I fought hard to get some behind the reference desk time and after a year it finally happened. There was no sense in not putting that MLS of mine to work, even if it was only for an hour or so a week. So they did. Easy work, good to keep my hands in it.
Summer, maybe late July, early August. Could have been later than that. Maybe September, beginning of the school year. That was another story. That September day when you came up to me and asked you to help you with your curriculum at home. You were home schooling at the time and asked me to find for books on early and ancient civilizations. Rome. Unique architecture. The Haga Sophia. I came away with a stack of titles for you. Impressed you with my diligence, but moreso, my kindness in carrying that stack out to your car.
But back to that summer moment. It had to have been summer. We had already been writing. You had just gotten back from your roadtrip a few weeks earlier. You were always good to go in the summer time for subbing. That day I was working the desk, hadn't seen you come in yet. Knew you were coming, though, for I had one of the staff call you earlier in the day and you accepted that afternoon time slot.
Were we flirting then? Had we already taken it to that comfortable yet slightly more interesting level of communication shared back then? I know we were talking in code, writing in ways that defied logic but all the same communicated friendship and longing and loneliness that could be filled with books and coffee and lunches under beech trees.
I was helping a patron with a question when I looked up from my computer screen. That's when I saw you, wearing that pretty summer frock, standing next to the video racks on the far side of the library. Lots of property between the reference desk and the video collection, but there you were. I looked up and at that very same moment you did, too. Was there some sort of drop in the power grid that afternoon in Bremerton? Was there some sort of harmonic convergence that I wasn't aware of happening right there in that room? Was the heat on? The roof off? The sun lit up that space between you and me right then and there.
We looked at each other and then nothing after that mattered.
The world shifted back to it's regularly scheduled programming and we went back to work. But I was visably shaken, like that character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when he comes home and looks at himself in the mirror and notices that extreme suntan on his face.
I felt that burn, but deep inside. A power plant was lit and life, as I knew it, was never the same again.
Love is funny. You know when someone does something just for you. That sky blue dress, that moment, was a gift from you to me. You knew it, I knew it, and as far as I can tell, the rest of the world knew it, too.
Huzzah!
Your WHMB
Summer, maybe late July, early August. Could have been later than that. Maybe September, beginning of the school year. That was another story. That September day when you came up to me and asked you to help you with your curriculum at home. You were home schooling at the time and asked me to find for books on early and ancient civilizations. Rome. Unique architecture. The Haga Sophia. I came away with a stack of titles for you. Impressed you with my diligence, but moreso, my kindness in carrying that stack out to your car.
But back to that summer moment. It had to have been summer. We had already been writing. You had just gotten back from your roadtrip a few weeks earlier. You were always good to go in the summer time for subbing. That day I was working the desk, hadn't seen you come in yet. Knew you were coming, though, for I had one of the staff call you earlier in the day and you accepted that afternoon time slot.
Were we flirting then? Had we already taken it to that comfortable yet slightly more interesting level of communication shared back then? I know we were talking in code, writing in ways that defied logic but all the same communicated friendship and longing and loneliness that could be filled with books and coffee and lunches under beech trees.
I was helping a patron with a question when I looked up from my computer screen. That's when I saw you, wearing that pretty summer frock, standing next to the video racks on the far side of the library. Lots of property between the reference desk and the video collection, but there you were. I looked up and at that very same moment you did, too. Was there some sort of drop in the power grid that afternoon in Bremerton? Was there some sort of harmonic convergence that I wasn't aware of happening right there in that room? Was the heat on? The roof off? The sun lit up that space between you and me right then and there.
We looked at each other and then nothing after that mattered.
The world shifted back to it's regularly scheduled programming and we went back to work. But I was visably shaken, like that character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when he comes home and looks at himself in the mirror and notices that extreme suntan on his face.
I felt that burn, but deep inside. A power plant was lit and life, as I knew it, was never the same again.
Love is funny. You know when someone does something just for you. That sky blue dress, that moment, was a gift from you to me. You knew it, I knew it, and as far as I can tell, the rest of the world knew it, too.
Huzzah!
Your WHMB
No comments:
Post a Comment