Orange Kitchens

It was a lazy Saturday.  I was at peace.  More so than I had been in a long time, regardless of the many circumstances around me that would normally deter that.

I lay in bed….for hours.  I slept.  Something I never do.   

The alarm went off.  Ughhhh I thought to myself.  It was 6:30 PM.  I was supposed to be at Becky’s in 30 minutes.  I wanted nothing to do with leaving where I was.  Me, in my orb of tranquility.

I hopped in the shower.  As I buffed and scrubbed, I groaned internally.  There was a friend of a friend visiting.  I was already exhausted at the thought of entertaining someone new and pretending to be interested in anything outside of what I knew.  We all have those moments, when you want to just rest in your inner circle and your ability to be cordial wanes. 

It was an unseasonably warm October night.  It felt closer to summer than Fall and so I threw on cut off’s, an oversized white t-shirt I had bought in London the weekend before and a rustic chambray shirt I had recently purchased trying to convince myself that I could bring the style back.  Slid on my Frye’s, opted out of makeup because I had no concern for what I would look like, slapped my hair into a bun, grabbed some wine and Crabbies at the liquor store and headed on my way.

I stumbled into Becky’s with Libby nipping at my knees and did my usual boisterous hello.  There were my friends, old and new, sitting around the table…and there was he.  The friend of a friend.  The person I had begrudgingly already been annoyed with before I had met him, knowing full well that everyone would rely on me to be his source of entertainment because that’s what I excelled at. 

To describe energy is impossible.  There is nothing that suits it.  There are no words.  What he looked like was nothing that resonated within me.  In fact, I’m not sure now it even does.  I know that he is beautiful but it means nothing – if that makes sense? It was this confusing, exhilarating energy that flowed between us that sort of knocked me out of my stability.  I walked slowly into the living room cursing myself for looking like a homeless person and for not preparing myself.  Why the Hell don’t I ever know when these people will come into my life?  Can’t someone give a sign? Something so in the very least so that I look like whom I can be?  Why have 3 people fallen into my life when I am at the most very careless version of myself?  I digress.

There he was.  There I was.  Energy illuminated.  However this time, I told myself not to succumb to it.  I had been there before.  It hurt in the end because most soul connections such as this appear to teach you something and then leave - and that leaving can be wrenching.  It was a road I wasn’t going to walk.  So I was I.  I subliminally threw my hands to the Universe and just enjoyed my night - I could do this...make nothing of it.  Ignore it.  

I saw his eyes consistently on me - as I moved he seemed to move around me and I always found us encircling each other.  I blamed the booze.  I chatted him up with careless banter and although I wanted to make the entire room disappear and tell him that I missed him and fill him on all of the things that happened since I had seen him last so many lifetimes ago, I did nothing.  Because these things, if you don’t understand them, are too much for others to take. And how do you explain things to a stranger that you've already met?  You can't. 

We all decided that after hours of libations we should walk downtown.  After all, we had a visitor in our presence; the local dive bar was a crucial tourist attraction to chalk off of the list. 

I walked in the street and immediately he was beside me.  Becky bellowed in the background to slow down so that her heels could keep up….in truth, I ignored her, I wanted that moment.  He and me.  As we walked, I counted, unnoticed by all, 5 streetlights blew out as we past them.  Energy is everywhere.  It at times knows far more than we do.  

Rounds of drinks flowed.  Whiskey.  Laughter.  He kept looking.  Curious.  At one point I covered my eyes.  The intensity of his stare too much.  He grabbed my hands. “Why,” he asked.  “It’s too much, you’re looking through me,” I replied peeking out of my fingers.  He laughed.  The knowing. 

The night went on.  Laughter.  Libations.  Haze.  I had offered up my house as a hostel given that we had more visitors in town than Becky’s house could hold and some had agreed to take me up on it. 

We walked home and held hands.  Two strangers.  Holding hands as if they had known each other for a hundred lifetimes.  I gave them a tour of the house.  He attempted to kiss me in every room.  “No.” quite simply was my response.  I had no interest.  I mean, there was interest but I already knew the ending and so I felt the need to protect my heart. But there was this gravity pulling.  It's so difficult to resist that type of pull when it's everything for the most part, we as humans seek.

Eventually, the world went to sleep except us and we lost friends in empty bedrooms.  I stood in my living room, explaining the two prints on the wall, being photographs that I had taken, that I was so proud of…he walked slowly toward me, he cupped my face with both of his hands, and I gave in. 

To be kissed, to be kissed soulfully, is something that there are not words for.  To have energy that you can’t explain, to have words that make no sense because they seem so trivial – that they can only resonate in contact, that is everything.  And so, I guess that was that moment, and the many that proceeded.  And so I did something I hadn’t done in a decade….I let a soul mate in.