Looking Back
Looking back 16 is too young to have a lover no wonder high school sweethearts either bond forever or blister from burning out. But my dad had left, not by choice, by result. And a woman, a growing woman needs containment. Without it she is subject to much exposure relationally and systemically. At least that was what happened to me, and every other young woman to varying degrees with absent or checked out dads.
I didn't notice Jason really truly the first time he saved my life, the second time the timing was so unparallelled that I couldn't help but notice, his timing, his reaction response, his intention of peace. When I did, I focused on the one aspect I didn't like his sneakers, and for whatever reason those drew me in.
I could talk so much of the above but today what stands out is trinkets. An item seen by a man, that said this belongs to her, and the man responds to give a gift of nature, something intentional, something meaning, even if random. My father did that for me, in small ways, coloring books when I was sick, mostly he took care of me with foods I liked his thoughtfulness extended through his innate skillset of baking.
Jason would disappear into the sea of the city for hours while I worked away for every dollar I could gather. I would wonder where his adventures were taking him as I took orders and fed others who were out having their fun. Sometimes he would meet me after work with bags of treasures he found in his travels, and I would get to dig into and share my excitement with him, other times he would leave things on my car and be gone like a ghost.
It's been decades since these teenage times, but they leave the strongest imprint on me and my environment still, today I picked up a beautiful metal ring box shaped like a diamond, hand painted with two blue birds. I have been carrying it with me so long now the clearest memories can be ancient.
We were living a visually ordinary life of work, and him exploring total freedom with no rules and no guide but inner discomfort, but in his explorations, he was thinking of me, and things I would find beautiful. In return I wrote him letters sealed with red wax K's.
Our bodies existed in time.
Our souls were boundless to past lives.
Yet nothing was different, love, separated, explored through material and words.