introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- new eyes tomorrow: fri 13th - 12th of may, 2005 "all is full of love"~bjork i find that the more time i spend with no other company than my dog and my thoughts, the more i notice again. perhaps i've been so wrapped up in the day to day job that keeping a relationship strong and going takes...that i've forgotten my natural curiousity for the goings on around me. i have been working my empty nights at my old job at the mall for some extra dollars and to keep me busy...to keep me out of the house and from sitting in front of a television wasting my days. i have caught myself people watching and anxious to speak to strangers again in a way that i haven't been in years. i want to learn what i can from everyone...to learn things i've never even considered...to learn things about myself. i have noticed a my introverted self coming back...the need to just observe and go unnoticed...to take it all in. i wax philosophical, perhaps, at times. i am overwhelmed with the beauty of things. i feel drunk with all there is in the world to notice. i was bored for something to read and in no mood to take on one of the monster books i'm reading now...just wanted something simple. a conversation with an old friend (and by friend, i mean crush...hardcore) led me to google him and see what i could find out about his life since the night he spent in my bed...a celibate night nursing a headache and wishing it was more, perhaps...not perhaps. definitely... it's strange how people come into your life with such ease...a certain feeling of having had your lives run parallel some other time...even though you are strangers. and sometimes, they seem to disappear from your life with the same requiescence. i got to thinking about his supposed circle of friends and my own clan of zebra striped compatriots. i compared them and contrasted them based on snippets of blogs and old photos posted with inside jokes for filenames. i realized how obtuse this act was...spying, almost. tonight, i watched people in the mall and begged passersby for participation in a survey (ugh). since i left that job a year ago, i have despised the mall...the very smell of the place bothers me and i never go unless there is a very good reason...and i do mean a VERY good reason. the faces have changed. i am no longer a staple there, a fixture. i am no longer part of this community that nods to each other, that knows where the others work, what they eat, what car they drive. i am out of that loop and for that, i hold no remorse or disappointment...but there are a few faces that have not changed. a few faces look back at mine and there is this glimmer of recognition and then, it comes to them. sometimes, it doesn't. tonight. tonight, i was pacing, watching people interact, interjecting, rejected, and continued my pacing. there was a man in a coat that came by and i felt my own face light up with some unexpected smile at what must be an aquaintence of mine from back then. and it was, strangely. it was a strange situation. in fact, at the time, i remember thinking it was a creepy situation, honestly. he must've been in his thirties, then. maybe thirty five. he was bald and wore thick glasses. he wasn't traditionally attractive at all. in fact, i remember thinking he was very unattractive. i have a thing about me that drives me mad, but when confronted with people that i find unattractive or people that give me uncomfortable feelings to be around, i put myself in situations i cannot get out of...i seem to seek out their company, if only for a few moments, as if to try to figure out what it might be about them that so bothers me. i have this thing about me that, when spoken to, i speak. i converse. i nod in agreement. i find myself trapped in deep conversations and don't even know what i've said because my mind has wandered. i don't mean to be rude, i am there, having the discussion, but over-analyzing, perhaps, would be a better way to put it. i am thinking about what we're saying, taking inventory of my physical and mental reactions to words passed between us. i never thought too much of this man, i admit. it was the christmas season then, and i'd picked up some quick money holiday work at a few different places in the mall to pay for christmas presents for my lover. i practically lived in the heart of commerce for three busy months. apparently, this man had done the same thing. a few of the places paid me cash every night and i'd steal off to another store that had something i'd saved for or had my eye on for a stocking stuffer or something of the like. i seemed to run into the man everywhere. he worked at the leggo store where i bought my partner a yoda lego keychain. he was at the book store where i bought a few books. he was at the calendar store where i picked out our new kitchen calendar. he passed me while i worked, taking time to stop and talk to me. i don't remember much of what we talked about. i do remember that he was looking for jobs, ironically. the season was going to pass and with it, apparently, his employment. i made a few probably weak suggestions and wished him well. our conversations were never too long, but i was always as if i were out of my body...watching it speak and smile and interact, but not really knowing what the whole point was...and trying to figure it out. one afternoon, he came by me...i think i'd bought a new pair of khakis or maybe it was a blouse that was new...i don't remember. new clothes were a luxury brought about by simple neccessity then. anything new was a huge change for me. i remember that he took the time to stop and say that i looked really beautiful that day. he stayed a bit longer and kept looking at me and i remember soaking in the discomfort i felt. i didn't want this man that i found to be so unattractive to look at me. (and lets keep in mind, folks, i am not beautiful by any means...but i am confident and comfortable in my skin...) i think i believed then that you should only be allowed to look at someone as he, in hindsight, must've been looking at me if the feeling is reciprocated. in the end, i saw myself say something witty about how it was the new clothing and not me that was beautiful and that i wasn't, but thanks for being nice. something ludicrous. something completely sadly stupid. tonight, i saw him, wearing a winterish coat in may, clumping in his unattractive (and a year older now) way. his hair has thinned a bit on top but he's more confident...he has more of a mission. i said hi...how are you? i smiled...i felt my face glowing with that sense of seeing something familiar in an otherwise foreign-to-me place. he greeted me and did not stop, heading away with a wave. an hour later, he returned, this time with his arm around a woman that i had spoken with earlier. she'd refused my solicitation and kept going. i noticed that she was ordinary...that i felt as though she might be strange, but i didn't really notice much about her. she was just another person that didn't stand out in a crowd. i feel shallow writing these things, and i feel like i ought to explain myself. i've been looking...really LOOKING at people and the more i watch them, the less and less beautiful we all seem. we are all strange and flawed and in those flaws, i'm seeing beauty. it just sounds hard edged and a little bit egotistical. i smiled and said goodbye to him as she ignored me again, probably worried that i'd ask her again to do a survey. he waved as he passed and his arm touched her back in a loving way...a caring protective way, as if to make sure she knew he was there, with her. i felt this strange pang of jealousy...there was so much love in that one gesture that anyone who'd seen it would have wanted that sort of love for themselves. i wonder if everyone wants a different kind of love than the love they have. the love i have with my partner is an easy kind of love...and maybe we have the same kind of ease that anyone who really loves each other has...but it feels so common, sometimes. it feels so natural that i can barely remember what it feels like to be without. i can't imagine that anything can take it away...i take it for granted. i wonder if my lover touches my back with the same sincerity and if i just don't notice. i wonder if it's easier to love someone who is just like you. there is no room for doubt of the other because you are the same. when i was leaving to go home, i saw them in the parking lot, holding each other. they kissed under the dim white sodium light on the asphalt of the lot and i watched them. i felt like that could have been me just as easily...if i hadn't been so darned uncomfortable about something. if i hadn't already been in love. i turned on the jazz station in my car and watched them climb into the same car. they'd just been standing kissing as though there were nobody to see them, as if they were going to part and didn't know how to say goodnight. and then they got into the same car. i remembered all the times i'd kissed toby for lengthly moments in the parking lot at the airport on arrival that might've confused an onlooker. i wonder if anyone ever watched. it was that same kind of feeling...as though i'd been watching myself somehow. i turned up the jazz and pulled away, watching the car with them in it disappear behind me as i headed for home. sometimes, i get so confused about love and about all of these feelings. i have been letting them consume me just to try to figure them out. mostly, it's a sense of beauty in so much...everything around me these days has taken on a new form, a new life. all is full of love. xo ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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