woah. woah. woah.

A few nights ago, a certain very strange process was put in motion, and now J and I are re-hashing some of our past blunders and trying to explain to each other how we saw/see things.  J.  Friend of mine since high school, broke my heart, married the Chica years later (I played at the wedding), blah blah blah.  Haven’t mentioned him in ages on these pages.

It all started because he caught me online the other night, just as I was heading to bed.  I had had a particularly difficult counselling session that morning, in which I began to almost cry over the utter lack of physical affection in my life.  And in which my counsellour had asked, again, with a truly confused expression, "So, why didn’t you tell the Friar how you felt at the time? … really?"  And one of the stories that came up was the one where I told J how I felt years ago, and he reacted quite badly.

So this was on the tip of my mind when J caught me online and started up a chat.  I just dove in and said "Do you remember this?  Did we ever talk about it?"

Woah.

How I wish I had done this years ago.

As I said in one of my follow-up e-mails to J, "I’m doing a lot of inner landscaping.  Questions I’m asking myself include, Why wouldn’t I tell a friend that they’ve really hurt me? – especially when I value their friendship?"

And J is being beautiful about it.  He’s really listening and responding like a true friend.  He is rather horrified, I think, at the impact the incident had on me.  He truly hadn’t suspected that.  ("Not that this excuses me," he emphasizes.)

Anyway, I don’t want to get into the specifics of our re-hashing, but I did want to record this:

The two days after this process started have been spent in weeping, whenever I am not at work and have a moment at home to myself.  The shower the morning after the first talk was somehow heartbreaking.  There I was, alone with my body, soaping my limbs and sobbing over the only tenderness those limbs receive.  I was completely overcome.  I remembered many little moments of feeling ugly around J or the Friar, and the perceived hopelessness of my wanting to please them.

Since the daily checking-in with J began, I have noticed my spirits getting lighter and lighter, in between weepings of regret.  (Part of that regret now is that I went so long without bringing this up and healing the unspoken broken connection.  And that I went through so many years believing erroneous impressions of what J had thought of me.)

——-

As so often happens, this truly life-changing turn of events has been cushioned by a busy schedule of stories all wanting to be told.

Here’s a few.

———

Tonight was the faculty benefit concert at my music school.

I played Sheep May Safely Graze with a flautist and a clarinetist.  It was fun.  I was nervous.  We were sort of the light pot-sticker in a very heavy meal of virtuosic playing.  And even that light pot-sticker was giving me some trouble.  I sometimes sacrificed the inner lines in order to make sure I got the chorales or important bass lines.

[Unnamed Orthodox guy who gives me rides to his church] turned pages for me.  He was good.

U was the stage manager.  Part of me wanted to guffaw when he asked if I wanted the big stick.  Oh, dear.

I was wearing a plungy-neckline flattering shirt, and my good bra, and I actually caught a few male eyes swivelling in that direction briefly.  Including U’s when he was about to open the stage door for me.

[Unnamed Orthodox guy] and I were in goofy moods, and so was the flautist, and we had quite a hoot watching the performances from outside the door.  I was bent over one of my cross-stitch projects (the oldest one I have going right now, the one I got when I was 19 and subsequently forgot about until recently) some of the time.

[U.O.G.] told me backstage, "You look faboo."

This took me aback.  The fact that it meant so much to me is an indication of how little I hear spontaneous praise from anyone (other than my roommate) about my looks. 

I turned pages for one of the best pianists at the school – he was part of a duo playing a Lutoslawski set of variations on a theme of Paganini’s!! – and it was an exhilirating rush of notes and adrenaline.  As the duo were about to leave the stage afterwards, the daughter of the other guy came running up to hug her daddy, who then carried her with him backstage; the guy I’d turned pages for turned to me, we shrugged, and then we walked backstage with our arms around each other, as the audience laughed.  (He didn’t carry me … )

At intermission, I saw three of my students!  I was pleasantly surprised.  One of them, a very keen girl from South Africa, posed with me for a picture.  Her mother showed me the photo (ah the wonder of digital cameras) and I was atypically pleased with how ungoofy I looked.  I mean, I wasn’t acting up for the camera, I was just looking genuinely pleased that my student had come.

One of the other students, a six-year-old Korean boy, was the very picture of painful sleep-deprivation.  His mom said apologetically (but unable to hide her laughter entirely), "We have to go, he’s very sleepy … I think he heard most of your piece, but afterwards he was out … but here, we wanted to give you this."  And she pushed a gift bag at me.  I thanked her without checking what was in it and then I squatted to be eye-level with my student and I said, "Thanks so much for coming to hear me!"  He looked like he was about to burst into tears … I gave him a hug and said "Go home and sleep!"  Then he smiled a bit and his mom carried him out.  I looked in the bag and saw one of my favourite Body Shop scents, White Musk  (shower gel and eau de toilette).  Wow.

U and I were almost avoiding each other during the more shallow chit-chatty part of the faculty potluck that always follows the concert.  I was mostly being goofy with U.O.G. and flautist woman.  I did look up sometimes when I felt U looking at me, and I wouldn’t immediately look away, and he wouldn’t either.  He didn’t come sit with me, and this marks one of the first faculty functions where I haven’t contrived to sit somewhere near him.  I was almost afraid we wouldn’t get a single chance to talk, but at around 12:20 a.m. he stood next to me with his coat and his cap and asked if I was well.

About ten minutes later I was getting a ride home from him.  And finding out that he likes Scrabble (he is still a bundle of surprises).  Our talk was (finally, finally) easy and good; more like the phonecalls he’d make to me when I was away at university. 

And I still want to hold his face in my hands once before we die.