Him
The most profound insight she learned from him was that meaning – deep, soul moving – meaning could come from the lightest and often simplest of moments. She had always believed that meaning had to be heavy and serious. He showed her that light-hearted, quirky, silly moments could heal and bind, and their fragility was just as, if not more, meaningful than the weightiest of conversations or the most intense intimacies.
She smiled to herself remembering the old theatre adage, ‘tragedy is easy, it’s comedy that’s hard.’ Tragedy encompasses all sorts of chords. Comedy requires the right note. To her, his music was always in the perfect key. It was all she could do not to draw his attention to how he played. It didn’t matter to him and being conscious of it was more detrimental than complementary. The swallow doesn’t need to know the perfection of its nest; the building of it for protection matters more than the quality of the design and craftsmanship. And, as is often the case with artists and audiences, the thrill the beholder feels when seeing magnificence is not usually shared by the artist that created it. Such is the rift between the fan and the composer of any art.
In her search for meaning, she never considered changing her perspective…until she met him. She had always seen the world differently than most. Growing up, that ability isolated her and made her feel incredibly out of place and alone. Much later in life, she enjoyed having a unique perspective – she had gotten used to the isolation of it and turned it into an asset rather than a detriment. If it was almost impossible to find like mindedness, it was absolutely improbable that she would ever meet anyone who had a different and more fascinating perspective. In his presence, her imagination bloomed like a dormant garden.
He walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in his aspect and his eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
The way steely strength and delicate sensitivity stirred within him, entranced her because these polar opposites were not at war with themselves or each other; they sat side by side within him in equal measure and on equal footing.
His discipline and self-control took her breath away because he only imposed them on himself. As if denying himself indulgences kept him in sync with his world. She had never encountered anyone who could do that so flawlessly. She had met some along the way who aspired to such lengths and who failed miserably while at the same time aggrandizing their efforts, as if trying and failing were something to be proud of. He never drew attention to it. The only imperfection was his theory that it was necessary to protect others from him, rather than seeing his own formidable inner strength as a distinctive ability, like that of an inspiring athlete who can play a sport better than anyone else.
His fine-tuned senses and delicate nature took her off guard when she discovered them. It took a while for her to see that inner sanctum. Most of the time, it remained hidden by design because bombardment from the outside world was so detrimental to his discriminating tastes, but some of the time, he submerged it and compensated with bravado, humour, pace or random deflection. But every so often he would alight on a smell, a taste, a texture that only those who pay attention can perceive.
In his unguarded moments, she saw more. The endless patience of the gentleman grown from the gentle boy, who used to sit quietly alone counting the grains of the hardwood floor while adults attended to one ever escalating crisis after another. The mischievous adolescent, who provoked and instigated the other children without any realisation of his subversive ways, bubbled up through his wit and teasing nature. And the sad, loneliness in his misty green eyes he tried to hide when he thought no one was looking – a loneliness she recognised like her own reflection in the mirror but would never admit – a loneliness that comes from seeing and experiencing too much of life at too young an age – a loneliness that should never be shared if only to spare those who will never know – a loneliness that comes from fierce independence and an almost debilitating fear of letting anyone get too close.
She enjoyed remembering how he had misjudged her during their first encounter. He assumed, in the beginning, that she would cover over her flaws, deny them or overcompensate. She smiled remembering being on top of him when he suggested that it would be futile for her to deny his prowess and command of her. She agreed completely and went further by offering that wasting her time trying to stand up to him would insult both of them…and be far less pleasurable than surrendering. But that was always followed by the pang of knowing she wasn’t enough of a challenge for him. The idea of boring him, which she did often enough, saddened her. She would always be challenged by him, but he wouldn’t have the same experience, and she knew what that kind of disappointment felt like. She also knew that trying too hard, was worse than falling short. All she could do was acknowledge that she could, in fact, see him, and she understood that his search for fulfilment was not over when he set his eyes on her.
There were moments of despair when she could not offer him assurances that things would get better no matter where he turned. She lived in a world where things often got worse, and she worried about making him feel that his despair was less desirable than his joy. When he laid his disappointments at her feet, she wanted to take them from him, to unburden him, to heal and shelter him, to give him solace and a place of peace. It was impossible for him to allow her that. He knew and trusted his pain more than he knew and trusted her…and with very good reason. She was constantly blowing things up or trying to run away, contradicting what she wanted and creating a permeating void. The ironies of both being that she had far more hope about life and faith in the world than he; while he was far more affable, charming and willing to give people a chance than she.
Like the drummer boy, she had nothing to offer him and reciprocation seemed like an insult. Tit for tat could not matter here. Nothing between them could be quantified. But she couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty that she had been so blessed, and he was still wanting. The simple unfairness of it punctuated something unseen and unbearable between them. The void created was like stepping beyond the edge of the world into nothingness. She learned to embrace the nothingness. She even began to revel in it. Her only wish was to fill it with his laughter.