She found herself supported by the back of the butterfly chair on her patio, with a beautiful beau in the seat next to her, as the glow from the lights inside provided a backlight, and the stereo sounded out the soundtrack. She’d just met him and was mesmerized for the first time in years, decades. Easing into the evening air, they mused about ideals and preferences and moments that moved them, sharing vignettes and stories and facets of character.

As she mentioned the books she wanted to pen, he asked, “Where do you write best? What do you want to look out at and see as your plotting the next bold move in the storyline?”

Her gaze followed his words past the final sound, through the echoes of reverberation in the air after the question mark landed. She looked at him, averted her gaze inward, as mountainous scenes filled her mind with glistening lakes and maybe the crashing ocean tides. But her ear caught the line of the soundtrack through the screen door, as the Kings of Leon sang so strongly, vulnerably “…someone like you…” in a way that hit the intensity of what she felt in that moment when she looked at him in light of that question.

One of my most favorite lovey-lyrics is from “When You Come Back Down” by Nickelcreek:

I’ll be the other hand that always holds the line
Connectin’ in between your sweet heart and mine
I’m strung out on that wire

And I’ll be on the other end, To hear you when you call

… From the moment I first listened, the image of climbing came to mind. Perhaps that’s too literal of an interpretation of the ‘line’ in the song, but I think it’s apt.

The tune was strumming in my mind this past Saturday as I learned the ways of the multi-pitch on one of Boulder’s classic routes. I had come off of a week rich in lessons varying on a theme of communication – in all relationships. I had made a commitment a few weeks ago to communicate clearly, and there was no greater moment than the present rock face I faced, while tied to my partner.

On the wall clear, precise communication is a necessity. There is no time for story, no time for the vernacular bamboozlement that happens when your shit comes out sideways. As I pondered this, reflected on the past week, and reeled through the scenes of my life where this technique was a mildly epic fail of etched patterns brought out in relationship, I noticed the etchings on the rock in front of me, where the rope I kept feeding to the partner beyond my horizon line rested against the sun soaked granite.

The pattern in the stone section was almost like a grid, yet it radiated outward from an elongated ‘X’ which was prominent. I smiled as I recognized the Rune for partnership, and what that signified.

I knew I was right where I needed to be.

“You know what that pain in your chest is? It’s your heart breaking when you’re not giving it what it knows it wants.” he pointed out.

She sat with that clear truth all day, and reeled through the memories of moments when her head rattled through practical matters and ramifications while her radiant heart-body had other agendas.

It was a bad habit of hers – not giving herself permission to have what she wanted when she wanted it and letting herself be filled with that bounty, instead being full of fears and self-imposed limitations – and a pattern that became uber-apparent as scene after scene, slices of life, floated into her mindframe and on into the low hum of twilight.

This happened with more than just what she desired to consume with a fork; it was ingrained in her life-diet as a whole that was deficient in 100% pure happiness. Not only was this card carrying vegan denying her body the meat and eggs that it craved, but in crystal clear illumination, the reel of her theater-mind slowed to notable moments of pure desire for other objects of the flesh. “Well, shit,” she thought to herself. “I could’ve had sex for breakfast.”

“When I married my ex, I thought it was normal – what we had, how this relationship thing worked – and that my expectations were too high.” Her face turned into a smile; she was beaming. ”But then, I met my now-husband and realized my expectations were not too high at all.”

DM from @matchmaker: What are you looking for?

Reply from @moi: i need sparkly, charismatic, brilliant, soulful, artsy, fun, vibrant, visionary yet momentous, mindful, charming, kind, self-aware … I’ve got a list…

#we’llseewhathappens

From p. 9 of Guy Davenport’s 7 Greeks:

“Neither Sappho nor Botticelli separated beauty from the intelligence, of which it is the specious film. Bright eyes, bright mind; balanced walk, balanced nature. The perfect unity of strength and grace in horse, ship, and javelineer underlies her sense of the beautiful, and immediately she demands the enveloping appetence that identifies and completes the beautiful, the untranslatable imeros, that yearning that was at once, love, sexual longing, adoration, and fascination. Never has a poet been as clear about predilections and attractions. A man should have something of a tree, of horse, of god about him; a woman should have the elegance of a rose and the accomplished graces. They must be of crystal clarity.”

“You’re pretty badass,” he said to her. “Are you single? Do you like boys?”

At the renegade kitchen feast on the eve of Beltane, spring’s most decadent pagan fertility rite, a crew of near strangers sat together to share in bacon wrapped succulence on a variation of a dinner theme of spicy. The pre-first course topics of discussion opened up to the body and art, and soon, in a round of the long table, each recounted tales of their ink, or lack thereof.

“… I have one around my arm,” the tall adonis next to her said, “and another on my back.”

“What are they of?” she asked.

“The one on my arm is often mistaken for barbed wire,” he said in between sips of soup. “but the one on my back is deeper than that.”

She caught his eye with a curiosity that wasn’t sated, and he told her about the Meso-American myth that the glyph stood for. “… loosely translated, it means Galactic Butterfly,” he said.

She laughed in surprise and noted her approval of his choice. The desire to cast her gaze on this symbol embedded in his flesh overrode her hunger for the butterleaf lettuce salad with fresh ranch dressing and warm carrot soup in front of her. “Do we get to see it?” she asked.

“Maybe later,” he smiled.

“Keep the wine flowing,” she said.

“You look familiar,” she said to the dark haired boy next to her. “Do you climb?”

“Yes,” he said, “I set at the bouldering gym.”

“Oh, yeah!” she realized that’s where she’d seen him. “I didn’t recognize you with your shirt on.”

OH: “I need someone more forward thinking than 6″ in front of their pubic bone.”

#seriously

She sat down on the edge of the bed next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I made this for you,” she said, handing him a remnant of her time in the studio that afternoon – a box collaged inside and out with images and text fragments resonating together on varying themes of inspired lovey-dovey-ness, just one of the many pieces she had created for him since they’d met.

“Thank you,” he said as he read the box inside out, side after side. He cherished these little works, and she knew it. This was one of her favorites.

“… I’ll want this one back when we break up,” she said.

After the long evening with mismatched ideas, they left the restaurant’s warm glow for the sky of the waning moon ready to utter the parting words of their meeting. He leaned in for more than a hug, and her lips were repelling his polarity as she avoided with subtle grace. Good-bye, thanks-for-dinner-and-laughs exchanges were had, yet he lingered, hinged on the moment.

“Shouldn’t we kiss?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said.

“So I got an email back saying the guy at the t-shop is ‘NOT single’” I said to my friend with the built in single-radar. “All CAPS, and underlined. I was surprised it wasn’t bolded. Or that she didn’t send a howler…,” I laughed.

She smiled. “We’ll keep working on him. Every Sunday we’ll go in, you try something on, and come out half naked begging for help with the “zipper.” When he gets close and realizes there is no zipper, that’s when you fall in his arms, giggling the whole way down. You’ll break him down in no time.”

As the little cute one was leaving the fireside chat under the witness of the waxing moon, Orion and the Pleiades, she walked up the stairs to the sidewalk and turned to wave good bye to the host on the patio.

“Hey, we’re the same height,” he said.

She gave him a blank stare, thought to herself “yeah, like I haven’t heard that before…,” and turned and walked homeward.

After the fashion show fitting and light downtown try-on sampler at a local t-shirt shop for Burtonian fashions of the black and white striped genre, my tall fashionably correct and stunning friend and I basked in our overall loveliness at a local vegetarian eatery for some model soup and a big piece of black berry pie (model approved).

In thinking about the guy working at the T-shop, I asked “Do you think he is single?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said with an added laugh. “He wasn’t hitting on me, so I have a hunch he’s committed. I know that sounds so bad…”

“But it’s SO true,” I said. “You’re like a barometer of singleness.”

To: Topo Ranch, Boulder
Sent: Mon, April 11, 2011 5:31:38 PM
Subject: sunday stripes

Hi! this past Sunday evening I ventured into the boulder store before dinner with a friend to try on that amazing long striped dress in the window. And while it made me look like Cindy Lou Who of Whoville and I could make two outfits with it if I hemmed it, the guy that was working there that night was really nice, funny and cute. 

Is he single?

Hope you had a rad sunny Monday. 

:) Ali

I’ve felt this once, and throwing things helps, indeed.

What to do in relationship?

It’s not about tongue and technique – per se – it’s about what happens when you meet someone an the same point in the space-time continuum and you touch. How does this dynamic play out (and within)? And, do you ever really know the other – or do you simply play in the space between with your own reflection or an illusion of who’s in front of you?

A Story
Place: coffee shop
Time: Valentines Day, late afternoon EST

Cast of characters:
3 men at nearby table (#3 was very up on Lady Gaga)
A Girl
A Boy

The scene: what transpired was a discussion about Valentines worth eavesdropping in on:

Man 1: “When I was dating, every day was valentines day.”

Enter girl: she sits down. obviously looking around for someone.

Enter boy: boy comes over with small white box with pink ribbon.

Man 3: “Hey check this out…” (watching as boy gives girl the box)

All three Men turn.

Man 2: (stops mid-turn) “Only let me know to turn around when there is something to see…”

Man 3: “But he gave her a valentine… Spring has sprung and love is in the air.”

Man 2: “Love is always in the air.”

(* * * Footnotes: Estimated avg. men’s age = 70, and holding at awesome.)