times of quiet growth

(Note: story contains brief sexual content).

I want to give you some memories now, my friend. Some things you can hold onto as life goes on, and deepens into hardships, and lightens back towards goodness. Sometimes memories can be so tremendously important. They can remind you of a kinder time that now seems elusive. More importantly, they can set the tone for the future, as you look for something, anything, to remind you that life can be okay again. And so, future self, take these two memories and hold them close.

Here is the first, then. About the last few days of a relationship. My first girlfriend, my first love in life, as we lived in Portland and our relationship began to wither, like a plant browning without water in the afternoon sun. Those last few days, in our dark hushed apartment, upstairs from the gurgling whirls of a smoothie shop, as flutters of laughter tiptoed in from the street and landed softly on our rug, and we sat across the room from each-other, knowing with lines across our foreheads that we were near the end. I must remind you of a mistake we repeatedly made as we spent a year together.

We made the error of thinking that we’d never have to say out loud those things that moved us the most. The odd trip away to the salty Oregon coast, long drives spent in grey afternoon hush, the sudden tumble on the floor laughing at some silly thing, the lingering eye-contact at the end of a long day, the tangerine sunlight right before we made love.

For these quiet moments comprise a relationship, but I realize something as the years slip by. If something matters to your heart, if something stirs you deeply, you must say it out loud. Otherwise it’ll go, quietly, forever. Like the beautiful person you see across a cafe, who makes your heart thud but leaves without saying a single word to you. Never, ever let the things that matter, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, slip softly away.

Our love-making was another one of these little things. Such a vital part to what we had, what we were together. We went a year without really speaking of it. It seemed to meld into the melancholy rhythm of everyday, like making coffee or brushing teeth.

It couldn’t really have been softer. It was always after some silly joke. Always after she chuckled at me showing her my behind, or doing some daft dance. And then she - usually in bed already, relaxing in her quiet way, heavy pink eyelids, tired by busy life, by small conversations, by her certain lack of family support, by her precarious strength that was always on the verge of tumbling through her fingers and casting her into chaos - would invite me to bed too.

I’d kiss her lips for ages. Pink and fragrant lips. I’d feel her tongue hot and hard like a melting candle. I’d move to somewhere else. Slipping down her neck, as if gliding down a clear stream, I’d reach her nipples. Heady and evocative place on someone's body, there. What bright memories would fuzz my tender mind then. Her damp, earthy smell of skin would fill my nose. Of bustling markets in Manchester my mind would drift. Lazy images would arise, endowed with that particular sunset light of nostalgia. As if all memories occurred at around 7 on a summer’s evening. Glasses clinking. The particular conviviality of the English. Booming voices, long stories recalled, deep cacophonies of laughter, for a moment rising their head above the tumult of the market. At that place on Kelsey’s body, as I felt her nipples under my tongue like the soft stalks of a forest mushroom, memories would flood my mind.

These wonderful, short moments within the tumult of our lives were what mattered the most. And now she’s gone, our relationship hanging like a portrait in the gallery of my life, they’re the things I yearn with all my heart to have back. They’re the things that are constantly on my mind. The quiet things. The unspoken things. Don't let those things slip away unnoticed, future self. Don't, don't, don't.

Memories are very strange, friend from the future. They seem to attack my quiet moments with an unexpected vigor. In the middle of an ordinary day, I’ll suddenly become flushed with emotions I haven’t felt for many months, perhaps years. Short, staccato moments from my past can suddenly be elevated to an importance they’ve never held before. It’s almost definitely nostalgia, working cruelly to remind me of the good things from my past I can never get back. But although I know it’s just my mind, glorifying my memories, raising them to fever-pitch, it still is sometimes tremendously painful.

Take this single moment in Sydney, while I was an exchange student there, taking desultory courses on politics and culture. I went because my sister was there, because she lived in a sun-washed apartment in a small Sydney neighborhood, because Sydney is a kind city chalk-full of diverse life, mixing gently in intimate restaurants and cafes within the fragrant suburbs. 

We used to always meet in Burwood, a Chinese neighborhood, on a Friday nights. Nat, James and I. The two I was also sharing an apartment with. At the end of a long day of classes for me, filled with shy smiles and stuttering conversations with the other Sydney students. At the end of a long workday for them, filled with earthy coffees, workplace tasks, yawning meetings, and sunlit offices within the swirl of Sydney life. We’d all take the train in, me from Redfern, where the university was. Them usually from the central business districts.

Burwood was the epicenter for Chinese expats living in Sydney. Exchange students from Beijing universities were there, as were Chinese businessmen, cultivating partnerships with their Sydney counterparts. Families were there, waxen mothers paying close attention to disheveled children. Worldweary chefs, oil-smeared builders, ponderous artists, gently-smiling elderly people tottering along. We all mixed on the Burwood streets. Outside of Chinese restaurants selling dumplings and hot-pot, we mingled and went on our way. 

Nat and James were usually inside already, sitting at a booth table. The lights in our favorite dumpling shop were creamy-white, brightening the faces inside and the food placed in front of them. With generous expressions they’d inquire about my day as I sunk into my side of the booth. With small grins they’d make tiny jokes at my expense, filled with an unspoken affection for my presence in their lives. They were deeply in love with each-other, and at the best of times they seemed able, somehow, to gift me some of this love. This love warmed our meals out, our long chats in the evening, our coffees in plant-filled Sydney cafes. Their life together, like a leaf falling from an autumn tree, was gently settling into place. Our Burwood meals only furthered this feeling. They were, therefore, lovely people to spend time with when I was there.

We were chatting that night about James’s family. His aunt in particular, who often cropped up due to her many peculiar habits in an otherwise ordinary family. Gifts of fruit juice to James for Christmas, dirty hygiene when hosting family dinners, odd jokes that settled silence over group conversations. In the moment, these things were horrible. Behind her back, in the warmth of Burwood, they were endlessly funny. 

Nat was asking James what he’d rather do, if he had to choose. Kiss his auntie for some certain obscene amount of time, or be seen holding her hand, walking down a busy road. We were, all three of us, convulsing with laughter. James would begin to ponder the question, or start an answer, but could never finish it. Long before he could we’d be rocked with long guffaws, so violent the waitress brought us further pitchers of water. Our dares became more and more extreme. James, in our mind’s eye, became more and more entrenched in ridiculous scenarios. Hypotheticals induced by heady wine, broth-laced dumplings, smatters of conversation around. The enjoyable anonymity that a big city affords a small group of friends in a tiny restaurant.

“This is the time of my life. It really is. I can’t tell you how much I love being here with you two.”

I felt silly saying it. To them as they looked on with damp eyes, half-drunk with cheap Prosecco. The evening felt heavier now. The silliness over, the emotions overgrown, like long wet grass in a late-summer field. It felt like the time for something more serious, and so I ventured my comment.

“We love it too, you know, Chris. It isn’t just you. We’re so glad you’re here.”

I can’t tell you how, looking back now, this affirmation warmed my body and my soul. Like I had lived in Sydney up until that point in constant consternation. The never-ending worry of being a disturbance to the simple lives of two people in a lovely and confiding relationship. I presumed I was an imposition. Like a charcoal cloud on the horizon of a milky-blue sky, I sometimes felt unwanted. To know, in the steamy fragrant wardrobes which were the Burwood dumpling restaurants, that it simply wasn’t true, was unmistakably important to that stage of my life. It consoled me and pushed me on my way, towards my early twenties and all the anxious beauties that stage of life contains.

Like I said at the beginning, future self, take these two memories and hold them close. Treasure them as little snapshots of your life as it was. And if you're lost now, friend, squeeze them for all their worth. Take their pain and their beauty, their quiet consolations, and move forward. With all the soft suffering and the gentle joy of your past, look forward to your future.