront Alehouse on 30th & 2nd � I highly recommend it, if you�re into that). Of course, only when she arrived did she tell me she�d become a vegetarian (fortunately she eats fish, so it wasn�t a total disaster).
It turns out she had gone to the School of Design at Harvard and had apparently helped do a special presentation at the very radio station where I DJed. She had just left her job at an architecture firm and was going to LA for a breather before starting her own planning firm. And not just one that enters high-minded plans into design competitions. She had actual clients lined up. Wow? I remember her as maybe a little overly cautious (which was probably a good counter to my not-cautious-enough). Now this consideration and care is exactly what makes for well though-out urban design, but the boldness of striking out on her own is a development I never expected.
Now I know that when seeing an ex, it�s easy to fall into nostalgia. Wasn�t it great back in the day. She�s still so stunning. But there was a lot more here than just revisiting the past. My fascination was not a sweet but misguided attempt to go back in time or something. What was so compelling was the glimpse I got of the person of now. The shock was to find someone even cooler. And we had only been there a couple hours.
�Look, I never expected to feel this way.�
�How?�
�Attracted.�
She blushed and smiled at me. This was ridiculous. I needed to calm down; we needed to wrap it up. We�d see each other that night at the birthday.
The party was at a bar in Soho (I like bars cause I can sit on a bar stool and still be at eye level with people). We both got pretty drunk and giggled about the time we accidentally almost bought crack (my fault of course and another story to tell later). After hours of sheepishly grinning at each other, I asked:
�Hey, I don�t suppose you live in a fifth-floor walk-up?�
�No, why?�
�Well, if you were to invite me home for coffee or something and I couldn�t make it in, that would be kind of embarrassing.�
The grin I got could�ve melted Antarctica. Unfortunately her friend there was sleeping over on her couch, so it was not to be. But I�ll probably kick myself for the rest of my life for not kissing her. At that moment it would have been unnecessarily egregious PDA and I�m no longer agile enough to take her off to a discrete corner. But hindsight being 20/20, the bench out front on that unusually warm night would have been perfect, if calling for a little cooperation on her part. I think she would have come, though.
I emailed her later and confessed just what I�ve said here � that I was pretty smitten by the glimpse I got of her now, not by the memory of the past, and that I wanted to know more. Alas, she essentially said thanks, but no thanks. She was going through a lot of life changes and becoming involved with me would complicate things more than she wanted. Plus she felt she wouldn�t be able to leave aside our past history.
So I suppose she broke my heart again in a small way. But when I thought about it, it was amazing to be having strong emotions again and not about you-know-who. (I�m not saying I�m exactly grateful to her for the heartache�) Is she really as amazing now as it seems she might be? I guess I�ll never really know, but it was absolutely wonderful to catch that tantalizing peek.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
Sign My Guestbook!
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
�
