so it shines when you finally come home

There are times I still think of Noah; I wonder why that should be, and I wonder if it happens more in October than it does other times of the year.  I cannot remember what months we spent together and what months we spent apart.  But I remember sunshine, and I remember cool nights.  And I remember a mark on my wrist that he made when he tried to catch my arm while I was slipping.  (I liked that mark.)  Perhaps it was October, but I think not.  I think it was probably early in September, because that was when I lived on the prairies and winter came far earlier.

Something yesterday reminded me of Noah's eyes, how dark and haunted they appeared, although he was not an unhappy person, not that I could tell.  There is something about that look, those eyes that have hollows beneath - and a darkness that seems to say a person has not slept well in a long time -there is something about that look that draws me, and I do not know why.  Many of the men I have been most attracted to have shared that look.  (Perhaps they shared that look as I exhausted them and wore them out?)  It is possible that my husband's eyes look that way.

J is going through her first break up, and perhaps this is why I thought of Noah, when she said she could not understand how someone she had not known three months ago could suddenly have so much control of her emotions.  Undoubtedly I said this about Noah too.  I was angry with him because I did not want him particularly.  He was only an interesting actor in a play until he approached me, unbidden, and made promises I never asked for.

A sensible person, of course, remains on their feet, but I am not, nor ever have been, a sensible person.  I am easily shaken and Noah shook me hard.  He said we had obviously known each other in many lifetimes, and fucked it up repeatedly, but this was clearly meant to be the lifetime in which we would finally get it right.  I pushed him away and laughed at him for being outrageous and brazen, but I wanted this to be true.  For some reason it was easy to see the pictures he described.

I have not spoken to him for more than fifteen years.  This is not a story that matters, except that it is part of my history and tells me a small thing about myself that is unreasonable and has not changed.  I almost always fall for poetry and nonsense, and I do not really aim to change this aspect.

As J's heart heals I hope she will remain open to these headlong plunges into groundless promises, because they remain some of the tenderest and most treasured memories when one has grown up and stopped taking such risks.

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