Snapshots

My memory crumpled and fell apart in the last year. There is a lot to say about that. What it means for the history of Mr. Understatement and I is that I don’t have a clear memory of most of it. Migraines themselves carry memory loss as a symptom. Extended periods of pain, or of any trauma, bring more memory loss. The brain may be right that it is not good to remember the pain. Sadly, my brain tended to sweep away large swaths of my life. I have some memories; I am learning to tease back more of them but the reconstruction is slow and taxing. So the memories I have of Mr. Understatement tend to be brief. More like scraps - a bit of texture, a flash of emotion - than a narrative. Perhaps because of this, perhaps simply because it is my nature, I find I cling more to small moments and the feelings behind them then the events most people would recall as their memories.

***
Mister has long, smooth fingers. When we would sit across a table from one another, he would play with my hands, gently pushing at my fingertips, sometimes holding one or both in his. Our hands would have a conversation of their own as we chatted above them.

We are walking in the park. It is our second date. We have been talking rather frankly about what we might be interested in with each other. I have put out there that I have just ended a long, protracted relationship and that something in the nature of a friend with benefits, someone to have fun with and not much drama would suit me. “So,” he asks, “are you open to a more dating-like, snuggling on the couch-type relationship?” “A Boyfriend Experience?” I laugh, “Yeah, I’d be open to that.”

I had been traveling for work and busy. Finally, this night I was meeting Mister - in one of the small, dive-bar strip clubs that Portland favors. From the moment I walked in, we were rapt with one another, holding hands, touching, catching up. There was a woman on a pole working her ass off just 5 feet behind us and we were oblivious. Another dancer came over. She wasn’t there to chat us up, we were simply adorable. Had we been together long? A few months. Mister explained we simply had not seen each other in a while - we had been apart for a long time. “Oh! How long?”, she wanted to know, her eyes wide at the tragedy of this. “Like...” Mister smiles, “Like a week.”

One of the most challenging things about Mr. Understatement is that he is slow to reveal himself. One of the most wonderful things about Mr. Understatement is that he is slow to reveal himself. We are in bed, quietly chatting in the dark and he slips out of bed, pads downstairs to return with a copy of the Tao te Ching. We turn a small light on so he can quietly share his favorite passages.

We have gone to the coast for our one year anniversary. It is evening and he is ridiculously attempting to steam an artichoke in our motel room’s microwave. (It was too big to fit in the tiny pans the place provided for the tiny stove of the kitchenette.) “I am glad we met when we are old” I say, “I like that you have a whole history I have yet to learn.” The artichoke was very good.

Despite having told me to bring layers twice, he has forgotten a coat. We walk on the morning beach passing my hoodie back and forth for warmth. The tide has gone out; one large rock outcropping is covered in barnacles and small, stationary creatures. I show him how you can blow on them or gently nudge one to watch a cascade of shells closing and shifting away from your presence. Such tiny life. His gentle smile and eyes lit up with delight are my reward.

Mister has maybe three main kinds of laughs. Other laughs are variations or derivatives of these. The first is the public laugh. A little hard and a bit loud, you hear it most when he is in a social setting. Sometimes I think this is his laugh when he wants you to believe you are funny and entertaining. Other times, this laugh can pop out if you surprise or shock him. The second laugh is what our mutual friend refers to as his “real laugh.” It is much quieter, sometimes almost silent and centered mostly in his eyes. When he laughs like this, you can’t help feeling you have somehow done a great, Good Thing. The third laugh is a low chuckle found most often in the bedroom. It says that if desire and pleasure are a game, Mister knows he has won. If you are there to hear it, you have won too.

He brought me little flowers, from his garden or perhaps stolen from someone else's. Randomly, on dates or sometimes just if he knew we were going to see each other. At first, I didn't know what to do. Tiny flowers? For me? But I would tuck them in my hair and feel beautiful and silly.

I am sitting in my usual spot on the couch. Mister is in the chair adjacent. My pain is at a 10 but oddly, I am managing. Perhaps it is as this study suggests: when you look at someone you love, the pain is more manageable. And I do love this man. He is telling me stories and trying to talk to me. I am barely maintaining my end of the conversation. The content of what he is saying drifts away and the pain washes in and out. I am focusing on the sound of his voice. I am watching his eyes and hands dance as he talks. My eyes run along the line of his jaw and neck. The pain crests and washes back. I see the pain in his eyes, “It was bad just then, wasn’t it?” he asks. I want to lie to him so he won’t worry, but he is watching my eyes too. I hold his hand.

Have I mentioned his eyes? Dozens of memories of his eyes. The depth of them, the way they turn like the sea. The way they laugh. The gentle lines around them a landscape.

In the weeks after he decided we were done, he elected not to have any contact with me. I was left to my own devices and grief. It surprised me that the thing I missed most was touching his face. This is what I miss most. I want to run my fingers across the scruff of his beard. I want to roll my thumb over his lips. I want to reach up with both hands to smooth my palms over the back of his head, sliding my hands down the lines of his jaw and rest them on the sides of his neck, feeling his pulse.