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September 1999
I've been tossed around a lot lately. A cute, convertible car. Crowded, screeching trains. Bumpy, fragrant taxis. Stuffy, turbulent planes. Tired, burning legs. They conjure sweeping memories of movement, lit dramatically with angular reds and softened blues. Pictures that seem digitally enhanced by time. January 1995. I can't help but turn and look back over my shoulder once I start down the jetway. I feel as if all the weekend's shackled anger is sealing an opaque wall between us and I just want one last look. I slow, pivot slightly, and casually glance over my right shoulder. But he's already gone. New Year's Eve 1995. I'm in the middle of the grayest day I've ever experienced driving along Interstate 80 in the middle of Pennsylvania. The drone of my tires on the asphalt mimics the drone of my conscience. I'm caught in a whirlwind of New Year's regret, making resolutions at every overpass. I resolve to expose the artist within. I resolve to give people the benefit of the doubt. I resolve to forget his kiss that runs rampant through my memory. I resolve to find someone to challenge me. I resolve to enter into new relationships aloof and reticent. I resolve to have one meaningful conversation in the coming year. I resolve to really feel something. Anything. March 1996. I cry most of the way to Manhattan. In the dimness of the bus's passenger light, I scribble the following in my journal which makes it onto a postcard sent to him days later: "She's fallen into the habit of crying on public transportation. The most intensely private emotions always seem to connect the right chords at strange moments, with watchful eyes and curious minds. Two weeks ago it was the steel drum in the Government Center T Station. A year ago it was a final good-bye at Grand Central Station. Tonight it was a letter filled with the purest form of artistry, the outpouring of a soul, a very welcomed surprise on a bus bound for Manhattan." December 1998. I look at him with utmost disgust. His face parades the false innocence of a mischievous child. His mouth moves furiously, spewing a series of pleas imploring me to empathize with his plight. The screech of the early morning train from the Upper West Side to Park Slope becomes my friend, drowning his childish rantings. I'm horrified; not only at the ridiculous scene he's creating but also at how little time it took to turn me against him. After all, just twelve hours earlier my stomach was wrought with the anticipation of being face to face with him after an absence of two and a half years. How little time it takes for us to fall back into familiar patterns. March 1999. As we walk across Riverside at 95th, he asks me what my favorite Dr. Seuss book is. It takes me a minute to muddle through titles that automatically spring to mind, but I quickly grasp my favorite, the only one I owned as a child: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. At the same time, we pass a trash can blown into the middle of the street. I casually pick it up and place it back on the curb, tucking the liner back inward. These are the only moments of us that linger with me still. What moves you? biggest kiss... ...kristen |
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