-- dear-god.net
the clock nears midnight, numbers jumping, hands ticking. we leave the warm confines of the homey coffee joint where we've been nursing our katy-perry-hot-and-cold-esque tea lattes for the better part of an hour or two, perusing glossy magazine pages filled with frivolity and laughing with incredulity at the foibles of man.
we leave, and we head for the car i've yet to name, although in the days to come inklings of nomenclature will visit my mind-- something that starts with 'm' and has three syllables that is not 'mikaela' because that is already a name i have bestowed on another object. we drive on roads that should not be harrowing but are because of my suspect driving skills, darting from one pool of sprawling, lazily-lambent lamplight to another until we reach your place.
the night is very quiet. i threaten, half-laughingly, to climb over the gates; you glower at me and tap us in. i exclaim in delight when i see the darkened pool, an oasis in the midst of concrete blocks towering everywhere. the area is deserted, we are alone-- all the better, for there is no one to see when i begin capering about.
we commandeer the two lone deck chairs for moonbathing, eyeing the variously lit and bedimmed units stacked in isolated pods. i comment that the occupants of the unit right next to the pool could leap right into the water from their balcony-- that's one impossible thing before breakfast accomplished on days such notions of escape and frolic seize them. the night sky is velveteen-- not deep and dark, but a dusky-red-tinged purple that gives it an opaque, almost tangible quality, as though it were a cloth the sky has drawn to hide her face, shy and retiring. your dad waves at us from your balcony; i spy your brother and glimpse helen through flashes of a furry, tawny head and a wildly wagging tail.
no hot springs exist, but the glimmering water has its own temptations. we sit at the edge and dip our feet in the pool, marvelling at how the water rolls off our skin, how absorbent and/or dry our epidermis (epidermi?) are. we demand a swing over the water, suspended from-- a wire? we ponder the secrets of the universe, including how swimming pools work-- where does the water go? i mock-propose skinny dipping; ever solicitous, you ask if i want a towel or a swimsuit, which you can bring down from your house. i decline and wade into the water until i am opposite you, and hoist myself onto the parapet in the middle of the water. you speak, and ask, after a time, what in the world i am doing. i am falling back, i am lying down on a stone block far too small for even my short body, reclining till i am flat and level with the ground, lifting my hair up with one hand so it doesn't fall into the water. still then it is not enough, i feel tendrils of hair falling into the water and drifting outwards with the current. i imagine i am surrounded by a nimbus of hair, a hair halo, a hair-lo.
it is cold. but it is warm too. i get up and wade back to where you are, knowing the night is drawing to a close. we plan our next meeting, your housewarming, grouse about people who don't show up, settling back into the mundanity of things. you have to go-- it is late, you are unwell, and you need to sleep. it is just as well. i ought to drive back before i fall asleep at the wheel; it's been a long, long day, starting with 9am dance practices and ending with this late night early morning pool sojourn.
you see me to your gate. i drive home to the strains of old-gold songs, singing along with the radio to words i know and words i do not know.
But only love can say - try again or walk away
But I believe for you and me
The sun will shine one day
So I'll just play my part
And pray you'll have a change of heart
But I can't make you see it through
That's something only love can do
somehow that song just seemed so perfect for that lone journey home.