strike that

the first

We are up in the top branches of the tree, Melissa and I - the highest ones that will hold us anyway - and we are reaching out and balancing and filling our hands with cherries, filling bowls and baskets and pockets with cherries, padding out on the burgundy-stained soles of our feet, sun flashing between the big cherry tree leaves, new cherries peeking out every time the wind blows, and later we are rolling down Willamette, spitting cherry seeds out the open windows, soaking in Etta James and Louis Armstrong, and Melissa is telling stories about the boy she has gone to live with in California, the one she hardly knew for two years until an unlikely meeting in a local bar long after he'd moved away, and now they are sea kayaking and kissing in apple orchards and making it up as they go along; and you don't have to convince me about coincidence, you don't have to sell me on serendipity. And I am telling her about my waterfall hike yesterday with Operaman, Operaman who keeps turning up again as often as I say goodbye, eight hours of scrabbling over rocks and a very cold swim in the end, a swim which required no coercion, just me hopping in the water so cold it forced the breath out of my lungs, and by the time it was back he was right there behind me and I am done with auditioning myself, with trying to prove the goodness of my heart as if it needed salesmanship, pulling someone into the pool. He issued the invitation, and he met me by the trailhead, and when I got into the water so did he. And he is not the person I wake up thinking about and he is one foot out the door and I don't care I don't care I do not care.

posted by tortaluga @ 1:26 PM