So here I am, round 7:45 pm, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Not the most distinctive town known to Man. Won’t appear on many postcards. About all it’s known for is the troublesome parking and the bar-to-person ratio it possesses.
The apartment’s quiet. I have “The West Wing” paused on TiVo. I’m wearing a newly won Patriots t-shirt in anticipation of tonight’s game on Monday Night Football against the Chiefs. I’m drinking a beer from the fridge, a hard-earned beer I’m enjoying after tonight’s workout: a good number of pushups in front of the television while watching extra on the “Alias” Season 2 DVD. Before the beer, but after the pushups, I took a shower, during which I shaved. After the shaving, and still before the beer, I called my mother.
Incredibly mundane things. Incredibly dull things. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary about any of these things. The mere cataloging of them might have induced catatonia in the lot of you, and had I gone on, the chances of that becoming likelihood spiked to nearly 100% by my rough calculations. But here’s what makes them different to me, different from the other and sundry times I’ve done all those things, different from each and every time I’ve done any of those things in the last 29 years of my life.
I’ve done each and every one of those things knowing my girl’s gonna walk through that door in a little while. And that makes all of those things that much better.
There’s a palpable energy to the so-called mundane that’s been in effect since I arrived Friday night. It’s an energy anyone around us seems to pick up on, no matter if the scene of encounter is domestic or on the town. It’s an energy that so far is self-sustaining, ever renewing. It’s an energy we miss when we’re apart and it’s the energy that drives us back together as soon as life makes it possible.
It’s the energy that makes me want to cook her a 3-course meal even if spending 20 minutes start-to-finish (including overall cleanup) seems excessive. It’s the energy that sends her into a cleaning frenzy when I’m driving down Route 91. It’s the energy that makes the simple act of making my bed something palpably necessary. It’s the energy that dictates the simplest tasks and infuses them with a meaning that transcends the everyday.
And if you think it’s melodramatic and cheesy and lame and where the hell have your balls gone McGee and all that jazz, well, I don’t care. I just don’t freakin’ care.
I’m sitting in her apartment with the sound of the typed keys echoing through her living room and so full of these thoughts and feelings that I had to come over and type them out before they burst through my skin. They had to escape through my fingertips to minimize the damage. She’s not here now, but purse is on the table, her sweater is on the couch, her imprint lies along every inch of this place. She surrounds and envelops me even in her absence here and I revel in that luxurious embrace and I’ll continue to do so until my necessary departure tomorrow.
She’s my heart, she’s my happy, she’s that thing-that-I-miss-most-when-gone. She’s the soft embrace and the fierce hug and the tender lips and the firm grip and everything else I can’t bring to words but feel all the time and occasionally get close to describing but never fully can. Lost in translation, indeed.
She’s my poetry and my better half and my reason and my tether to sanity all in one beautiful package and I’m just so lucky to have her. I try and tell her every chance I get, because half the time I can’t tell if I’ve said it out loud or only in my head, and the thoughts can come so fast and so fleeting that they need to pass by my lips before I forget to tell her everything I think about her smile and her taste and her hair and all the four hundred little things I see every minute about her that make me alive.
And soon, she’ll come home. I’ll enjoy another beer with a pizza while watching the game with her, and the last thing in the world it will be is mundane.
I love her, and loving her has made all the difference.
Posted by Ryan McGee at November 22, 2004 08:10 PM