I was a few rows behind, off to the right. You couldn’t see me.
From this angle, your face was unfamiliar.
Most of our time together was up close, the foreshortened distance of lovers who never bridge the expanse of lived-with love: conversations lobbed from the kitchen to the laundry room, scanning for you across the high school gymnasium on curriculum night, gesticulating about logistics across the pool during swim lessons, or strolling up behind you, unannounced, in the Thriftway meat section, while you debate what to put on the grill – rib eyes, my favorite, or salmon, something lighter, more sensible.
No, our space was lover’s space. The face I learned was what you looked like within inches of me – next to me, on top of me, under me. Close enough to exchange the same breath, only far enough away to breathe warmth on my eyelids, cheeks and neck, to travel centimeter by centimeter, down my body, slowly, oh so slowly, moving away, only to re-enter, closer.
From today’s distance, you were a stranger, facing away from me, your arms and shoulders and lips and beard untouchable. Your eyes turned to the left, to the woman who looked nothing like I’d expected – they never do, do they? – yet instantly was exactly the right woman to be sitting with you. Unremarkable chin-length brown hair, sensibly styled, her dress and shoes sensible, her face intelligent and plain, slightly puffy, minus make-up, plus some fleshiness.
I watched for signs of the lover’s space between you. You smiled twice in her direction; her gaze remained sensibly forward, attending to the event, not you. You two were side by side, your bodies held in individual space. You seemed as much a part of her inner world as of the person sitting to your right, someone who just happened to be sitting next to you. I know. I watched.
If it had been me next to you, we’d have tilted our heads toward one another, shared private jokes, whispered micro-thoughts distracting us from the event, bringing snippets of the real world into our encapsulated bubble, surreptitiously stroked legs and shoulders and hands the way lovers do when their whole bodies are out in public but their souls remain hidden in their inner sanctum.
But it wasn’t me next to you. I was 100 feet away. Or was it 200 feet? 300? The distance could just as well have been in miles or light years, for the truth it revealed: you didn’t see me. Didn’t sense me and turn around to catch my eye. Didn’t know I was there. And that is remarkable enough.
Once we understand mortality, we return to the known face, the known heartbeat. We don’t want to face Death with a person we wouldn’t recognize across the room.
Beautiful!