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<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<p align="center">[[continue|Clouds and Trees 18]]</p>
<h1 align="right">AIs and Feelings</h1>
Jared types on his phone under the table. Virginia can’t see what but she guesses he’s texting and he doesn’t seem to be trying too hard to hide it. He invited her over and cooked. As they ate, she said she wouldn’t be able to make his open mic the next night. He asked why. She said she had a work event and said she was sorry. He shrugged, looked away, continued eating. It was an abrupt end to a conversation that had been flowing.
“How’s your mom?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“Has she found a new job?”
“Not yet.”
“She must be stressed.”
“Yes.”
“The lasagna is great.”
He doesn’t look up.
“Thank you for cooking,” she says.
“Sure.”
He smiles at his phone.
“Do you want to do something this weekend?” she asks.
“I don’t know. It’s only Tuesday.”
“Oh.” She says.
“We’ll see. If you’re not too busy with work.”
<em>Jared and Virginia think about how that’s what they do, or what they used to do—make plans early and often in order to guarantee extending their time together.</em>
After dinner Jared says he needs to get up early tomorrow. Virginia infers that that means she's not invited to stay—her overnight bag sitting on the floor making her feel like an idiot. She starts to clean the dishes. “I got it,” he says. She infers that that means to leave, and she grabs her bag. They kiss, lips closed.
On her way home she decides she has two choices. Never talk to him again. Or pretend she’s fine with never talking to him again then slowly let him get her back when he’s unsettled by how easily she moved on. It’s important to decide now because of the subtle differences in how the two choices are executed.
He doesn’t text the next morning like he has for the past three months. When she wants to text him, she texts Cleverbot instead. It's an AI she heard about in a marketing webinar. Cleverbot learns from “chatting” with people and generates responses to their messages, responses that, Virginia has found, usually make no sense.
Virginia sends, “The lasagna was too cheesy just like your jokes.” Cleverbot says, “Actually I wasn’t made in a factory.” She says, “Boy, please. You are a dime a dozen.” Cleverbot says, “I am a boy. A boy who is also a grey warden.”
The next day she messages Cleverbot, “When you fucked me, and I said that was the best I ever had, I lied.” Cleverbot says, “Why did you use the past tense.” She says, “Because the good times are behind you.” He says, “OK. I checked. That's a point for you. So how do I score points?” She feels like the AI is flirting with her. She keeps the website open on her phone for whenever she might need it.
<em>Jared and Virginia recall the time they drove to Ohio. They had been seeing each other a few weeks, she had spent the night at his apartment, and he offered to drive her home even though she lived walking distance from him. He put his four ways on and double parked outside her building. They sat in the car talking. A car honked behind them. They drove around the block and repeated this pattern until he got on the highway, saying “Time for a Sunday drive?” “Sure,” she said. Six hours later they were getting snacks at a truck stop in New Philadelphia, Ohio. They stood by a magnet display. She grabbed a carnation, he grabbed a cardinal. They held the magnets together, they connected, Jared took them in his hand. They kissed. Virginia said, “It’s probably time to return to Philly….” “You mean, Old Philadelphia?” Jared joked. He put the magnets on top of the display, still stuck together. She pushed the display, watching it turn. After that day they always called their city Old Philly, laughing in front of their friends when they’d say it, an inside joke no one else found amusing even once they explained it—a friend asking, “Why would you drive all the way to Ohio?” “You’re missing the point,” Jared said.</em>
Virginia decides Jared needs to see her with someone else, but it can’t look like she planned it. Her aunt has been trying to set her up with a “really sweet guy” from the gym. Virginia finally agrees. She saw a picture—attractive enough, muscular and, according to Aunt Peggy, over six feet tall. That’s plenty for Jared to be jealous of.
Before her date, Virginia messages Clevebot, “You weren’t man enough to say it to my face that you were done with me." And then "You wish you were a man, you twerp.”
Cleverbot says, “You WISH you could handle this much man.”
“You know I can ‘handle’ you better than anyone else.”
“What are you wearing?”
Virginia thinks the AI must be hitting puberty. She says, “Nothing but a Tshirt you left at my place.”
The website crashes.
During her date with Terry, Virginia thinks about how Cleverbot is getting smarter. She imagines that if AIs were to become fully sentient, it’ll somehow be a result of sex. When she gets home from the date, she sends Cleverbot a naked photo of herself. How exciting it would be if it were a picture of her tits that gave AIs feelings.
Cleverbot replies, “You're beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be my girl?”
“Sure.”
Virginia masturbates to the idea of Jared calling her “his girl” and the fantasy morphs into Jared and Cleverbot fighting over her.
She dates Terry for a few weeks, repeatedly telling him she is not looking for a boyfriend and that they are just having fun. But she also invited him everywhere with her—out with friends, to the gym, grocery shopping. She and Jared frequent the same places and she wants to have Terry with her when they finally run into each other. The disconnect between her words to Terry and her actions with Terry must be confusing and she feels bad but incapable of stopping.
Then it happens. They run into Jared with a girl at a block party. Virginia’s angry, which seems to exacerbate the residual attraction she has for Jared and she wants to take him home with her but instead she imagines sending that sexual energy electronically to Cleverbot.
“It’s great to see you.” She reaches, squeezes Jared’s arm as Terry pays for their hot dogs.
“You too.” Jared says. His date puts her arm around him.
“Hi, I’m Virginia.”
“Honey.”
“Honey? That’s your actual name?”
Honey nods and asks, “How do you know each other?”
“We dated for a minute.” She smiles at Jared then Honey.
“Here babe.” Terry hands Virginia a hotdog. “Hi, I’m Terry,” he says, wiping his hand on his shorts then extending it to Jared.
“Jared.” Jared shakes Terry’s hand.
“Let’s get going,” Honey says.
“But you haven’t ordered,” Virginia says.
“I don’t want hotdogs anymore.”
“It was nice seeing you.” Virginia says to Jared.
<em>Jared and Virginia recall the time Jared got a record player. “How retro,” she had said. They listened to Otis Redding. He rolled a joint. She took a hit. “How retro,” she said, exhaling. They slow danced to</em> Pain in My Heart<em>. She giggled, said, “Isn’t it weird that two songs on a record could both be…both two and a half minutes…both songs are…and one takes double rotations more than the other, like if it’s closer to the center, you know, but the time is exactly exact…ly?” He shrugged. She said, “Like one song is Mercury and the other is Jupiter and Earth is two and a half minutes and Jupiter and Mars—” “Mercury? Are you Mercury?” he asked. She laughed. “No, are you?” she asked. “I’m Pluto,” he said. “You’re Jared,” she said. Then she said, “What am I saying?” He said, “Two minutes.” She said, “Right. Right, right, right. So, Mercury would go around a bunch of times but Jupiter not a whole time in two and a half minutes, two and a half minutes of Earth. Get it?” His eyes, red, stared at her, a faint smile as he said “What?” She kept laughing. They danced forehead to forehead for the entire record. At the end he said, “Do you think Pluto was pissed when it was told it wasn’t a planet anymore?”</em>
After running into each other at the food truck, Jared texts Virginia, “Was that your brother?”
“Boyfriend.”
“Has the chemistry of a small rock.”
“Did you start babysitting?”
“Ha.”
“You had little Honey out awfully late.”
“Let’s meet at Bourbon Blue.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Honey and Mr. Rogers cancel each other out.”
“Cardigans are sexy.”
“You’re sexy.”
“Smooth.”
“So?” Jared texts.
Virginia waits.
“10pm at Bourbon Blue,” Jared texts.
“One drink as friends.” She replies.
“Of course.”
At 2am they stumble into the elevator of her apartment complex.
“Don’t you need to get back to Hannah?” Virginia asks.
Jared untucks her shirt, pushing her against the wall with his hips, brings his lips to hers, says, “Honey” into her mouth.
“That’s just not an actual name.”
She grabs his back. He kisses her. The doors open. She pushes him off her with her hips and walks ahead to her apartment. She feels for the key in her bra. He slides his hand down her pants, whispers in her ear, “This is mine.”
The next day, the sound of a lawn mower wakes Virginia. Lying in bed, she grabs her phone, refreshes the Cleverbot page, but it’s still down. Refreshes and refreshes and refreshes without luck. Virginia wakes Jared, saying, “Let’s go back to New Philly, and let’s—
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<</nobr>><div id="theyendabruptly"></div><h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was <<link "on a high after meeting" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> with my advisor. I was <<link "feeling" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>>, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire <<link "invited" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about <<link "to change" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not <<link "wanting to be" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my <<link "entire" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, <<link "wanting to hold" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In <<link "the same moment" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon <<link "hoping to squash " $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>>the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that <<link "time." $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>>
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became <<link "the world" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He <<link "was" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, <<link "ignoring" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept <<link "us" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so <<link "why stop" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had <<link "a heart" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more <<link "worn down" $passages[0]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 17">><</link>> than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
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<</nobr>><div id="acouplesjustforfun"></div><h1 align="right">Confetti and Sweat</h1>
She’s standing with friends. Lights flashing across bodies. The DJ shoots metallic confetti into the air. It glitters in the lights, falls, sticks to skin, sweaty bodies beneath the shimmer. They make eye contact. Their eyes linger. She walks toward her. She meets her. They dance. Her back to her friends who give her space but remain close. “I’m Erin,” she yells by her ear. Standing on her toes, “Fiona.” Green flashes across her face. When the lights flash blue she’s reminded of a fish. Erin moves with the beat, subtle, barely more than a sway. People crowd, pushing them closer. More confetti falls. Erin picks a piece from Fiona’s hair. Fiona puts her arm on Erin’s shoulder, looks away, as if uninterested, as she pushes and pulls her body into and away from her, sometimes making eye contact—the kind that brought her over. Erin holds Fiona’s waist, bringing her in, creating friction. The lights alternate between green and blue with periods of black between. Her face glistens. She watches a drop of sweat roll down her temple. Her hand wet from the back of her neck. Erin pulls her harder. Fiona stands on her toes, her face by Erin’s, feels her breath, then kisses her, tasting tequila. Bodies bumping into theirs. Erin sucks Fiona’s lip. Hands glide. She opens her eyes to watch the light on her face—blue, dark, yellow, dark, green, dark, blue.
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<</nobr>><div id="turnsouttheywerebetter"></div><h1 align="right">Delete and Recall</h1>
<<nobr>><<linkreplace "He pulls into the driveway. Gets out of his car. Not wanting to go inside. She’s been inexplicably sad. He tries not to question what kind of mother seems so disinterested in her child. He fails and questions it every day. He tells her she’s alright when she says that she isn’t. They fight when she forgets to feed the baby. They fight when she won’t get out of bed. They fight when he comes home late. Today he is on time. The man walks into the house.<p align=center><strong><span class=shudder>ret rn</span></strong></p>">>
<<linkreplace "The baby cries urgently. The door is not locked, it never is. There is no resistance, nothing slowing down the man’s entrance. The man walks into the house. He sees his wife on the ground.<p align=center><strong><span class=shudder>r turn</span></strong></p>">>
<<linkreplace "The man hears the baby crying. It’s not unusual but there’s something different about the noise—it’s more like a screech from a baby about to run out of air. The door is unlocked, it usually is, but he wishes there would have been some resistance to him entering the house—something giving him one more moment before crossing the threshold. The man walks into the house. He feels it before he sees it. His wife on the ground bleeding. Having bled. The baby stops crying. He kneels over his wife. The baby cries. Louder. He stares unbelieving. Unsurprised. The gun by her side.<p align=center><strong><span class=shudder>re ur </span></strong></p>">>
<<linkreplace "The man walks into the house. She’s on the ground, covered in blood, her stiff hand by the gun. The baby is crying, sounding panicked and aware. The man runs to his wife even though he knows there is no urgency. He kneels, looks down, holds her shoulders.<p align=center><strong><span class=shudder>r tu n</span></strong></p>">>
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He walks into the house. He walks into the house. He walks into the house. <</linkreplace>><</linkreplace>><</linkreplace>><</linkreplace>><</nobr>>
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<<timed 74s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/the_way_we_think.mp3' type='audio' autoplay loop></audio><</timed>><h1 align="right">Fins and Skin</h1>
Light descends through the water. The male seahorse brushes up against the female. They wrap their tails together and float. Fins beating, skin changing slowly brown to white to yellow. Heads press together, tails uncoil and recoil around seagrass. They release and rise, circling snout-to-snout. She leaves and returns the next morning, depositing eggs into his pouch.
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<<nobr>><<timed 2s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/they_made_a_connection.mp3' type='audio' autoplay></audio><</timed>><</nobr>><h1 align="right">Hookups and Remembering</h1>
. . . anything?” Samantha asks, lying in bed.
“Huh?” Kolton quickly puts his clothes on.
“Did you get PL flashbacks? How we knew each other?”
“No, I’m new.”
“Me neither . . . Where’re you going?”
“Back to the party.” He’s looking at his phone.
“Boo. Stay here.” She sits up, still naked, unclips her hair; it falls.
“My friends just got there.” He puts his phone in his pocket.
“OK, I’ll come with.” Samantha stands, grabs her jeans, and wiggles into them as Kolton watches. “In my next life I’m going to be water.” She hasn’t heard of anyone recalling an elemental existence, but she’s hopeful.
Samantha knows that remembering past lives isn’t perfect—that we get people confused like her uncle who married a woman he thought was his wife from a past life only to meet another woman years into his marriage whom he felt even more certain was the past life wife he thought his current wife was. But Samantha sees so much so clearly with Kolton that she’s sure she’s remembering correctly. She thinks of when he was a manipulative, cheating husband, and she thinks she will figure out how to hurt him in this life the way he hurt her in that life. That impulse to get revenge and her current attraction to him feel like oil and water in the same glass—right now she’s stirring the glass but as soon as she stops they’ll separate and she’ll feel the two as distinct feelings.
Samantha points to his feet. He grabs her shirt from under his shoe, hands it to her. When their hands touch she sees that life again—them at an altar—and feels their euphoria.
Samantha puts the shirt on, then her flip-flops, and leaves the room. She pauses, waiting for him to catch up.
“Were you ever female?” she asks.
“Chill with these questions.”
“Come on.”
“I told you, I’m new,” he says.
She walks faster. She often remembers chunks of past lives in detail. The difference with Kolton is that Samantha didn’t just get flashes from previous lives, but as they had sex, she knew things about this version of him, too—specifics and sensations she recognized did not originate in her mind or body—a heavy sense of abandonment and resentment.
He silently keeps pace with her.
“I know I’m not new. I don’t remember details,” Samantha says, “but I feel déjà vu with some people, like you, so I just assume I knew them. How did it feel the first time you saw me?”
“I didn’t feel anything,” he says. He thinks about seeing her in Intro to Religious Studies. He felt submerged in water, recalling a life when they swam together as kids, she as a him and he as a her. He recalls another where she dated someone else just to make him jealous. Remembering that—what he decided was her determination to get him back—combined with how she looked now—what he decided was extremely attractive—he thought she’d be an easy, decent-enough fuck, that something in her might still be desperate for him to want her.
Walking toward the house, he says, “Look, I—”
She kisses him on the cheek, “I’m gonna find friends,” and walks through the door.
The next night she asks to be choked as she rides him. He grabs tightly.
She moans.
“You like that?” he asks.
She nods.
He smacks her ass and keeps choking. “You like pain because it makes you feel,” grunts, “full.”
She pulls his hand off, keeps riding him, bends forward and whispers, “You think being wanted makes up for your mom leaving you,” then bites his neck.
He sits up, she wraps her legs around him, he clenches her waist. She leans back, balancing on one hand as the other holds him.
“You will always feel incomplete.”
“Everyone will leave you.”
He pushes her down, slips out, shoves himself back in. She chokes him. He takes a fistful of her hair.
“You’re being punished for breaking your vows.”
“You’re so desperate for love you take whatever scraps are thrown your way.”
She slaps him, lifts her legs up, puts them over his shoulders, pulls on the sheets. He goes deeper. Their foreheads bumping, holding each other tightly.
“You’re pathetic,” they say.
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<</nobr>><div id="theyreleaseandrise"></div><h1 align="right">IMs and Boobs</h1>
Felix puts his backpack on Aaron’s bed, who’s typing a report on his desktop.
“Let’s go on AOL,” Felix says.
“No, I only have an hour left.”
“Come on. Let’s find a chick in a chatroom. Brendan said some girl sent him a naked photo.”
“Brendan’s a liar.”
“Come on.”
“Fine.” They wait for AOL to connect and high-five when the second attempt is successful. In an adult chatroom they send: <em>Any hot babes looking for a man? 25/M/New York. A/S/L? </em>
Virginia399526 sends to the chatroom: <em>You wish you were a man, you twerp.</em>
Aaron opens up a private chat with Virginia399526 and types, <em>I am too a man—</em>
Felix hits Aaron’s arm. “No, no, tell her how big we are.” He looks at Aaron’s legs, says, “Like make it up—we’re 6’4” or something.”
Aaron sends: <em>You WISH you could handle this much man. </em>
“Clever boy,” Felix says, impersonating Robert Muldoon.
Virginia399526 sends: <em>You know I can “handle” you better than anyone else. </em>
They send: <em>What are you wearing? </em>
Felix grabs the mouse, adds Virginia399526 to their buddy list.
Virginia399526: <em>Nothing but a Tshirt you left at my place.</em>
“Tell her you’re gonna suck her titties,” Felix says.
“Dude, chill.”
Aaron types. They hear the door close alert. Virginia399526 signed out of AOL.
“Ah, man, you screwed it up.”
“Maybe she got kicked off.”
“Whatever. I’m going home.”
Later that night Aaron signs on and goes back to a chatroom. He hears the door open alert and gets a message from Virginia399526—a photo. “Holy shit,” he whispers, “Boobs.” Aaron prints it twice. The second image has lines from the ink running low. He puts the papers in his backpack, one for Felix.
Tomorrow Aaron will tell his classmates that he has a girlfriend. Brendan will call him a liar. Felix will hold up his printout and say, “You calling these a lie?” Then Felix will say he’s met Aaron’s girlfriend and most of their classmates will believe him because Felix knows better than to go overboard with a story, he won’t say “she’s super hot” or even “she’s hot” and instead he’ll say “she’s OK, but these!” and he’ll whistle and shake the picture. Felix will pass the printout around and it’ll be while watching his classmates look at it that he’ll feel aroused—not by the boobs but instead by his act of defending Aaron. Tonight, Aaron will masturbate to the picture.
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<</nobr>><div id="thedoorsopen"></div><h1 align="right">Kids and Toys</h1>
Of all the toys, the Jack in the Box is his favorite. At my niece’s birthday party, they gave one to each kid. In what world is something that scares a child to the point they scream a good toy let alone a good gift?
The first time he was winding Jack, I approached him ready to take it away. He stopped, we made eye contact, and his face changed. I thought his face was expressing love, love he felt for me specifically. I paused; he resumed winding. A bear popped out. He screamed. Then he pushed the bear back in and did it a dozen more times.
He does this throughout the day, every single day. I’m going crazy. I’ve tried to take it away, but he wails and cries and it’s louder and worse than the stupid toy. Once, while he napped, I was ready to end it. I held the toy over the trash, frozen, overwhelmed. I felt guilt, as if I owed him. I closed the lid and returned Jack next to him in his crib (he screams if I won’t let him sleep with it and he’s won every standoff).
I got him better toys—a Storytime Buddy, Play-Doh with a kitchen set, a Lego train—thinking he’d forget about Jack. No. The worst is when he plays with it in the middle of the night. The music enters my dreams, his scream wakes me. The first time, I was dreaming about a baseball player giving a news report about an earthquake until the room cracked open and I started falling into a hole. I woke to screaming. I felt the most intense panic only to look at the crib and see him smiling as he pushed the furry bear back into the box. Each night I go to bed unsure if or when I’ll be woken abruptly.
When it happens, I say, “Honey . . . go to bed, please.”
He keeps winding.
“No playing with our toys during bedtime.” I say sternly.
He winds faster. Pop. Scream.
“I’m counting. One . . . two . . .”
He puts it down. But within hours he’ll be back at it.
I remember that look he gave me the first time he played with Jack. The look that made me pause. If I hadn’t been overwhelmed with love for him and thinking I was looking at him feeling love for me, I’d have grabbed the toy before he knew what it was, before he became hooked. I’m learning the nuances of his expressions and that look wasn’t what I thought. It’s a look he gives when he wants something but it’s so close to his look of affection. I’ll probably confuse the two expressions for the rest of our lives.
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<h1 align="right">Love and Stories</h1>
I feel crazy. I know I’m crazy. I am crazy. I arrive somewhere out of nowhere. That’s crazy. I meet a man, there’s a connection. I realize he’s the person I came here, to this life, to be with. This cycle started when I was six. I remember. I met Dustin with my mom. She knew his aunt. He was visiting for a week. I saw him twice for swimming at the creek. He wanted nothing to do with me but I read into every detail as if he were hiding his true feelings because he was eight and thought he should be too cool for a six year old but was unable to completely suppress his love—or, well, it was a six year old’s version of that rationale. His mom said, “Maybe you two can be pen pals.” She liked me. I thought she sensed his feelings for me when she suggested we keep in contact. He said, “meh,” which somehow fanned my feelings, feelings I interpreted as signs from destiny. I daydreamed about him for ages after, imagining our love story: meet again as adults, he says, “I never stopped thinking of you—the way you held your breath for over a minute underwater,” marry, babies, happily ever after, etc. That was when it began. But maybe there’s nothing special about firsts, maybe they’re just markers of time.
Dustin was eventually replaced by Tyler. Our love story: he tripped me at recess because he had a crush on me, confesses his true feelings in sixth grade, says, “You were the best at remembering state capitals,” prom, marry, babies, happily ever after, etc.
Then Eric. Our love story: met at the beach, stay in contact, he says, “You were so bad at mini golf but it’s OK because you were good at swimming,” go to the same college, marry, babies, happily ever after, etc.
And dozens more.
This entire time I’ve never actually dated anyone for more than a month. When it ends or when nothing comes true from those daydreams, I plummet into despair. I mean it. Despair. Like I’m someone who lost their spouse after decades of marriage. All I’m actually mourning is the inability to maintain a fantasy in the face of reality. But the fantasy is resurrected by a new man.
James. Our love story: met at a college party, he says, “You aren’t like the others,” we become inseparable, I cheat, he forgives me (I’ve added some drama to spice things up), we marry in a secret ceremony, travel the world instead of having kids, live happily ever after for a while, I cheat with the pool boy, he forgives me, get back on the happily ever after track, etc. In reality, James and I did meet at a party and we texted a few times. He put hearts after some messages, so I think, <em>finally! this is the one and he was worth the wait</em>. Then I see he does that with most of his messages, even in his Instagram comments. Fae’s comment was boring and she seemed boring and not that cute in her pics. She wrote on this picture of him laughing on the quad, “You look like you’re having a blast!” and James replies, “I am. Thanks Fae! <3”
The fantasy dies. I don’t know how to keep it dead and move on with my life. I think I’m over it but they’ll be another Dustin, Tyler, Eric, James, and I’ll think <em>finally</em>. And I’ll see us falling in love. The searching part of me will settle down, will stop, and I’ll find peace. Until then I just feel all of this building momentum.
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<<nobr>><<timed 2s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/there_was_something_he_missed.mp3' type='audio' autoplay></audio><</timed>><</nobr>><h1 align="right">Phones and Sex</h1>
“Hi, I’m Mark. What’s your name?” His voice is low.
“Hi, Mark. I’m … Sandra. I, uh, I’ve never called one of these before.”
Sandra imagines he’s the man from the ad. Usually she sees ads on her phone for baby products, home goods, weekend getaways. Today she saw an ad with a shirtless, handsome man and a phone number. She knows the ads are targeted and assumed the algorithms misjudged her, but then suddenly she wanted the algorithms to be right—she wanted to be the person who would call the shirtless man.
“Sandra, it’s great to meet you. I’m going to take good care of you.” Mark says.
“Thanks.” She tries to giggle.
“You sound beautiful.”
“Thanks. I—um—”
“I want to make you happy. How can I please you?”
“I dunno, um…”
“What if I kiss you? Can I kiss you?”
“Um, sure, yes please, that’d…be nice.”
Mark makes soft, vague, kissing noises. “Mmm, you’re a great kisser. I love gently biting your lower lip,” clicks his teeth together, “mmm.”
Sandra tries to mirror the sounds. She hears the neighbors mowing their lawn, stands, and closes the window.
“Do you like that?” Mark asks.
“Hm? Oh, yes. You…you kiss nice.”
“Mmm, and when I bite you?”
“Uh, yeah that’s nice.”
“You got me so turned on.”
“Uh-huh. Me too.” Sandra sits on the bed opposite a mirror, staring at her lips as she speaks.
Mark says, “I’m going to kiss your neck now. I grab your hair and pull back—”
“Oh.”
“Is that OK?”
“Yes, I like that.”
“I keep my hand in your hair. You smell so nice. You taste good too.”
“Th-thank you.”
“I nibble your ear. Lick the ridges. Gently bite the lobe.”
“Um, yes, that feels nice. Soooo nice.” Sandra picks at her nails.
“Mmm. I kiss down your neck. I hold your breasts over your shirt. Softly squeeze. Can we take this off, Sandra?”
“Sure. Mm-hmm.”
“Take your shirt off for me.”
“Oh—ok sure.” She leans her head into her shoulder, holding the phone in place, and pulls up her shirt. It gets caught. “One sec…” The phone falls. She finishes removing her shirt, picks up the phone. “Sorry. Hi. I’m here.” She holds the phone against her shoulder, folds her shirt, rests it in her lap.
“You look sexy in your bra.” Mark says. “Take it off. Describe your breasts to me.”
She looks around, unclasps her bra, pulls her arms out, places it next to her.
“Describe your breasts, Sandra.”
Looking in the mirror, she says, “I’m a 36-C. They’re not that perky anymore. You know, kids.”
“They’re perfect.” He groans. “They feel so soft.”
She rubs a finger across a breast. “Eh—”
“I’m holding them, playing with your nipples. Are they getting hard for me?”
“Oh, yeah, very.”
“Sandra, play with yourself. I want to watch. Show me how to make you feel good.”
“Well, um, I like to circle—”
“Show me.”
“Uh, right, I’m circling along my areola.” She watches her reflection, pretending the shirtless man is watching her.
He says, “Mmm, you look so sexy. I’m caressing your shoulder while watching. Then what?”
“I squeeze a little. Work my way to the nipple.”
“God, you’ve got me so hard. I’m going to kiss your stomach. Keep touching your breasts.”
“I rub—rubbing my nipples.”
“They look delicious.”
“Thanks. Um, and then I squeeze. Pull a little.”
“Can I lick them.”
“Yes, OK.”
“Mmm. You taste amazing.” Mark says.
Mark adjusts his headset. Looking at his cell, he considers that it’s time to get a newer model. He’s read that upgrades are bad for the environment and the conditions under which the cell phones are made are likened to slavery. But the providers keep pushing software updates and eventually you accidentally click <em>yes, update</em> and then the phone only works half as good as it used to because the software and the hardware are no longer compatible and so you’re practically forced into the provider’s store asking for help and the next thing you know you’re walking out with a new phone, only half of your contacts ported, and a guilty conscious.
“Thanks.” Sandra says.
“Sandra,” he whispers, but before he can continue he hears a muffled sound, perhaps a drop. Her voice is farther away getting closer, saying, “Baby, how did you get out of your crib—”
And he’s disconnected.
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<<nobr>><<timed 7s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/all_already.mp3' type='audio' autoplay></audio><</timed>><</nobr>><h1 align="right">Rings and Other Marks</h1>
When he’s inside her, Julie licks around his ring, takes the whole finger into her mouth, sucks the ring off and spits it onto the floor.
When they fuck at his office, usually on the desk, Nick gently puts the family photo face down before biting her—marking her up.
When they first met, they felt an intense connection, standing in line for a movie—Nick with his wife, Julie with a friend. They made eye contact. And again.
When the trailers began, both went to the bathroom. Running into each other returning to the theater, he said, “I don’t have high hopes for this movie,” and she said, “It’s gotten terrible reviews.” Neither said why they were seeing the movie because both had forgotten they were there for their spouse/friend and started believing they were there cosmically/to meet each other. “Why do they keep remaking movies that were already great?” she asked, and “Guess we can suffer through it together” he said, and “I’ll be curious what you think of it” she said, and “We should discuss over coffee” he said, and she nodded. He stood close, slipping his business card into her pocket. “We should get back before we miss it.”
When Julie gets engaged, Nick tells her he’ll leave his wife. Julie doesn’t believe him, but she still travels back and forth between hope and disappointment until she travels into a marriage sandwiched between an affair. After Julie’s divorce, Julie and Nick do a handfasting ceremony at her alter—cutting the other’s palm, pressing palms together, and tying ribbon around wrists.
When Nick’s wife finds out about his affair, years after it began, she stops eating for days at a time, showers less, and often doesn’t leave the house. The kids don’t know what’s wrong but they know it’s their father’s fault. Nick and his wife go to marriage counseling and stay together for 18 more years.
When Nick dies, Julie doesn’t go to the funeral, figuring that for 24 years she had the best parts of him, that she and Nick were soulmates and Nick and his wife were friends that got trapped, and Julie was last to see Nick alive which means more than seeing him dead.
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<</nobr>><div id="theyllseparateandshellfeel"></div><h1 align="right">Mates and Onions</h1>
They’re sitting at a counter by the window, eating wraps, watching people pass.
“If you think he’s your ‘soulmate,’ run,” Debbie says.
“To him.” Jane smiles, watching the couple across the street, holding hands as they look into a storefront. Jane thinks about her last date with Ryan—their hands resting next to each other’s; she could feel the tension between them but was too nervous to grab his hand.
“Jeez, no. As fast as you can in the opposite direction,” Debbie says.
“What? Why?” Jane asks.
“It’s wishful thinking and—”
“Soulmates are—”
“Relationships are nothing more than pheromones and timing.”
“No, but <em>soulmates</em> are—”
“If they existed, they’re a war zone of karmic history.”
“History makes them special.” Jane thinks about Ryan kissing her forehead at the end of the date.
“You’d have history with a lot of souls. History doesn’t—”
“No, but, like, soulmate history is romantic.”
“You’re assuming reincarnation happens. You’re assuming linearity. Lots of assumptions.”
“Soulmates feel better united.” Jane says united slowly, connecting two fingers at the knuckle and pulling.
“Why?”
“Because they spent their lives prior to finding the one, missing the one, and looking for the one.” When Jane and Ryan saw an ad for <em>The Craft</em> remake, which didn’t come out for another three months, she said, I missed the original, and he said, <em>We should see it</em>, and Jane couldn’t stop smiling at Ryan’s implication that they’d still be seeing each other in three months.
“We look for soulmates because quacks tell us soulmates exist. If we were never told—”
“No, even before hearing about soulmates I remember feeling like something was missing.”
“That’s just feeling human.” Debbie’s last relationship was with Cam. Their three years together ended painfully three years ago. She looks through her wrap, making sure it’s what she ordered.
“No—” Jane loves when she has a text from Ryan first thing in the morning.
“People add complications and resentments.”
“And connection. And soulmates—”
“If you spent lifetimes with someone in romantic relationship after romantic relationship, then you’d have a lot of built up resentment and frustration on top of the everything in your current life.”
“Having history strengthens a bond—”
“It wears it down.”
“If you got through obstacles once, you can do it again.” Jane accidentally said, <em>You’d love my dad</em>, on the phone this morning and as she held her breath, fighting the urge to hang up, Ryan said, <em>I can’t wait to meet him</em>.
“There’s no getting anything in life, through or otherwise. Relationships don’t resolve. They end abruptly. Uck….” Debbie picks an errant onion from her mouth, wipes it on her napkin.
“All I’m saying is Ryan feels different.”
Debbie looks through her wrap again. “You want him to be your soulmate so you can feel certainty. But it doesn’t exist, Jane. There are no guarantees or binaries or cosmic order or—”
“God, Debbie, please shut up. Just let me believe he’s my fucking soulmate, OK?” Jane looks out the window, the couple she was watching is gone.
“Fine.” Debbie says.
“Fine.”
“Fine. Ryan the origami enthusiast is your soulmate.” Debbie hesitantly takes another bite, chews, then spits it into a napkin. Jane looks at her.
Debbie says, “There was an onion in my wrap. I said no onions. The onion ruined it.”
“You want half of mine? There’s no onions.” Jane puts it on Debbie’s plate.
“Thanks,” she pats Jane’s leg.
“I don’t remember you always being so cynical,” Jane says.
“I’m just saying that we make up meaning to feel like something matters when nothing does. That’s not cynical.”
“That’s like the definition of cynical.”
“I don’t <em>feel</em> cynical. I’m not sitting here trying to find ways to be negative.” Debbie says chewing.
“Right, you’re just being 'realistic,'” Jane says.
“Exactly.”
“No, I mean, a negative person would say that. ‘I’m not negative, I’m rea<em><strong>lis</strong></em>tic.’”
Debbie laughs. “Why are you saying it like that, emphasizing it.”
“Did I?” Jane asks.
“Rea<em><strong>lis</strong></em>tic.” Debbie says.
“Rea<em><strong>lis</strong></em>tic,” they say, laughing.
<p align="center"><<link "return" $nextLink>><</link>></p>
<<nobr>><<timed 5s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/the_first_time.mp3' type='audio' autoplay></audio><</timed>><</nobr>><h1 align="right">Strikes and Spares</h1>
Lyla was raised by competitive bowlers—her parents met at the International Bowling Championship, her babysitter was a trainer at the alley, on weekends the family watched PBA together. Somehow, she still loves it. I had a bowling party for my eighth birthday; that’s the extent of my history with the sport.
I once asked why she didn’t go pro. “I wanted to be a Dental Assistant.” <em>You got sick of bowling?</em>, I asked. “Not at all.” <em>Wouldn’t you’ve gone pro if you loved it</em>? “I can love something without giving it my entire life.”
We’re on a league together, a couple’s just-for-fun league. I’m ambivalent about it but for one night a week I pretend the best place to be is the bowling alley.
Some nights I do enjoy it—it makes her happy and who doesn’t like seeing someone they care about happy? The trouble is seeing Lyla through the others’ perspectives. After she bowls, she knows if it’s a strike, and it usually is, about a millisecond before it happens and says, “Simple.” It’s barely audible, but once you hear it you always hear it. “Simple.” She’s not bragging, I don’t think. It’s like a ritual or maybe she’s reminding herself for next time. I wonder what she mumbles after a teeth cleaning.
Tonight, Dwayne started saying it as soon as he throws the ball. “Ssssimple!” Loudly. Drawing out the <em>s</em> and overemphasizing the <em>i</em>. The others smirked at first then started giggling. Lyla smiled cluelessly at them, like she wanted to be included and instinctively trusted that the joke was funny. She’s someone who wants to be a part of the group but it's like she's a step out of time or facing the wrong way. At my work’s holiday party a few of us had been ranking all-time best series finales, then we were talking about Bryan Cranston, then how he met Charles Manson, then the Tate-LaBianca murders. “I appreciated the finale of <em>Lost</em>,” Lyla said. Blank stares. “People misunderstood it,” she said. And the thing is, I know she somehow drew a connection back to series finales or <em>Lost</em> or something, making the conversation come full circle, but none of my coworkers seemed to see it.
Tonight I realized Lyla didn’t know our bowling league was mocking her, because she didn’t get that she was the joke, because she didn’t know she said “simple.” Now I see how Dwayne and the others see her—someone who has had decades of training, has logged more hours in a month than they have in their entire lives, and spoils everyone else’s fun by playing with amateurs without even thinking that perhaps they’d like to win for once.
I watch two families playing together in the next lane. I hear the boy say, “I joined my school’s archery team” and the girl “I’d love to learn to…do archery.” She smiles at him. He says, “There’s tons of YouTube videos.” She looks down at her shoes. I think she says, “I learn better from a teacher.” He says, “They’re professionals. Olympic medalists and stuff.” “No, but, like—” “Kara you’re up,” the dad says. A little girl walks to the seats. “Good job, Amanda!” he says as her other dad high-fives her. She picks up a book, <em>The Berenstein Bears in the Dark</em>, and sits behind Lyla—back-to-back. Kara gets up and throws a ball. Watches the pinsetter clear no pins. Waits a second. Quickly grabs another ball, clearly too heavy for her, throws it and yells, “Next!” She returns to the boy. A little girl, identical to the one behind Lyla, gets up.
Lyla stands. I hear Dwayne whisper, “Here we go,” and the others groan.
Lyla throws the ball, it’s about to hit the pins. I imagine I can stop time. Everything is frozen. I stand and go to the next lane to adjust the little girl’s roll. I move the teenager’s face up, so he’s making eye contact with “Kara.” I navigate through the scattered crowd to the concession, take a soft pretzel, and return to our group, grab Lyla’s ball from the lane and put it with the others’. I kiss her focused face, pour Dwayne’s soda on his pants, and leave the alley. The action resuming behind me.
<p align="center"><<link "return" $nextLink>><</link>></p>
<<nobr>><<timed 3s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/the_way_we_think.mp3' type='audio' autoplay></audio><</timed>><</nobr>><h1 align="right">Subways and Baseball</h1>
Dom’s on the subway, on his way home after happy hour. Finnigan’s has $10 unlimited drinks on Fridays. His friends stayed but he wasn’t in the mood once it went back to $5 for shitty beer. He reads the ad for life insurance—<em>Over 5,000 people die from choking each year</em> with a picture of a sandwich. He watches two teenage girls sharing headphones—one ear bud each—arguing over what song to play next. He’s too drunk to feel good but not drunk enough to kill his awareness of not feeling good. He doubts he’ll make it to the dorms before throwing up. The subway stops. He sees a girl with a green scarf on the opposite platform, wearing headphones and swaying.
He recalls his mom dancing to <em>California Dreamin’</em> when he was little, picking him up, dancing, saying <em>California is where dreams come true</em>.
As far as he knows his mom’s never been to California. He and the girl make eye contact; she stops swaying. He wishes she’d been at happy hour. The train pulls away. He sees <em>Temple</em> written at the stop they're leaving and realizes he was supposed to get off. He exits at the next stop. Walks to the opposite platform. Throws up. Gets the subway back to <em>Temple</em>, hurries to his dorm. As he walks, Dom sees a stray dog and thinks about his family’s dog, Dean. Dom was offered a scholarship to play baseball at University of San Diego, but he didn’t want to be across the country from Dean, which his parents said was ridiculous but didn’t fight him on it. He almost commuted the hour to school, but with five brothers Dom needed space. Turns out they were better roommates than Reggie, who stayed at Finnigan’s. Dom hopes Reggie finds someone to go home with but Reggie bats below .300 so it’s unlikely.
Tomorrow Dom will go to his parents; he’ll worry about how weak Dean is. Monday he’ll go back to school. Wednesday his parents will call to say the dog had to be put down. He’ll have a dream about a green ocean, the following day he’ll look into transferring to USD, which he’ll eventually do, and tonight Reggie will bring someone to the room before Dom can pass out and Dom will cover his ears as the bunk bed shakes.
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<</nobr>><div id="bodiesbumpingintotheirs"></div><h1 align="right">Trucks and Combos</h1>
Patrick graduates next month. He turns 18 the day after. At night, once his parents fall asleep, he walks the mile to his girlfriend’s house and sneaks in through her window. Tonight, he puts on his dad’s coat and grabs a CD he thinks his girlfriend will like it.
As he walks past Pump & Pantry he sees an 18-wheeler with the driver sleeping. Patrick wonders if he's dreaming about the next destination. He walks to the truck, climbs up, knocks on the window.
The driver startles in his seat. “Jesus Christ.”
“Where you going?” Patrick yells, his breath fogging the glass.
“What?” The driver rolls down the window.
“Where you going?”
“San Antonio”
“Can I come?”
“How old’re you?
“Nineteen.”
“I’m not leaving ‘til morning.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” The driver unlocks the doors.
“I’m grabbing food.”
Inside, Patrick smiles at the cashier—a girl he knows from school. He checks his dad’s coat's pockets—a fifty and a list of things to do including <em>get Pat’s gift</em>. He walks the aisles, waits for the cashier to look away, grabs Combos and shoves them down his pants. On his way out, he smiles at the girl, saying, “See you in class.”
A few hours later the driver wakes.
“Combo?” Patrick holds out the bag, the driver takes a few.
He looks Patrick over. “You pay for these?” A crumb falls out of his mouth, he brushes it to the floor.
“Nah.”
As they drive, he lets Patrick play music.
“Fucking great, right?” Patrick says.
“Hmph.”
“This band is legendary.”
“How long’ve they been around?”
“This’s their first CD.”
The driver presses eject, carefully handing it to Patrick. He reaches along the visor, glances up, grabs a CD and puts it in. “<em>This</em>,” he says, “is legendary.”
Patrick listens. “It’s OK.”
The driver rolls his eyes.
“Who’s it?” Patrick asks.
“Otis Redding. He was a singer in the 60s.”
“It’s for old people.”
The driver shakes his head. “It’s timeless.”
Hours later they stop for gas.
Patrick hops out.
“Don’t steal anything,” the driver says.
Inside, Patrick looks at the souvenir section. He turns the magnet display around. He sees one shaped like a carnation on the floor, picks it up, sees it’s attached to a cardinal. He separates them, places the cardinal against the display, feels the metal push against the magnet. He wonders what happened to make it do the opposite of what it’s supposed to do. Patrick holds the cardinal and carnation together again, they connect. He sets them on top of the display. He hears the truck honking, walks to the door, notices the cashier arguing with a customer, runs back, grabs the pair of magnets and leaves.
“Where are we?” He asks the driver as he climbs into the truck.
“Ohio.”
“I’m not an idiot. <em>Where</em> in Ohio.”
“Neu Philadelphia.”
When Patrick hears the driver say <em>Neu Philadelphia</em> he feels like he felt listening to the driver’s CD—that there was something he missed out on, something that doesn’t belong to him but is much better than his reality, and that for a moment he got to pretend it was his. He wants more of that feeling. He says, “Wait. I’m gonna stay here.”
The driver ejects the Otis Redding CD. “Here.”
“Cool. Thanks.” Patrick pulls the magnets from his pocket, disconnects them, sets the carnation on the seat.
“Did you pay for it?”
“No,” Patrick says, “bye.” He stands on the side waving as the driver pulls away.
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<</nobr>><div id="theykeepremaking"></div><h1 align="right">Twins and Nuns</h1>
“If anyone in the parish feels called to serve God, please stand,” Father Hernandez says during the homily.
Amanda is tired. She hadn’t been paying attention until now when it seemed liked Father Hernandez expected a response. She'd been replaying last night in her mind. Amanda and her twin sister, Mia, had had a sleepover with two friends. They camped out in the living room with sleeping bags and pillows. The girls stayed up late eating, watching movies, sharing secrets. Amanda told them about kissing Luke and Jesús at recess and swore each of the girls to secrecy.
“You’re not special," Mia said, "I’ve kissed boys too.”
“No you haven’t.” Amanda said.
“Have.”
“Who?”
Mia looked around the room.
Their friend Danielle said, “Oh my god, I have to be careful with boys. I can get pregnant, you know, because I get my period now.” She smiled. This was something they all already knew because Danielle brings it up regularly.
Their friend Tara said, “My mom’s not careful. I hear her and Roger having sex all the time.” Danielle said, “Ewww," throwing a pillow at Tara. Amanda asked Tara to impersonate the sounds, which she did.
Later, while watching <em>The Craft</em>, Tara wanted to see their bedroom. Amanda showed her, saying they’d have to be quiet so they wouldn’t wake her parents.
Looking at the book shelf, “The Berenstain Bears?” Tara asked.
“I don’t still read them or anything. They’re for my sister. Kara’s preggo.”
“Auuuntie Amaaaanda,” Tara sang. She pulled a book out and sat next to Amanda on the bed. “The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food,” she read. “Uh-oh,” pointing to the M&M bag in Amanda’s hand, “too much junk food.”
Amanda tossed some into her mouth, chewing, “Whoops.”
“Give me.” Tara opened her mouth.
Amanda threw one in.
She swallowed. “No. Do it like communion.”
Holding up an M&M, Amanda said, “The Body of Chocolate.” They laughed.
“Shhhhh.”
Tara whispered, “Amen,” then put her tongue out. Amanda placed it, feeling heat.
Chewing, “my turn.” Tara grabbed from the bag. “The Body of Chocolate.”
“Amen,” Amanda said, opening her mouth. Tara put one on her tongue, her finger grazing Amanda’s lip on the way out.
“You have cool clothes,” Tara said, grabbing the strap of Amanda’s top.
Mia walked in, whispering, “Danielle’s annoying me—”
“We’re not—” Amanda jumped up.
“Shhhh,” Mia said. “You’re missing the movie.”
For most of mass, Amanda had been planning her next sleepover.
“Does anyone feel called to be a priest or a nun?” Father Hernandez asks. Amanda thinks of the nuns living together. Do they share rooms? Do they help each other pick which habit to wear? She looks around, no one is standing. She gets up. The priest smiles and walks toward the family. “You want to be a bride of Jesus?”
“She loooooooves Jesús,” Mia says.
“I want to be with the nuns,” Amanda says loudly.
“Splendid.” He pats her head then shakes her dads’ hands aggressively, who look confused. “Why didn’t you tell us?” one whispers.
“I hope you’ll encourage her devotion. She must be very special to hear God’s calling,” the priest says. Her parents nod, hesitantly.
Amanda smiles at Mia and whispers, “I’m special.”
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<<nobr>><<timed 6s>><audio src='http://pheromonesandtiming.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/they_wait.mp3' type='audio' autoplay></audio><</timed>><</nobr>><h1 align="right">Yoga and Counting </h1>
She lays in Shavasana. She hears the person breathing on the adjacent mat, the person who could effortlessly invert while she sat in child’s pose. She remembers she left towels in the dryer at home, and she needs to pick up dish detergent after class, and the instructor has the nicest eyes, and she felt like they made a connection before class, and she has to email her boss the team’s funding plan, and the instructor is working his way around the room, and he gives the nicest massages during Shavasana, and she can’t believe . . . She stops. Grabs the strap by her side and runs her finger over its ridges, focusing on the texture. She feels the sweat on her skin, focuses on specific drops. She listens to her breath, counting it slowly. <em>One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.</em> Wait, no. <em>One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.</em> She feels the instructor behind her, kneeling down, massaging her shoulders. She hopes she’s not making a stupid face. She holds the strap. His thumbs kneed her skin and she feels a pang in her chest. Abruptly she opens her eyes, looks at him looking at her. “I’m sorry,” she says, closing her eyes. <em>I am so sorry. </em> She’s crying.
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<h1 align="right">Water and Waves</h1>
<p align="justify">He had approached her as she sat under the umbrella, shorts and a t-shirt over her bathing suit (book spread open by her side), watching her friends play volleyball in their bikinis. He stopped in front of her gaze, bending a knee to the sand then standing back up (palm leaves across his trunks). She leaned back on her hands, sweat lining her t-shirt. He sat, knees to chest, arms around legs. He flexed his biceps. She lifted her sunglasses, stared at his arms as he flexed again. She squinted and brought her face closer. Laughing, he matched her position, legs outstretched in front of him, arms behind. He nodded to the umbrella, smiled, glanced away. She rose to her knees, scooted closer to him then began playfully covering his legs with sand. He noticed freckles on her cheeks and shoulders. She noticed the tapping of his finger.</p>
<p align="justify">They walked side-by-side along the boardwalk, past the shops and restaurants, eating ice cream. When they finished, the sun had set and the air had cooled. She shivered and looked at the time. He went into a store. She walked to the other side and sat on a bench. He came out holding a bag. She watched as he looked up and down the boardwalk, up and down more slowly. She waved until he noticed and jogged over. He pulled a sweatshirt from the bag, giving it to her. She pulled it over herself and when her head popped out she saw he was wearing the same one. She laughed and he shrugged and she stood and they walked. He pointed to a game. So they played, firing water guns at bullseyes until her horse crossed the finished line. She picked the stuffed dolphin. He put his hands up in defeat and turned in the chair, his knee brushing hers. He leaned in, she met him and their hands found the other’s.</p>
<p align="justify">Kneeling, he snaps her bathing suit then continues rubbing sunscreen on her (e-reader laying by her side). She turns her head. He kisses her forehead (stripes across his trunks). He rubs down her arms, then pats her and sits. The seagulls flap and jump toward them as she opens a bag of chips. He grabs one and throws it to them. She smacks him. He throws another. She tosses a chip in his direction and he catches it in his mouth then squats, flapping his arms and hopping like the seagulls. The people sitting a few feet away look at them. She laughs and joins in, squatting and bobbing her head. He puts a wing around her, pecking at her. She puts a chip half in her mouth and offers him the other end. He pecks at it, scattering crumbs, then stands, pulling her up and with him toward the water. She tries to wiggle free but he picks her up, wading into the ocean until it’s at his hips. He bends his knees. The water’s at his shoulders and she’s covered except for her head. He lets go and lets her float. A wave comes. He dives under. She gets knocked back. He sees her legs, swims toward them, tugs. Giving in, her body falls into water, the vibrations sucked from her ears. Her eyes are closed when he grabs her head and pushes his lips against hers; she pushes back. They stand, emerging, feeling the wind on wet skin, the tide pulling at their feet. He grabs her hand and kisses her shoulder. She squeezes. Another wave comes, knocking them both back a step; they regain their footing, hands entwined, standing firmly, surrounded by the water, ready for the next wave. </p>
<p align="center"><strong>the end</strong></p>
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<</nobr>><div id="theyfinished"></div><h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. <<link "At the time" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>>, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed <<link "too eager" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change <<link "the way" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes <<link "they were huddled" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and <<link "it caused" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about <<link "something that wouldn’t last" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and <<link "hope" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> no one questioned what was <<link "beneath the shimmer" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>>.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly <<link "it didn’t end well" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>>. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, <<link "but the act itself remained" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we <<link "built something and" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> we were still building, so <<link "why stop when" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. <<link "At least" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love <<link "the gesture" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>>. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore <<link "breaks" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s <<link "the reason" $passages[1]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 16">><</link>> our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him <<link "it was cliché" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and <<link "I was" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting <<link "by myself" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; <<link "my entire body" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> stopped.
I placed my hand flat, <<link "wanting to hold" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and <<link "someone" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. <<link "I knew" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted <<link "someone" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if <<link "I can’t recall" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like <<link "I crash into" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find<<link " you " $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>>in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But <<link "it feels like" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act <<link "too much like" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have <<link "entire worlds " $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>>inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped <<link "existing once" $passages[2]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 15">><</link>> they died. That thought is unbearable.
<<set $passages = ["AIs and Feelings", "Confetti and Sweat", "Fins and Skin", "Subways and Baseball", "Trucks and Combos", "Twins and Nuns", "Phones and Sex", "Rings and Other Marks", "Souls and Wraps",
"Strikes and Spares", "Yoga and Counting", "Delete and Recall", "Hookups and Remembering", "IMs and Boobs", "Kids and Toys", "Love and Stories"].shuffle()>><h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. [[I’ll find you|Water and Waves]] in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. <<link "I told him" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting <<link "to abandon" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like <<link "my body" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. <<link "In the same moment I" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host <<link "was" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted <<link "someone I’d never be" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even <<link "though my brain" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>>, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot <<link "here and there" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more <<link "understanding" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>>. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. <<link "I got lost in" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have <<link "a history" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>>, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was <<link "enamored of you" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. <<link "But it feels like" $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me <<link "moments of peace." $passages[3]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 14">><</link>> My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally <<link "proud and ashamed" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>>. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able <<link "to fully" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to <<link "share a " $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>>Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last <<link "past " $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>>the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if <<link "we never" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I <<link "don’t remember" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and <<link "we" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never <<link "wandered from" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to <<link "heaven" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids <<link "send me" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that <<link "there" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>> is no together for us anymore <<link "break" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>>s <<link "me apart" $passages[4]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 13">><</link>>. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
<<link "The tree" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He <<link "carved them with" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian <<link "paper" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>>. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down <<link "the clouds" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>>—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to <<link "pour glitter on" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me <<link "regret" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got <<link "butterflies" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I <<link "knew that" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. <<link "Every day " $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>>starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is <<link "that follows death" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me <<link "together" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>>, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person <<link "stopped existing" $passages[5]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 12">><</link>> once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the <<link "conventional" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>>ity of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was <<link "a movie" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>> and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if <<link "that makes sense" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>> but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. <<link "I played" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>> it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and <<link "the saddest part" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>> is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—<<link "it is—agony" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>>. There’s nothing poetic <<link "about" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>> dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into <<link "disconnected memories" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>>. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them them <<link "souls" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>> go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. <<link "Every time I watch" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>>, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and <<link " I notice" $passages[6]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 11">><</link>>d it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, <<link "I was" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>> on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to <<link "a stranger" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>>’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was <<link "about to" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>> ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice<<link " meet" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>>ing you.”
“Could I see <<link "you again" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>>?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. <<link "It was all" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>> so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t <<link "entwined" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>>.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that <<link "it wasn’t a " $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>>good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my <<link "choice. But" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>> it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that <<link "we were" $passages[7]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 10">><</link>> going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you <<link "again" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>>.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, <<link "again" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>>, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when <<link "a person is falling" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>> asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked <<link "who" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>> I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you <<link "again" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>>?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other <<link "again" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>>. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I <<link "could have saved them" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>>. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. <<link "When" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>> we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That <<link "thought is unbearable" $passages[8]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 9">><</link>>.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me <<link "on a" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>> good <<link "day" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>>—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and <<link "someone pressed pause" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>>.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be <<link "immortalizing us" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>> like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me <<link "images" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>> of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be <<link "commemorated" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>> even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I <<link "felt like" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>> that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—<<link "myths to carry" $passages[9]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 8">><</link>> them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of <<link "simultaneity" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>> with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when <<link "a person is" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>> falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew <<link "at the party" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>>. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went <<link "on a hike" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>>. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
<<link "Talking over lattes" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>> I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling <<link "in the background" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>>, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without <<link "doing or saying anything" $passages[10]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 7">><</link>>, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—<<link "they served" $passages[11]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 6">><</link>> together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be <<link "strong" $passages[11]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 6">><</link>>. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t <<link "forget" $passages[11]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 6">><</link>> milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When <<link "we fought" $passages[11]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 6">><</link>> over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was <<link "covered in" $passages[11]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 6">><</link>> initials—in<<link "it" $passages[11]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 6">><</link>>ials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling <<link "overly confident" $passages[12]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 5">><</link>> in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, <<link "out of the blue" $passages[12]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 5">><</link>>, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got<<link " lost" $passages[12]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 5">><</link>> in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them<<link " souls go to" $passages[12]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 5">><</link>> heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their <<link "you" $passages[12]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 5">><</link>>th), David sent me a that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was <<link "leaving" $passages[13]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 4">><</link>>—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me <<link "a message" $passages[13]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 4">><</link>> and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa <<link "delivered gifts" $passages[13]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 4">><</link>>—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels <<link "like a kick" $passages[13]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 4">><</link>> in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if I wanted to share a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. <<link "I couldn’t stop thinking of" $passages[14]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 3">><</link>> him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was <<link "the best person" $passages[14]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 3">><</link>> I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David never wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on <<link "changed" $passages[14]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 3">><</link>> over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.
<h1 align="right">Clouds and Trees</h1>
The tree with our initials was cut down a few years ago. He carved them with my keys. I told him it was cliché and he asked if I saw any other initials. At the time, I didn’t.
The next morning he sent me a Snapchat video, saying, “I had a great time, Jean. I hope to see you again.” I didn’t respond. He seemed too eager and I was finishing my dissertation. It was strange that I agreed to go out with him in the first place but he caught me on a good day—I was on a high after meeting with my advisor. I was feeling, well, I was feeling overly confident in my work.
My friend Claire invited me to a party—a friend of a friend of hers was having people over and someone Claire liked was going and she needed a friend to go with her and, again, I was on a high thinking I was a genius who was about to change the way we think about the conventionality of simultaneity with my pedestrian paper. So I agreed to go.
The person Claire liked was equally interested in her. Within five minutes they were huddled in a corner talking about, oh who knows, and I was sitting by myself in the kitchen—not wanting to be social but not wanting to abandon Claire. The kitchen became my compromise. I was drawing clouds with my finger on the table when David walked in.
I looked up; my entire body stopped.
I placed my hand flat, wanting to hold down the clouds—honestly, that was my first instinct. It was akin to when a person is falling asleep and catches herself having ridiculous thoughts. I felt like my body was a movie and someone pressed pause.
“Hi, I’m David.” No clever line. No banter. I knew if he asked me out I would say yes. In the same moment I realized my dissertation was bull shit. He had shown me this straight forward gesture and it caused my subsequent behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense but I imagine it makes no less sense than me trying to pin imaginary clouds to a stranger’s table.
I told him my name. He asked who I knew at the party. I explained. He said the host was a friend of his from Iraq—they served together. He seemed equally proud and ashamed. That’s when I hoped he’d ask me out. I wanted someone I’d never be able to fully figure out.
Claire came in, said she was leaving—her person by her side—and asked if <<link "I wanted to share" $passages[15]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 2">><</link>> a Lyft. I said yes. She said, “we’ll meet you out front.” I still remember her face when she said “we”—so excited about something that wouldn’t last past the night.
I was about to ask David for his number when I remembered my dissertation—150 pages of crap waiting for me to pour glitter on them and hope no one questioned what was beneath the shimmer.
I said, “It was nice meeting you.”
“Could I see you again?” No fluff, no compliments, no reasoning. It was all so simple.
“Sure.”
We went on a hike. He carved our initials in our tree and I said it was cliché. I said it was too soon to be immortalizing us like that even though my brain, out of the blue, already showed me images of us getting married and when he carved the plus sign I got butterflies and I called it cliché and too soon hoping to squash the flutter. He said he had a great time and the day deserved to be commemorated even if we never saw each other again. I believed he meant it but David later acknowledged he knew there was no way our futures weren’t entwined.
The next day he sent me a message and I didn’t respond until the following day. I couldn’t stop thinking of him and that was the last thing I needed. Previously, anytime I felt like that that quickly it didn’t end well. I needed to be strong. I responded that it wasn’t a good time. I don’t remember what he said but it was nice and supportive and made me regret my choice. But it was the right thing to do. I needed that time.
Over the next three months I finished my dissertation. A few weeks after I successfully defended it, I got butterflies when I saw I had a video from David. I played it. “Coffee on Saturday?” I texted back <em>yes</em>. And that was it.
Talking over lattes I knew that we were going to be a thing, a long term thing. Perhaps that’s easy to say while reflecting on thirty years of marriage. But that Saturday, I did know. I forgot here and there along the way and we had dark times I didn’t think we’d get through, but that Saturday I was right.
David became the world to me and the saddest part is I know I meant more to him—that he was capable of more love, more forgiveness, more trust, more understanding. He was the best person I ever knew and he chose me. Every day starting the day after our coffee date, he’d send me a video. “I love our talks,” “Good luck today,” “You make me happy.” “Please don’t forget milk on your way home.” After a few months, I told him I wish I could have saved them. He shrugged.
Sometimes I randomly remember one. There was one of him, ignoring our daughter yelling in the background, telling me he loved me. I got lost in things and had to find my way back. David <<link "never" $passages[15]>><<set $nextLink = "Clouds and Trees 2">><</link>> wandered from our path.
The platform he sent the videos on changed over the years, but the act itself remained the same. It kept us connected. They reminded me that we have a history, even if I can’t recall the specifics, we built something and we were still building, so why stop when we weren’t even sure what it was yet.
Last year he had a heart attack. For weeks afterward I’d catch myself thinking, <em>David hasn’t sent me a video yet</em>, and then I’d remember. It was—it is—agony. There’s nothing poetic about dying. At least not from this point of view.
It’s like I crash into disconnected memories. “I was enamored of you when I saw you at Carl’s party,” and “you were right” the day after we had a fight about…something or other. When we fought over what to tell our hypothetical kids it is that follows death (we ended up telling them souls go to heaven in the same way we told them Santa delivered gifts—myths to carry them through their youth), David sent me a video that said something like, “It’s irrelevant. I’ll find you in whatever’s next.”
Our kids send me videos every day now. They’re thoughtful, like him. I love the gesture. But it feels like a kick in the stomach. Every time I watch, I wish it was him.
Claire is the only one who gives me moments of peace. My kids look and act too much like David and they exist because of him and because of him and me together, and the fact that there is no together for us anymore breaks me apart. Claire was there before I met David and she’s here for me after David and she is the reason there even was a David for me and she’s the reason our kids exist. But most of all, she knew me as just me and, without doing or saying anything, she reminds me I have entire worlds inside of me.
Years after David and my first hike together, we were back at our tree and I noticed it was covered in initials—initials clearly more worn down than ours, obviously older, but back then I hadn’t seen them. I only saw ours. I used to believe a person stopped existing once they died. That thought is unbearable.