The unknown lover I never had

Did I finish telling you about the last hour on the train with Sommer? I can't remember. Right now, I'm confused. I climbed on the roof of the house to put insecticide on parts of the wooden eaves where ants and squirrels have been taking too much liberty with this domicile, exposing it to the elements and threatening the peace I've established with my cohabitation partner about the level of care I have to give this place in order not to hear her "nag" me. I breathed in some of the insecticide, got it on my hands and arms and in my eyes. I feel used by the destructive chemical companies.

I poured myself a tall glass of wine to ease my troubles and dampen my thoughts of nothingness better known as bourgeoisdom. My thoughts are undirected and a headache pounds my temples. Forgive me while I tap a vein and pour some sacrificial blood on this keyboard to appease the gods of electronic magic. I am temporarily lightheaded and lost. Omm....

I hear the echo of words spoken by the young lady at Blue Willow Cafe on Saturday. "The reason I don't want to have kids is..." She spoke the words and glanced over her shoulder at me. Coincidence? Depends on how you interpret the next scene...

She left me a sculpture she made out of the colorful pipe cleaners used as napkin rings at the cafe. I suppose I ought to photograph the sculpture and share it with you but I won't - I'm being selfish, instead, mounting it on top of a framed photo of a French cafe I bought that hung over the table where I sat watching the young woman give her small audience an afternoon performance. The photo and sculpture hang on the wall beside me in my study/studio, forever a reminder of a future I didn't know I'd have.

I know I told you I ran into the young woman and her mother at the baggage store. I used an excuse to get away from my wife to let her peruse jewelry while I ran around the store having witty conversations with the young woman (I'd give you her name but we didn't exchange names, formalities not being the cause for our social intercourse that day).

How many times do you hold eyes with a stranger? Like holding hands but only less intimate? Too many times, right? Exactly.

The young woman and I held more than eyes together. Do you know the opportunities that abound in a large department store, where walls, hallways, dressing rooms, and la salle de bain offer moments to discover why you live in the moment in the first place? The young woman is a lady. I leave the rest to your imagination. I don't have her name and only a vague idea where she lives but I have her imagination in the form of a few minutes shared together, a verbal dessert, a dissertation on why two lovers want more together than mere children. I know you've been there, too. Reading about the details are where the bourgeoisie live. We live in the moment -- much more exciting, n'est pas?

The same can be said about my hour-long moment alone with Sommer, an unknown audience around us including an older couple who were silently cheering us on. You'll get more delight out of burying your head in a lilac bush full of blooms than I could ever give you here in words. Others have coated poetic phrases with perfumed potentates pining over a lost lover. I can do no better. Sommer and I decided that the hour, which flew by, gave us the not-so-secret secrets that two lovers share. We needed no physical intimacy, at that time, to take our relationship quietly to the grave.

Summer is a lady, wearing long-flowing gowns of woven tree leaves, giving the word-color green its own rainbow of shades and tones and nuances that only summer's lover can see. Summer is sliding down into a cool pool of water under a waterfall after hiking deep into the woods, softly washing civilization into the silt that cushions your toes. One hour in summer means more in winter than three months before fall.

Summer in Bavaria. You don't...you can't know what it means until you've been there, sweet, bitter chocolate nipping at your tastebuds, washing over you and numbing any sense you thought you had.

I sat in an ice cream store called Coldstone yesterday. I watched three shades of chocolate, mirages of youthful beauty, enter my thoughts. Three sizes, too. Three sets of ideas, three ways of life, three experiments in humanity. Three hints of summer in the middle of spring. The classic short story, "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses," by Irwin Shaw, scrolled through my thoughts.

I can think no more. Insecticide and wine, the smell of iron heavy in my blood, it all combines to put me out of my misery for this brief moment. I don't believe in memories but I'll take what I can get. Waiter? Waiter? Is there no one around? All I want is another round and a little round of sleep. I want to remember the sweet milk chocolate smile that I saw at Red Robin last night. If I'm stuck in suburbia, I might as well enjoy the scenery. Fuck it. I'm alone in the house with the cats. What do they care? They'll enjoy my warm body beside them in bed, won't they? I'll just drift off to sleep and reread Hemingway's "Hill Like White Elephants" in my thoughts, my dreams full of possibilities I won't find today. Tomorrow, I can be/feel worthless and wish I was dead.