A dear friend of mine sat looking out into the street, watching the passing traffic. The lights became patterns of thought that jumped into our seemingly normal catch up. It had been two years since we had seen each other and his face had sharpened, brighter and stronger.
He looked noble as he turned to me. I'm marrying her. A police van scattered tourists in the streets and the blue set off the red of the bar. His eyes looked alive, and I could see that he was for real. He is still very young but there was such a true tenderness and honesty in his look that he really believed in it.
It got me thinking. I remember when someone talked about me in that way. And there maybe someone who still does. With that true abandon.
It was winter and a small group of us had huddled in a kitchen with tea and cigarettes. It was dark and had that incredible feeling of intimacy you do when it's warm inside and you know you have escaped the bitter.
Me and this respective boyfriend hadn't been getting on all that well in those past few months and I had the feeling like it was coming to a close. He had the habit of making public declarations, whether it was about having an argument or the great sex we were apparently having.
So he turned to the group who were discussing relationships and declared, I could rob banks with this woman, I could steal a horse.
I don't think I understand that purity. I could feel it, see it, almost taste it. From both of them, this boyfriend and my friend in the bar.
Does this make me heartless?
I don't think I understand that complete trust and surrender that they felt. To plunge so deep, so trusting. I can't believe it is my age, as I have concluded that there are things that go beyond age and experience. And I think especially in this case in particular. Maybe it is just a youthful feeling that may have passed me by.
Or maybe one day it will smack me in the face and I will be a stumbling idiot proclaiming my love and surrendering my everything to, even my grandmothers silk shawl!
No, I think I have something else. And my friend could see it, even through his beautiful haze of love for this most fortunate woman, that I am practical. I can't do that, I want independence.
Not that I want to ridicule him for his courageous jump into matrimony. He will be happy. I even stalked his couple facebook pictures and smiled to myself at their loving looks. One had an arm around the other, the other holding the camera up for all the world to see, their deliriously happy world of beautiful bed linen and shared cups of coffee with the papers of a Sunday morning.
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