Roses
“One night she came back from her daily walk stunned by the revelation that one could be happy not only without love, but despite it.”
Two things.
One. I'm walking hurriedly across George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, dragging my small blue carry-on and fighting the butterflies that inevitably formed in the pit of my stomach as I made my way out to the Passenger Pick-Up area to look for a blue Ford. And then I see him. With the warm Texas breeze ruffling his blue shirt, sunglasses on, feet crossed, the tower of him leaning against his car, smiling at me. In a split second I look down to make sure my fly isn't open (focusing on the important details here, of course), and I remind myself to be cool as I make my way to him.
The rest of that spring weekend in Houston I remember in snapshots. Like children, we glided along a road I later came to know as Westheimer, stopping in unique coffee shops. I remember when he made the first move to kiss me and I turned my head away in startle. The time we bought pastries at Common Bond, when he made strong coffee in the morning, the trivia game at Barnaby's, his mother, when we stopped at a vintage store and kissed behind a shelf of fine china, when he killed me at ping pong when I fell asleep in his car holding his hand, when he looked at me incredulous I'd made his bed, the grass beneath our feet outside the Menil Collection, a fumble of arms, and sniffs and glances, and I marveled at the serendipity in all of it because to that point in my life I had yet to feel what it was like to marvel and be marveled at in the same caliber. I was falling conflicted and unprepared, yet I couldn't fathom another route but downhill.
Two. I'm a tangle of carry-on, purse, book, magazine, headphones and cellphone in hand as I settle in my window seat on the plane from Houston to Tallahassee. In a moment of catharsis, I rest my head on the window and look out as the plane starts to move. "Roses," by Lunatic Wolf begins playing in my ears, and I let myself feel what I couldn't yet understand.
I suppose no one ever means to fall anywhere close to 'in love.' Like a poorly choreographed flashmob, you drop in the middle of the action, and try your hand at making sense of the discord. But this mess I was in is perhaps my life’s biggest sliding doors moment. When I'm passing pages on a local magazine and see my name written on the masthead, or when I'm belly-laughing so hard I'm tearing up watching people dance at Mi Luna in Rice Village, and when I'm giving thanks to God for knowing this and that about the city I now live in, I understand the dull monotony in the advice we garnered from all the 50-year-olds who've always assured us kids that, for them, "it happened when they least expected it." Now, more than in any other time in my life, that finally means something to me: that some things are preordained, some things are meant to be, that there is some grace to the chaos of this universe. And these other things we fear most: the heartbreak, disappointment, and the risks are not only bearable, but transformative.
*This post was named after the song “Roses” by Lunatic Wolf, for its iconic line, “Our love became a rhythm that I could not help but find. It happened when I least expected it.”