by the stars
I was waiting for my friends to get off work. I had taken a personal sanity day off work at my corporate high tech job and driven myself from Providence up to Portland. While I was waiting I wandered around the old port looking for Christmas gifts. One in particular. A gift for someone special. Someone I had loved for a long time, or thought I had. Who knows? A gift that says, "Hey were cool I hope you are well and happy." I walked by a store of various decorative items and looked up to see the name. I smiled widely, amazed at the unbelievable coincidence. What luck. Perfection.
Secretly I had been pleased to watch as her puzzled smugness dissolved into deep a disappointment. The kind that comes only from losing something as perfect as the knowledge, that sureness that first love will forever endure. Her eyes slowly drifted away from mine up to the place above me and to my left where I imagine she saw that moment when she and her lover had first decided upon the name. A collection of travel guides that would detail their journeys across the furthest reaches of the earth. Two women wandering the globe, a constant adventure with every breathe as fresh as loves first glance.
"What?" I had said cynically. "Why?"
Looking up from a picture of a tent on a platform in a tree I was sitting on the hardwood floor across from her on a Saturday afternoon. We sat in my roommates studio with photos strew out across the floor. Images of of the year Helen had been away on a year abroad program. I was desperately holding on to the hope that when she got to the final photo she would look at me a say that she had always missed me. That she realized how much I loved her and that though there were long silences in our communications that her love had only grown. My roommates had tried to warn me. Tried to get me to go out and date. Tried to help me to see that the "amazing" relationship I was in was largely in my own mind. That was ten years ago and I can only now see that.
But as the last photo was revealed she didn't say that. She told me that she and her girlfriend, whose image I could just make out peering form the tent in the photo, were going to write books together, a series all with a common title. Her eyes widened a little when she said it. Like she was unveiling as secret forbidden desire. One word.
I thought immediately of my grandmother living room. She has these walls in her house upon which hang collections of things. "Gramma" loved to travel and would from time to time collect the same item from a series of trips. In the kitchen between the pantry, containing everything from Jelly Bellies to canned snails, and the stove, over which she had hung a small sign with the name of a small town in Germany, Essen, hung a collection of antique keys. In her bedroom one wall was covered with every important family photo back across five generations. Across from the visual cliff's notes version of our families history hung a collection of shuttles used in textile mills. The shuttles still had thread in them, each a single brilliant color. And in the living-room an entire wall was covered by one collection.
Helen looked at me first with frustration that ended just short of rolling her eyes as she spoke.
" Do you know what an abacus is?" She said leaning in, head tilted, one ear forward.
"Um yes" I began to wonder if I was remembering correctly.
"Sailors used to use them to navigate by the stars." She pantomimed adjusting the device in the air in front of her face, looked around the imaginary object and waited for the words to settle in.
"You mean a sextant?" I asked pointedly.
Wandering into "Abacus" in the Old Port secure in the knowledge that I was going to have the wittiest present ever sent. I approached the counter and was greeted by a delightful smile. A beautiful young woman about my age in a black turtleneck with her long dark hair hair wrapped neatly in a bun pinned with a paint brush. "Welcome. Can I help you find something?" she asked.
I patted the glass display case with my hands open palms down and said
"I can't believe my luck." pausing
"I am actually looking for an abacus. "
"A what?" she asked
"An abacus"
"I'm not sure what you mean"
"An abacus, like a calculator with beads "
"Oh, we don't have any of those."
"Not even one?"
"No "
"But your store is called abacus." I protested
"Well it's not called abaci." she said flatly as she looked over my shoulder, smiled that same smile and called:
"Welcome. Can I help you find something?" to the couple entering the store.
Secretly I had been pleased to watch as her puzzled smugness dissolved into deep a disappointment. The kind that comes only from losing something as perfect as the knowledge, that sureness that first love will forever endure. Her eyes slowly drifted away from mine up to the place above me and to my left where I imagine she saw that moment when she and her lover had first decided upon the name. A collection of travel guides that would detail their journeys across the furthest reaches of the earth. Two women wandering the globe, a constant adventure with every breathe as fresh as loves first glance.
"What?" I had said cynically. "Why?"
Looking up from a picture of a tent on a platform in a tree I was sitting on the hardwood floor across from her on a Saturday afternoon. We sat in my roommates studio with photos strew out across the floor. Images of of the year Helen had been away on a year abroad program. I was desperately holding on to the hope that when she got to the final photo she would look at me a say that she had always missed me. That she realized how much I loved her and that though there were long silences in our communications that her love had only grown. My roommates had tried to warn me. Tried to get me to go out and date. Tried to help me to see that the "amazing" relationship I was in was largely in my own mind. That was ten years ago and I can only now see that.
But as the last photo was revealed she didn't say that. She told me that she and her girlfriend, whose image I could just make out peering form the tent in the photo, were going to write books together, a series all with a common title. Her eyes widened a little when she said it. Like she was unveiling as secret forbidden desire. One word.
I thought immediately of my grandmother living room. She has these walls in her house upon which hang collections of things. "Gramma" loved to travel and would from time to time collect the same item from a series of trips. In the kitchen between the pantry, containing everything from Jelly Bellies to canned snails, and the stove, over which she had hung a small sign with the name of a small town in Germany, Essen, hung a collection of antique keys. In her bedroom one wall was covered with every important family photo back across five generations. Across from the visual cliff's notes version of our families history hung a collection of shuttles used in textile mills. The shuttles still had thread in them, each a single brilliant color. And in the living-room an entire wall was covered by one collection.
Helen looked at me first with frustration that ended just short of rolling her eyes as she spoke.
" Do you know what an abacus is?" She said leaning in, head tilted, one ear forward.
"Um yes" I began to wonder if I was remembering correctly.
"Sailors used to use them to navigate by the stars." She pantomimed adjusting the device in the air in front of her face, looked around the imaginary object and waited for the words to settle in.
"You mean a sextant?" I asked pointedly.
Wandering into "Abacus" in the Old Port secure in the knowledge that I was going to have the wittiest present ever sent. I approached the counter and was greeted by a delightful smile. A beautiful young woman about my age in a black turtleneck with her long dark hair hair wrapped neatly in a bun pinned with a paint brush. "Welcome. Can I help you find something?" she asked.
I patted the glass display case with my hands open palms down and said
"I can't believe my luck." pausing
"I am actually looking for an abacus. "
"A what?" she asked
"An abacus"
"I'm not sure what you mean"
"An abacus, like a calculator with beads "
"Oh, we don't have any of those."
"Not even one?"
"No "
"But your store is called abacus." I protested
"Well it's not called abaci." she said flatly as she looked over my shoulder, smiled that same smile and called:
"Welcome. Can I help you find something?" to the couple entering the store.
posted by michaelian ennis at 1:44 PM
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