“We are all doing spectacularly well,” I declare with a raise of the icy glass.

We’d gone for coffee after brunch, but stopped at a bar instead of a café and ordered cocktails instead of espresso. I was deep into my third at this point, the early afternoon pouring hot over us as we sat and stared at passing strangers and reflected on how simultaneously odd and natural it was that school had ended a few years ago and that we were still all kind of together despite the jobs and break-ups and graduate programs that have been pulling us back and forth through time zones.

And yet here we sat in this nexus of a city, sipping and talking, as casually and comfortably as we’d had so many times in the past. We examined each other, commenting and complimenting on weight lost, new freckles, longer hair. We made fun of our quirky constants: Looney’s accent, my tardiness, Jeremy’s nose. We repeated jokes. Jeff did his Kramer impression. The ever-absent Elijah was summoned, as well as the other old friends: brisket and sickly-sweet Manishevitz and Jorge Ramos and strange roommates and Looney’s bourbon-soaked accent (yes, worth mentioning again).

“We’re 25 going on 50,” Jeff jokes; a fact effortlessly confirmed moments later when Looney mentions The Atlantic, William Jennings Bryan, and Bill Buckley all within one sentence and is met with a hearty laugh from the rest.

It didn’t matter that it had been so long or perhaps more since we’d seen each other. There was no need for catch up, really.

And Jeff noted that it felt like he’d been away for only a long weekend, and Looney and I murmur something about how we are happy and I think to myself how the little tricky months here and there just kind of seemed to have disappeared, melted away like the glistening drops of condensation slipping down the side of my glass.

Labels: friends, Moments, New York

I slept on and off last night, something pulling me from sleep seconds before the message appeared. Someone else's tears landing on my nightstand. I'm awkward at these moments. My words fail miserably as, I suppose, they are expected. All I can do is ache, too.

The thoughts remain after I say good-bye; shaking me, twisting my dreams into something ugly and full of smoke. I wake to the sound of a knock at the door, heavy and loud, followed by what I am convinced is a turn of a key. I snap up quickly; frantic and sweaty, certain that someone has entered my home and waiting for this intruder to appear at my bed.

There is no one.

I listen to the silence and peer through the french door panes, debating whether or not it had been a dream. I know it already, actually, but still can't help the chills that have spread out over my skin.

The sun is up, and birds and children laughed impertinently on the street. I settle back into my bed, finally, my body clenched around the damp pillow.

I am suddenly and intensely frightened by our fragility.

Labels: Moments

I rushed past that spot again today on my way home from work. It was probably about the 10th or 11th time since, but it was only today that I realized it as I walked by, heels clicking quickly where they once were content to stand perfectly still.

It felt like fallout; space imbued with so much weight. The rush of dizziness and heat as intense as the moment rising, then disappearing just as suddenly.

It didn't even look the same. A mass of people: police officers, officeworkers, shouting prophets, highschool kids with low-slung backpacks. A little boy tried to jump the turnstile--his dad stopped him.

That night felt silent, but this seems more familiar--less terrifying. This I understand. I swipe my card. I lift my purse to pass.

The dizziness comes and goes, and (as the facts fade into memory) I wonder if perhaps it wasn't ever really even that strong to begin with.

Labels: memories, Moments, New York, The Subway

“No. Don’t go yet,” I say when he reaches for his shoes.

“Babe, I have to…” His voice and face are tired, but I ignore it.

“No you don’t. Not yet.”

I feel and sound like a petulant child, but I can’t seem to help it. I’m not ready for him to leave yet.

He sighs and sits back with the remote in hand, flipping through the previews on the OnDemand channel. He laughs at something and I smile, but nothing on the screen makes sense to me and for some reason seems only to make me feel more upset. I wordlessly take the remote from him and turn it off, replacing the cheery sounds with the crackle of the parts as they cool.

He takes my hands in his, commenting on their size. I line them across his palm like puzzle pieces, noting the way two of mine together barely make one of his.

“Not even the rain has such small hands,” I say. I explain before he has the chance to ask. “It’s from this E.E. Cummings poem—‘Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands.’”

That last line has always been a favorite, but as I say it, I understand why this is so difficult. I might be the one with the small hands, but it’s really him who has the ability to naturally unclose me, petal by petal, effortlessly slipping into those tiny spaces no one else can seem to find. And when he's gone? They close up again--empty and quiet until the next time he makes the trip over from his half of the world.

Another minute ticks by and I watch him shift. He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s got his eye on the clock. My stomach suddenly starts to cramp—sharp pains that shoot up like knives and make it hard to breathe. I wince and tell him this.

“Is it from the wine?” he asks.

“No…I don’t think so. I don’t know what it is.” I’m lying, though. I know exactly what it is: my body is rejecting his departure.

I take a sip of water and lay down on the couch next to him. He’s allowed me a few more minutes and I take them hungrily. Lifting his arm, I slip my body under it, right ear pressed against his chest, within which a beat pounds steadily. I know that thump, having fallen asleep to its rhythm many times—nights, mornings, even one cloudy afternoon on the middle of a carpeted floor just inches away from a brownish wine stain.

I’m straining right now, wishing I could stop time or at least figure out a way to bottle this feeling of quiet contentment I feel only when he's around. Instead, I shut my eyes and lie still, breathing in the familiar soapy scent of his sweater. For a few more seconds, everything is in place. I’m afraid to move, knowing that once I do I’ll have to get used to missing him again. The task feels exhausting, unbearable, even. I want to say things, convinced that maybe if I just express this thing inside me just right, it'll make the moment easier.

I give myself a deadline. 30 more seconds, I think. In 30 seconds and I’ll get up and say good-bye…

I count them out slowly in my head, measured in time with the heartbeat in my ear. 28…29…30...

I wait one more beat before I tear myself away.

"OK," I say.

Labels: friends, Moments

I found myself quoting a line from this last night to a friend and haven't been able to get it out of my head since... I might have more to say about this later, but for now...

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e. cummings

Labels: friends, Moments, Writing