These are the things we do. These are the motions. We cover distances to be with each other. We take our shoes off in airports and eat at Ranch*1 and feel a welling in the back of our throat with longing.
The alchemy of shared presence sometimes does its tricks. Its various emotional somersaults. Even as our guts turn over in their own backflips.
In the meantime, we wait for revelations. Over the years, we grow incredibly skilled at waiting for revelations. Lately my favorite way to wait for revelations is to go on shin-ravaging runs and then jump into Lake Michigan. I climb half dead, thoroughly numb out of the water. My hands slip on the algae-covered rocks as I scramble out. A woman in a white bathing cap and a black bathing suit smiles at me and reaches a hand down. Her celluloid melts off her legs in ripples. I grab her hand, wordlessly, though I am grunting up a storm.
Contact of bodies. Some days, you make it the whole day without touching anyone else.
I lie in the sun. I should wear more suntan lotion. I should listen to more Charles Mingus. I should write that article about tacos that I have been meaning to write.
None of these are really revelatory. So I keep waiting. Eventually I walk home and saute some vegetables. A friend comes over, and we sit close to each other in the living room, watching television, wordlessly. He drinks Old Style tall boys. I sit on the couch and type on my phone. The air conditioner makes its air conditioning noises.
We watch Sportscenter. Sportscenter ends. I open the door and reach out my hand. He, flushed with weak beer, goes in for the manhug. It’s the first time I’ve touched anyone today.
There are presences we take for granted, is what I think I’m trying to say. And then there are those that we need to get on a plane for. Sitting there, in those airport seats with the metal bars that keep you from ever laying down flat, I eat waffle fries and pour honey mustard sauce on my grilled chicken sandwich. There is all kinds of time to read and write, but I can only focus on the task of eating this freaking sandwich and not losing it.
How many times I have checked the weather in different zip codes, I could never say. How much time do I spend tracking cold fronts in western states, caught patterns in the mid-Atlantic. I get goosebumps when I read about thunderstorm warnings in Washington and I think of my old house with my old kitchen and stuck standing there watching hail come down thickly outside. Trapped inside on a summer afternoon, mesmerized. Everyone standing at their windows waiting either for the storm to stop or for something cataclysmic to happen.
These are the things we do. These are the motions. We are each others’ life preservers. Is that okay to say? We get on planes for each other. We take off our shoes in front of strangers, and I hear that the images that get projected in these new security machines aren’t fooling around. There are privacy issues involved, or so someone told me.
But we keep crossing state and international borders, let alone timezones and geographically unique territories, to be close to certain people.
The things that astonish continue to increase. That woman was half my size, but wiry and used to pulling people out of the water.
