Such great heights

Such Great Heights

Tonight I heard loud thunk, thunks on my window; the kind of thunks that are made by rocks that have been thrown by hand; the kind of hand that belongs to someone like Romeo; the Romeo that I didn’t know existed, but if he’s throwing rocks at my window I’d better go look and let him know Juliet doesn’t live here. And if he is looking for Martha Lee Anne, then I should go down the stairs and let him in: I should let him in because he threw rocks at my window, and is there anything sweeter besides kisses on the cheek?

Might I mention that my window is on the second floor, faces an open back porch, and allows a perfect view of the moon? In other words, this is the perfect window for Romeo to throw rocks at. So I step towards the window, and there, rocks in hand, is my roommate’s mom who is locked out of the apartment? Sigh. And to think the one time someone threw rocks at my window, it wasn’t even a boy: but there are plenty of rocks, and certainly plenty of nights left.

They will see us waving from such great heights
Come down now, they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
Come down now but we'll stay
-Such Great Heights (best sung by Iron and Wine)

My favorite part of that entire song is the “but everything looks perfect from far away, Come down now, but we’ll stay” That’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. Reminds me of Robert Frost:

May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
-Birches

I wasn’t a swinger of birches growing up, but definitely a swinger of sweet gums and dogwoods. The missing limbs on both give testimony to this. Maybe there is a boy who is also a swinger of sweet gums or dogwoods, and instead of throwing rocks, he’s waiting for my window to be next to one….this prevents a possible broken window, and also provides a ladder both going and coming back….

In the 3rd grade my “boyfriend” gave me a heart shaped box of chocolates with a bee on it that said, “Bee Mine.” I thought this sweet. He followed his gift with, “I’d kiss you, but I have frosting on my lips.” I also thought this quite endearing. In the 4th grade I carved “I love -----“ into my sweet gum. In the 6th grade, my “boyfriend” liked me because I was good at hide-and-seek and I could run fast. Another boy wrote me letters and waved at me across the yard at break. One boy called my house asking for me, and when I got to the phone he said, “I saw you today at lunch and you stole my heart.” In the 7th grade I got a rose on my birthday, and he held my hand at break., and that summer, I kissed a boy in a game of spin the bottle. In the 9th grade, the boy who was moving away wanted to kiss me, and I didn’t let him: that summer, I got my first real boyfriend, and my first real kiss and he liked me despite my torn ACL, crazy knee brace, and braces. In the 10th grade, I had a new boyfriend and on his birthday, I stood on the end of a peninsula at the lake as it was getting dark, holding a cupcake with a single candle, and when he met me there, I gave him his first kiss. There was the boy who walked me to class, who couldn’t figure me out, who couldn’t decide if he liked me or just the idea of me, and I would have let him kiss me. In the 11th grade my boyfriend cheated on me because he was different, but I was different too. In the 12th grade “I love -----“ began to fade into the bark of the tree, and I let it. And just before my freshman year of college, the boy I really liked, liked me, and he kissed me in the road under a street lamp, and though things changed, he’s taught me the most about myself. During my second year of college, a boy at the drive through at Sonic asked me, “do you have a boyfriend,” and quickly followed with, “do you want one?” I drove away. That same year I formed a crush on a boy I know, but who doesn’t know me, and the next year I did the same thing, but this year, I won’t.

Today, I was looking through my “treasure box.” In it are things like a lucky bull’s eye that was my Bigdaddy’s, my keychain with things on it from Europe, Africa, and Wyoming, coins from all sorts of places, the key to an old diary, the flower I wore in my hair when I was a maid of honor, past airline tickets, a marble, a letter I never gave, an amethyst Matt found when we went to the Smokey Mountains, and a list: This list was written up at a girl’s retreat I went to in junior high: we were asked to write down all of the things we were looking for in the “h” word (saying husband freaks people out, so I’ll say “h”). I haven’t read it in years, mostly because I had forgotten about it, but I read it today, and found it surprisingly relevant so I put it back in the box and decided not to throw it away. I decided that that little pink piece of paper with my 13 year old kiss marks means something to me: I guess I remembered her smearing that red lipstick on and kissing that paper with such hope, and I couldn’t stand to throw her away.

Today, the girl who was my first roommate at Auburn- the girl who asked me to be her maid of honor at her wedding, the one who lived with me for two months in a tent in Africa- told me she is having a baby. And life seemed to meet me right there in my kitchen, over the phone, standing barefoot looking through the freezer for something to cook for dinner. Life isn’t a witty conversation between a guy and girl who are trying to figure each other out, who are trying to read the other’s mind instead of just asking the question. It isn’t a boy throwing a clump of dirt at the girl he likes on the playground, and it isn’t a boy seeing what all he can get if she’s willing. It isn’t sarcastic, or confusing, or hard to get; it isn’t mean, ugly, or a cheater. It isn’t indifferent or forgetful. Life isn’t blind to us or our hearts, if our hearts are buried six feet deeps, it’s because we had the shovel; and if we’re broken, it’s because we dropped ourselves into the wrong hands or the wrong place; and if we are the opposite of everything we ever wanted to be, well, we walked in the opposite direction. Life isn’t ugly, people are.

Today, it seemed simple. Alicia is having a baby with the man who is her best friend, who she loves; and she loves him because he pursued her, and she married him because it’s what her heart wanted, and in the midst of everything that was hard, and heartbreaking, and disappointing, there were all of these beautiful and fantastic moments. And it seems like such a waste to play such stupid games with people’s hearts when you realize how simple it should be.

So here it is: I’m not playing games with your heart. I’m not going to hold you at arms length because you “scare” me. I’m not going to expect you to cheat on me, lie to me, or walk away because of the others who have. I’m not going to hide my heart from you. I’m not going to half-way tell the truth because the whole truth is ugly. I’m not going to throw dirt clumps at your back when you’re not looking. I’m not going to be “complicated” on purpose. I’m going to try very hard not to shy away or to put up that stupid wall. And if you throw rocks at my window, I’ll open it…

If you ever hurt my heart, I’ve long gone forgiven you. And if I ever hurt your heart (girl or boy (this means in friendship or dating, except for girls, I don’t date those) then I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry, and I hope you’ll forgive me, I don’t want to be one of your heart’s cracks…I’d rather be one of your heart’s pieces of duck tape.

I figure that all of this doesn’t seem “realistic,” and is too hopeful, and naïve…but I’m one of those waving from such great heights, and I’ll stay...

Forget Me

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit about how to give and take.
But since I came here
Felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake
-Yael Naim

I saw my life, saw it so clearly: I saw all of my mistakes like I was looking down on them, reading them, seeing them, knowing them. I saw them, insignificant, like the little marbles children play with, thumping them into cracks or between the spaces where furniture sits away from the walls, forgetting they ever existed; I saw all of it, every tick tick tick, like I could stop time or rewind it, or slow it down. I could speed it up until it fell, motionless- until I could see the end- and I stepped into my old bones like chalk, and turned my head to look back, and there it all was again, every tick tick tick- all in a row- from the beginning where I laid curled in black and empty, waiting to be filled; to the end where everything was white, burning, expanding, bursting: It was over.

The person I lived as, never the person I was. Always hoping for the next tick to change. “The next one, the next one, the next one.” But each second came, came, came, and went; just like the one’s before it. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll be braver, wiser, better. And I saw my life: I saw it there, all in white just before it burst and burned out, and I realized sitting in the backseat of a car that I’m dying.

It’s ending. The ticks are carrying me to the front of the line that I’ve only just gotten into. And I look at my own life, my own blank page, and fill it up with meaningless letters I’ve grabbed while peaking through cracks in my fingers from the hands nearest mine: j-o-b, m-o-n-e-y, h-o-u-s-e, s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y. But I saw pictures today of the most lifelike statues I’ve ever seen, sitting on the floor of the ocean. And they were quiet, and still, and I wanted to sink, heavy, and stand next to them. I don’t know why, I guess I just thought if I could stand there, I could be beautiful like them- Just as I am. I could live to the end as me, and the coral that would clothe my arms and legs with every tick, tick wouldn’t change me or hide me, but become a part of me.

I don’t know which is worse, to have your life end in oblivion or to know how your life will end, unable to find the will or courage to change it. Today I could run, and it would all change: I could go to Tuscany, I could just be an English major with no idea of where I’m going to work, but happy to spend my days writing, I could wear white cotton flowers in my hair, I could kiss him first, I could write the stories I’ve wanted, I could make the confession, I could let the words go from behind my closed teeth, I could sing to you: I could, but I look towards the white, and it’s hard to imagine. I’m the statue with its eyes opened- seeing, but not moving- too afraid I’ll break or chip away.

I saw my life today, and the only real mistake I’ve ever made is hiding being the person you expect me to be.