i will collect the world
I’m excited about dinner tonight: We’re going to the West End Cafe, the location of our first one-on-one date. We’d gone to Moe’s and then Tanglewood the week prior, but that was the three of us: Diane, Luke and myself. The West End date was just Diane and me, all the way back in the spring of ’06. It doesn’t seem that long ago when you just compare the two numbers (2006 vs. 2010) in your head, but 10, 20, 30 years down the road, Lord willing, it’ll seem like ages. I want that perspective, even if it means the end of our time together here on earth will be drawing shorter.
A friend of hers ran across some old pictures of her yesterday, and sent them to her. She shared them with me. Even now I have trouble describing the emotions that run through me when I look at them–something I could do for ages, incidentally. I told her last night that I wished I had known her then, but that at same time, we were dramatically different people, and probably wouldn’t have tolerated, let alone liked each other then (though I’m certain I’d have been captivated by her smile). I would have been a deathly bore to her, stodgy and unappealing, and she would have been the unattainable beauty to me, flighty, popular and gregarious but utterly inaccessible. I remember girls with a measure of those qualities back in my college (and after) days, but no one with the convergence of features she has. It’s a fair bet I would have been pretty far gone.
I look at the pictures and I want to know her. The greatest drive in my life, other than those directed toward the Lord, is to love her and to know her, a drive that extends backward into the past and forward into the future. My own memories are so significant to me that it hurts to know there are places in her past that are unilluminated–and I know full well that some will always remain that way.
The present is the tip of the iceberg. I see us as we move through time, standing on the tip of an unspeakably massive pyramid of experiences. I want to step back, back, back until I can see it all at once, even if my eyes can only focus on particular details, and even if I’m overwhelmed, bowled over, floored by the vista of her that spreads out before me like the sky full of stars on a dark night. I want the impression of the whole–that knowledge. I’ve always wanted that.
On the subject of pictures, from March 23, 2006:
We traded pictures today. I made her a small folder on my webspace where I consolidated (the few) pictures of me where I felt I was reasonably photogenic. I signed on AIM later and she sent me some of her. The overwhelming thought in my mind as one after another came through onto my screen was, “YES.” Yes that I wanted this, that I wanted her. Yes that it is a face, such a face, that I could look at for a long, long time. And yes that I cannot believe how fortunate I am to be accepted by such beauty. It makes the experience more tenuous (since I feel like I have less than ever to recommend myself to her) and more wonderful at the same time. I won’t share all of them with you, but it was interesting to almost experience a different moment, a new facet of her personality through the quality of each image.
I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day.