First December Snowfall

 

It is a Sunday morning and the first snow of December has fallen, blanketing the world in white. Thin branches of trees are bent with the weight and sounds are muffled in the early morning surprise. The first snow changes the world into a familiar but changed landscape like that of dreams. The perfection of a fresh snowfall awakens the desire to be the first to set footprints and blaze the trail that others will follow - and yet somehow wish that the unbroken beauty could remain.

Children will excitedly wiggle into snowsuits and boots to drag plastic toboggans to the parks hills. The first snowfall always seems to take us by surprised and to cobble together enough warm clothing, kids end up looking like they have gone shopping at the bottom of a school lost and found box.

There will be tumbles and spills, and laughter and shouts of triumph. Abandoned hats will lay discarded at the bottom of the slopes like fallen birds; lost mittens like leaves - and perhaps some of these items will find their way into the lost and found. The kids will head home tired, the smell of wet synthetic wool and the rasping sound of nylon against nylon, and melting puddles of snow at the door announcing their return. 

This is only the first snow of December and is not expected to last, so the timing has been perfect. No child wants to waste the first magical snowfall on a weekday. This first snow is for them, and for those of us who remember. 

Early December

 Angel,

We are into the beginning of December and the weather has been unusually warm until just last couple of days. Autumn held on and refused to release her hold and for some reason I find this unsettling. We’ve not even had a real snow yet. Today, though the sun is bright, it slants low and thin and finally there is a genuine chill in the air. It is the kind of early winter day when the air feels clean and fresh, and that maybe Christmas is not so far off after all.

It is a day where putting up Christmas lights means suffering a cold breeze on a freezing ladder. It is the first day that I have needed gloves. But it is the first day where putting up the lights seemed to make any sense. It has been difficult to get into the feeling of the season but the chore of decorating in the cold seems to have thawed my heart to it. I even sing some seasonal tunes to myself while I work and this lifts my spirits further.

The winter will be cold and dark enough as the northern hemisphere tilts further from the warmth and light of the sun. Our days will become shorter and our nights longer for a few weeks yet. It will not be until after the winter solstice when the earth starts to swing around the sun and the north starts to drift towards facing the sun again.

Until then, we find small ways to comfort ourselves and each other and remember that the failing of the light is only temporary. We are preparing for the celebration of the return of the light and warmth that we know will come. We are preparing for the welcoming of a new year by placing our own little lights on trees and our homes. We are preparing for the celebration of life while in the deepest of darkness by holding out a little light to keep the darkness bay.

With lights and songs we will hold ourselves and each other through the darkness and finally back to the ease of spring. That is the promise of the season.

Just me.

It is not...

To The Lady on the Train,

It is not just in the shapes and colours of your eyes..

It is not just in the tangles and curls of your hair..

It is not just in the lines and curves of you..

It is not just in the sound of your voice and laughter..

It is not just in the strength of your limbs and the softness of your skin..

It is not just in the nape of your neck or the lobe of your ear..

It is not just in the back of your knees, the crook of your elbow, or the small of your back..

It is not just in any of the space that you inhabit..

 

It is within you and stretches far beyond to everyone and every place that you have touched..

It is from the moment of your first breath to the end of all time..

That is where your beauty can be found.

The Man in the Station

Mist of Time

To The Lady on the Train, 

The rain here is more like a mist and it reminds me of the time we went to Rochester to see RENT. We stopped very briefly in Niagara Falls where the mist is constant and It sits like dew on one’s face and clothes, eventually making one properly soaked. Your hair started to frizz, which you did not like but I was fascinated by the transformation and I loved it. 

You rest on my thoughts like a Niagara mist on my skin until I am drenched in memories of you.  You tangle any ordered thoughts I may have had. I am fascinated by my own transformation and I love it. 

The Man in the Station

In Search of my Love

To The Lady on the Train,

No matter where I am or where I am going, no matter how unlikely the possibility, even if I know it to be impossible, I look hoping to catch a glimpse of you.

I scan the subway cars and the platforms already knowing that you will not be there. I watch pedestrians on the sidewalks and underground with impossible hope that you will pass by. In the lineups in food courts, I rane to see if you are already picking up your order.

I know that you will not be in any of these places. Time, changes, and the distance of a pandemic have conspired to prevent any such random encounters. Yet, I look for you.

I look for the tangle of curls pulled up into a loose bun; wild and tame. I look for the black backpack flung over the slope of a sharp shoulder. I look for the bowed head of someone in thought and the straight back, small yet strong. I look for the sway of hips and the swing of white limb, their firm roundness hinted at in their motion.

I look for slender finger grasping a book. I look for small ears and ever changing eyes. I look for the softness of your cheeks and the line of your jaw. I look for the arch of your eyebrows and the slope of your nose.

I look for you knowing that I will not find you. I look for you because I know that I will see reflections of your beauty.

I look for you because I cannot stop looking for you.

The Man in the Station

Seeing

 To this I would only add...

May we see ourselves through the eyes of people that love us best.

I see you.

Helium

It is surprising, the weight of the tattoo of you left on my heart.

It is surprising, the size of the emptiness of the hole in the shape of you.

There is no lightening the load or filling the void.

There is only the memory of the weightlessness of being beside you.

Lightning in a bottle

 To The Lady on the Train,

We had caught lightning in a bottle, you and I. We caught it and we tried to hold on to it. But the brightness and the touch of it was perhaps too much for anyone to be able to hang on to for any length of time. Perhaps it is impossible to hold on to for long; it consumes as much as it gives. 

Once caught though, the thought of losing the lightning is unbearable. Losing it is unbearable. But lose it we must.

The question becomes how do you bear the unbearable when you cannot keep the brightest and happiest and most improbable thing imaginable? With love. We must bear all such loses with love. 

I love that we caught lightning. I love that we held on. I love that we did not let it consume us entirely. 

Older, wiser, and a little singed I still carry the bottle. And I still hope for the lightning. I will weather the storm to catch it again with you.

The Man in the Station

Still

 My heart still beats faster whenever I think about you. I still get butterflies. 

February Rain

To The Lady on the Train,

I woke early this morning with the sounds of a surprisingly heavy February rain hitting the slant roof over my head. I can hear the steady drip of a still frozen and overflowing gutter outside. The water will be pooling by the fence where it always does in a heavy rain. 

Tha thaw has come sudden and the additional rains will make for flooded yards and streets. 

I lay in bed for a while wondering if you are listening to the rain too. I wonder what the rain sounds like where you are. I wonder if the sounds of your house under rain still sound new to you, or if they have now become familiar. 

I can usually hear the early morning trains, the subway trains in the north and the big trains from the south. Not this morning though. This morning it is the steady patter of rain. What I long to hear is your voice in my ear, your mouth close to feel your warm breath on my cheek.     

I want to hear the sigh of contentment and feel the arching of your back. I want to feel you turning as my mouth trails your spine and around to your hips. I want the scent of you to fill me and to feel the tension of desire under the softness of your skin.  I want to taste you. I want to feel the twisting, a tightness, the release, and the throbbing when it comes. 

I want to disappear under the covers with you, my head on your thighs. I want the rains on the roof to drown out the world. 

The Man in the Station

Beginnings

 To The Lady on the Train,

I can remember the first time walking with you to the train station at the end of the day. This was the beginning of a routine that for me, was anything but routine.

I remember that as we walked that my feed did not touch ground and that my heart raced. 

I remember we talked, though I cannot remember what we spoke of but I do remember your eyes each time they met mine. I remember that your eyes were dark yet bright: just one of the contradictions that you manage to hold so effortlessly. 

I remember a brief kiss of goodbye just before you passed through the gate to your train. 

And then I remember feeling the wave of a sensation that would become all too familiar to me - missing you. 

And so there it was. It was the realization that whatever happened or in whatever manner things might play out, without you I could never feel quite all put together; that without you something of myself is missing.

That was the beginning of missing you.

The Man in the Station

Paradise

 

As you truly are...

To The Lady on the Train,

I can imagine you waking up early while it is still dark outside – and cold. An arched back stretch before swinging your legs over to rest on the floor. You take a moment to tame a wild tangle of hair. Then with a sliver of moonlight, you rise naked like an apparition, a dream. And here in this very moment, you are perfect and beautiful and the world could stop in this instant just to hold you here as you are..

The silhouette of your pointed breasts and the roundness of your bum, a tumble of curls resting the strength of your shoulders, the lines of your arms leading down to slender fingers.. I imagine the curve of the small of your back and the small hairs on your skin rising in the cool air and I can imagine the tiny goose bumps and how they would feel if I ran my lips across your skin, barely touching.. 

I can imagine you sleepily walking to the bathroom, avoiding any mirrors until you have finished showering and prepared yourself for the necessity. I can imagine you doing this yet I cannot understand how it is you see yourself so wrong. If I could be your mirror, I would show you what I see. I would show you how you truly are. 

I would show to you the changing shapes and colours of your eyes; the soft brown ovals of quiet listening to the fiery black almonds of a flash of anger, and have cried tears of heartbreak and joy.

I would show to you a tender mouth of sighs, moans, whispers, and honeyed kisses; a mouth that knows laughter and words of love.

I would show to you your small teardrop ears that have not heard often enough about her own beauty.

I would show to you your forehead and cheeks that have been pressed with care and worry for others and also have been caressed with so much tenderness and love and that it is all this that glows from beneath the surface.

I would show to you how it is you radiate when you try to hide.

I would show to you how you are strongest when you feel weak. 

I would show to you perfect beauty that wrapped itself into the shape of  you. I would show to you how it is you truly are.

Happy Anniversary

The Man in the Station