what if?

“I’ve learned everything there is to know about loneliness, now it’s just punishment”

– Oliver, drunk, skinny, bitter (and alone) old sea captain.

Now…right now…think of your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, girlfriend, lover…your soulmate. Picture his/her face, the crooked smile, the dimples, the crow’s feet, the full smile, the tears, the furrowed brow, the squinted and twinkled eye, the burst of laughter, the silent concentration, the bristly beard, the peachfuzz, the serenity and innocence it exudes in sleeping repose.

Now picture her/his hands, the spidery delicacy of veins, the slender fingers, the callouses, the nicked fingernail, the whisperingly soft touch, the firm grip of support, the gestures, picture that hand resting in yours as if it knew all along that it belonged just there.

Now picture his/her body, that symmetrical, finite-yet-endlessly surprising landscape, the nape of the neck, small of the back, the hollow behind the knee, an ankle, the spine, the belly…flat or rounded or expansive, you can see it in your mind’s eye, right now, in all its dimensions, you can map it out with all of your senses, it is, really, another you, that’s how truly you know it.

Now picture his/her mind, the quirks and angles of thought, its perceptiveness, sensitivity, empathy, and agility, its ability to carry you through every emotion, how it contradicts itself and you, yet somehow it always brings you back, and in fact gently sets you down in a new place, a better one. Now close your eyes for one minute and imagine him or her in all his/her vividness and act as a witness to what feelings that image inspires.

What if you found yourself thousands of miles apart?

What if that distance was growing every day, inexorably?

What if along with the distance, the months and years flowed right under your feet and away?

What if you somehow felt that you would never be able to see her or him again?

But…what if…what if you had a chance at a second chance?

would you take it?

What if I asked you if you believe in love?

but maybe you’re too young to be able to believe in it, maybe it’s still just an abstraction or some shiny sugar-plastic words from a hannah montana song. You’re all about crushes and giggles, glances, and feigned indifference, sweaty palms and pimply cheeks all blushed with infatuation.

Maybe you’re too cynical, too jaded to believe in it. to you it’s just an artifice, a farce, an empty holy grail, a tragi-comedy that you’re too smart to take part in, get sucked into. It’s for dreamers and dunces…a dance for the ignorant and impressionable…maybe to you it’s just plain old pathetic.

Maybe you’re too hurt to believe in it. Maybe your belief in it is at this very moment getting a major league beatdown, gnawed on, stepped on, crapped on, thrown about, wrung dry, bitchslapped, abused, twisted, decieved, tainted, crushed, torn apart, shattered, defiled, ruined, drive-by-shot at and it’s all to immediate to really be able to say that you could ever believe in it again…if you even did in the first place.

Maybe you’re too cold to believe in it. Maybe to you it’s just a slushing flow of hormones, chemicals and electrical signals triggering a heavy dose of endorphins, maybe it’s just a cultural construct used to make sure that two people stay together long enough to raise offspring to independance, or just another word for mutual respect.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to believe in it but it just hasn’t happened yet. You expect it as you turn every corner in your life, with every day you awake and stretch a long-morning stretch, with every kiss and caress, every long conversation, but it just hasn’t arrived.

what if I told you I believe in it.

what if I told you that I once felt it whole and real?

What if I told you I took a blade to it?

What if I told you how I ruined it?

What if I told you I could happily do without it.

What if I told you I was very wrong?

What if I told you every secret about loneliness?

What if I told you what I want?

What if I told you what I now know?

What if I told you  I have a second chance?

Do you think I’d take it?

Do you think I’d do my best to make it happen?

What if I told you I am taking that chance?

Would you believe me?

What if you did?

What would you say?

And what does it mean?

It means that I’m not walking. And won’t be until that second chance says either “yes” or “no”. If it’s a “yes” I would happily never take another step from that scrubby flatland in central panama where I stopped. If it’s a “no” I haven’t a clue what I might do…but I might very well return to the walk…I wonder if it would be worth it.

You see, I’ve come to realize alot of things recently. One of them is that I don’t want my walk to define me, as it has these last 5 years. I want the person I love to define me.

Our history is complicated, and my part in it much less than admirable (some call that quality by the term despicable) and I thought it was as over as over can be. Then I saw her. I Realized that she is (and this is a much-debated concept, some believe in it, others scoff) “the one”.  She told me recently,  just before slipping off her shoes, emptying her pockets, setting her purse on the conveyor and stepping through the rectangular metal detector, as pig-eyed cops looked on (airport security checkpoints really take the romanticism out of pre-flight goodbyes) and said, “Ian, be patient” which I took for a “Ian, I’m yours, just let me get some stuff figured out, ok?”  (of course, my imagination could just be running away with me and she might actually be saying “ian, keep waiting, because it’ll be a cold day in hell before I take you back”)   so, I’m being patient…waiting.

not walking.  waiting.  no walk.  wait.  walk? no.  wait? yes.