I confess there are times - many times - mornings, sometimes at 1, 2 or 3am, after dropping off friends that live right around that intersection - when I catch myself looking up at your loft window on the third floor. Sometimes it's dark, blinds closed, windows shut. And figure you're out drinking with your new friends or a new guy. Or if you've packed up and moved away.
But every now and then the light will be on, blinds still twisted open... and I can see a new plant you've added and placed on the sill, turned to collect the afternoon sun. I see that rose bush and wonder if the baby spiders it had when you bought it still bother you. And sometimes I wonder why your light is still on at all at such a late hour. Are you reading a book? Did you fall asleep with it on? Are you simply afraid of being alone in the dark? Or are you not alone at all, and you're entertaining another man in your bed, all in the name of "comfort" and "having fun while you're still young", as the adage goes?
But more than that, I look up because I fondly remember.
I remember so many times that I would wake up next to you and watch you sleep with the morning light on your face. And I would make us coffee and look out that very same window, down at the world just beginning to stir; The city itself waking up, slowly grinding like the first spin of a ferris wheel, straining to gain momentum. One car per red light. Then two. Then five. And then within an hour or so, the intersection was buzzing with people and newspapers and the clip-clop of high heels and the incessant beeping of the crosswalk signs.
I remember sitting next to that window at night and looking down at all the people, feeling sorry for everyone out there. Sorry for them because they simply had no idea the magic that was happening up here. None of them knew of the beautiful woman that lived up here and all the power and grace she could wield, if it weren't for her equally powerful vulnerabilities and flaws. And this force of nature was sleeping next to me. Wanting me there. Wanting me to stay. Glad I was there. Calling me her shell. I looked at the world through that very window and felt pity for them; For they all went about their days and night, crossing streets, driving, grumbling to themselves, late for something, trying to find a place to park, standing in line for food... unaware of what goes on up here, in Brittany Marie Conrad's room.
But now, I look up. And now... I
am one of those people. The same ant I once pitied. Seeing a light on - often the only one still on in the entire complex - and oblivious of what's happening up there in that room. I gaze up at it like a green light in the mist on the shore across a lake. I'm on the outside now. Outside looking up.
I'm on the other side of that window.
The difference, I suppose, is that I've been privy to the treasures inside that box; Both the blessings and the curses, and everything in between. And it's impossible to be angry and crushed without also feeling gratefulness and tremendous love. I guess nostalgia is a packaged deal.
I can imagine myself, still up there, looking down at me, watching me drive off into the night.
And that U-turn away is always painful.
