11:00 a.m.
18th Street, The Mission, San Francisco, California
When I walked back by an hour later, all the I love you, toos were gone.
The rest of my walk home I imagined what people might be doing with the little slips of paper.
- Bookmark? (I had just bought a book.)
- Writing down a phone number? Address? (A potential mixed message.)
- Putting it in a scrapbook? (Someone’s SF memento?)
- Burning it in angry effigy? (I hear people do this.)
- Practicing saying the words? (Sometimes this can be hard. I practice on my cat.)
- Holding it up to a window to see who noticed? (Very art school.)
- Putting it in an old-fashioned letter? (But, email…)
- Dropping it on the ground one block later? (The moment passed.)
- Forgetting it on the table with the shopping? (It is small.)
- Inadvertently placing it in someone else’s bag. (Then they would wonder.)
I don’t suppose it matters really. The harder part is saying it first.
And that was still there.
Amanda
That’s delightful. I cannot wait to come and visit.
Thank you for this, Amanda. Great post. Last winter I didn’t have the courage to say it or even know it….. and the person died before I could tell him. Yeah, that fucking shit actually happens in real life, not just the movies. The whole complication of realizing how I felt and the fear I had in admitting it completely snuck up on me. I thought I was more mature than that, more enlightened. Ugh.
Your post is both sweet and poignant. And the photo is gorgeous.
Ruth… in following your writing there have been so many times I wanted to ask you about what happened. I suppose really, the details are less important… I go on knowing that even when I thought people didn’t know how I felt about them, it turns out, they probably did….
And maturity and enlightenment? Pffft. Just glimpses of ideas we can catch now and then.
xoxo
Thanks. xo