{ our room }

for masterpieces are not single and solitary births;

they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common,

of thinking by the body of the people,

so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice. 

{ virginia woolf, a room of one's own }

we talk our way through margaritas and platefuls of sweet, dark mole. i rest my elbow on the windowsill, because it's the perfect height for doing so and makes me feel at home. the light filters in over your shoulder and swirls through your irises --- you're magic and you're real, right in front of me for the second time in my life. there's something so intrusive about eating at a table for two, facing each other...you have nowhere to hide, no angles to employ. but i find that i want to be here across from you. all those years we didn't know each other loom in the back of my mind --- there's no time to waste, i want to know you as much as i can right now. but the smile on the waitress's face tells me we have all the time in the world...and for once, i feel like we actually do.

i say what i always say, which is that i can't help feeling like all those jagged years were a waste, and not just their raw edges, but all the good that came before them as well, all the profound grace that made the aftermath seem so unforgiving. because what's the point of soothing yourself with the current good when all it does is weaken you for the loss that's surely coming?

but you say it's not a waste.

i wait in vain for my platitude-o-meter to begin its cacophony, but it's silent for once. i realize i can trust you because you've been through a wasteland yourself. finally i'm on equal ground --- it's not that i've never met anyone who hurts, but i rarely meet someone who's been hurt who can talk about it in a way that makes sense to me.

my eyes burn with the ever-growing knowledge that we are akin to one another. how did we end up here, sitting at this table together? each with her history and heartbreak, face to face with the present moment, leaning with questions into unfurling futures? two souls launched into shimmering orbits, (dare i say) destined to cross each other thirty-some years into their bright lives. i want to collapse under the weight of this miracle, but i sit up straighter instead. we've both struggled mightily on mended wings, and i'll take the full glory of this shared life even if it puts hairline cracks in all my bones.








--------------------
writer's note: this is a somewhat abstract capsule referencing a very specific experience with a very real person. we talked later about whether something has to be shared for it to be art...i've been thinking about it ever since. i'd never considered commonality or community as such strong contributors to art until i (re)read this excerpt from virginia woolf. in my mind, saying or writing that one brilliant thing that no person on earth has ever said or written before has always been such a big part of thinking/writing as "art"...but thinking of art as a seed that contains the histories, struggles, and triumphs of "the mass" is a new concept for me. i've always needed a distance between myself and anything or anyone...but i'm beginning to see that a key to deeper life and art for me may be learning how to let myself be approached by, and even near to, another.