Connection

I was scrolling through some old posts today. Funny how they can transport you right back to the time and place their relevance used to hold so tight. As if you can remember the hours in which you wrote their words, the way the day felt as you let them wash over you, the way in which certain juxtapositions formed the greater part of that time and place. So long ago now. Such a far away place and time...

In my query, I stumbled upon a quote I had posted from the movie Shopgirl. Almost instantly, it took me back exactly to the moment I first discovered it. It was a summer evening. A relatively typical Friday night for me. I ordered a pizza and dove into my Netflix. That night, I watched Crash, and Shopgirl. The lighting in the Hobbit House was dim, only the table lamp and it's soft amber glow to light the nooks and crannies of that otherwise dark room. I remember talking to my friend, online. Taking it easy, I lit several candles, turned out the lights, and retreated to my favorite place - the extra-long bathtub in the otherwise extra-small bathroom. I read from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a fourth edition paperback with it's pages yellowed from time. I was drawing pause that evening, and surrounding myself with words and images from months of needing and wanting to be a part of something bigger than myself. Months that lagged on without resolution.

That night, while watching Shopgirl, I was able to find some words that offered me the comfort I needed.

Words that I haven't looked upon in just over a year, or thought of since. Somehow these words that rang true that vivid July night, are even more noteworthy all these days and months later. Their relevance still stings me, though this time for very different reasons. This time the words take hold for all of the moments that have come to pass, and all of the goodbyes that came too soon, quite possibly because of a few stolen moments that led me on the greatest journey. Most definitely because he never meant to hurt me. These words echo a profound and familiar strangeness somewhere deep inside. Strangeness this time because I am no longer standing in only her shoes, but the shoes of both Ray and his Mirabelle, looking back at the world through each others eyes.

Ray: Just so you know. I'm sorry for the way I treated you.
Mirabelle: I know.
Ray: I did love you.
Mirabelle: All right.

As Ray Porter watched his Mirabelle walk away....he feels a loss. How is it possible, he thinks to miss a woman whom he kept at a distance so that when she was gone he would not miss her. Only then did he realize how wanting part of her and not all of her had hurt them both and how he cannot justify his actions except that...well...it was life.


This time it is the prose of a thousand conversations that have come to an end. The knowing, and acceptance of many mistakes. It is the beauty of trying anyway. The helplessness of running scared, and being paralyzed by fear. Of unexpectedly falling in love with someone who knew he could not love me back. Of being loved by someone who I would never love back. It is the split second reactions that cost me everything. A million tiny moments where I feel my world around me growing bigger, and smaller with every breath. It is the sum of the successes and failures. Of all the good and bad.


It really is life.