Wednesday, August 21, 2013

We Were Magnificent Then









The town was too small and we were far, far too big.  No one cared like we cared.  No one wanted to live like we lived.  No one was interested in tasting, breathing, going, seeing and doing what we wanted to taste, breath, go, see and do.

We were magnificent then. 

We found each other, our little big unique selves that caused heads to turn and look back.  We commiserated with each other in our experiences of constant explanation, justification, and rationalizations of the irrational and nonsensical ways we lived our lives.

We read books.  We read books that others had not read, books that inspired us, challenged our thinking, urged us towards creativity and those dangerous thoughts that school and pastors and parents and bosses try to stamp out. We wrote and traded our writing and laughed and wanted to be better, write better, think better, create more and more and more.

We ate food, oh god did we eat food.  We ate and cooked and ordered enough and too much and too little until we licked our forks and our fingers and our plates and our spoons.  And with the food, we drank wine.  We drank gin and vodka and absinthe and beer and rum and cucumber mineral water.  But mostly, we drank wine.  We mulled it and chilled it and spiked it and sat on the floor of my empty apartment and drank it after he had taken all of his furniture and my happiness and whole-feeling with him.


We were magnificent then.


                           




We talked about the men.  We talked about what we wanted and what we needed and what they did and what they didn't and what they couldn't and what we could live with and chose to live without.  It was always our choice.  Always.

We talked about God and gods and the universe and life and death and our childhoods and our parents and our siblings and what we wanted to be when we never grew up.  We agreed that it was so much better to be many good, little big things than one large and boring and long and dreadful thing.

We rented cabins by the lake, filling the rooms made of wood and strong beams and furnishings nicer than any of us had ever seen and experienced with our families.  We lit candles and blared music and drank some more and danced around wearing little and drank and laughed and wandered around the cavernous house feeling like real grownups that take vacations with other couples.  We took our bikes and rode from the cabin into town, still drunk and happy and our faces numb and tingling from the patchy sun streaking through the leaves.  We let go of the handles and raised our arms and threw our heads back grinning widely and wildly and wonderfully letting the wind comb our hair and our too-big sunglasses slipped down our sweaty noses when we shot back up feeling that moment right before we lost our balance.

We were magnificent then.  


We would travel.  We would get on planes and take cabs and fall asleep in one place and wake up in another and see things and eat their food and drink their wine and rent hotels and rooms and apartments and we would consider what it would be like if those were our hotels and rooms and apartments.  We ate food so good and so healthy and so rich that we left with buzzing bodies, full of nutrients and coconut pasta and kale crisps and pureed berries and avocado soup and matcha ice cream.  We walked for blocks and got lost and were found and laughed and talked and puffed our hot air and hot dreams and clouds of our hot breath visible just beneath the too-close stars in the pitch black sky.  We were not afraid of being alone.  We were not afraid of being together.


                                                         We were magnificent then.

And like meteors we have dispersed.  We shot streaking and shining through, leaving a glimpse a memory a tail a story that others will tell about us after we have gone.  We have ended up on so many different sides of this country and this world and this life, our too big selves seeing if there is another, better, bigger place that can hold and encourage us.  We are doing what we always said we were going to do.  We did it.  We got out.

We left.

We have given pieces of ourselves, left fingerprints and made impressions on the people that are still there, behind us, below us, looking up for traces of us.  

We were magnificent then.  We ruled our own little kingdoms.  We made lives for ourselves.  We made plans.  We were hungry.  We were thirsty.  We were looking for something.

We dreamt.

And then we awoke and made all of it come true.

                                          




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