Through a Stranger's Eyes
A story of finding love anew, and wanting to be the man she desires.
By Steven S. Walsky
Copyright 2005 by Steven S. Walsky
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Chapter One
When you are dealing with something that is uncomfortable,
your mind subconsciously retreats to a time in your past
that was comfortable. Memories are the only truly personal
thing we have in this life; with time so much more vivid
they become.
The drifting snow blanketed the ice-covered sidewalks, rendering passage death-threatening. I hated the damp winters, and longed for a time and place of perfect weather; with, of course, perfect typography. I enjoyed the ability to travel easily from seashore to mountains within a few hours, the lush rolling farmland in between, and the spring flowers and fall foliage. But the damp, bone-chilling winters were growing too old; having long-lost it's welcome. Today, if it were not for a short fused project I was working on, I would have stayed indoors, admiring the snow through an office window, with my spirits reinforced by fresh coffee from one of the shops downstairs. No, I was walking along the streets heading for a meeting, briefcase in one hand, and the other gripping closed the collar of my business dress coat.
Wool dress coats may be warm, but they require scarves, and I had failed to grab mine as I left the office. It was a high quality scarf that had been given to me as a gift years before. The quality bespoke of the woman who gave it to me. Just looking at it brought back hints of memories I had long ago stored in the back recesses of my mind. A closed chapter, journey complete; but journeys are never forgotten. As I reached the corner of Fairhaven Avenue and Main I caught sight of my reflection in the window of the Italian bakery. The image looking back at me was startling reality. My reflection exposed just how depressed I really was. And my mind questioned was it truly the bleakness of winter that darkened my thoughts?
No. Sure I had a desire to move to a new city, but winters were winters, and I could deal with them; albeit not happily. It was the sight of my hand at the place where the scarf Breen had given me should have been. A trick of the mind telling me that something important was missing from my life…the want of love. The failure of my marriage, the divorce, and thoughts of more pleasant times all summed up in a missing scarf. Life is many journeys; my marriage was itself but a journey that had come to an end. I started thinking about Breen; and even if those days were pleasant only in my memories, it gave me something to cling to.
Over the intervening years since Breen left my world, I had gone through a transformation. I remember the exact moment that I unconditionally recognized I had become a better, different person, and I needed to start living it. I was at the Pub on Trinity Street, my place of haunt.
“Davie, your mind is asea tonight.” It was the change in the rhythm of Gaven's voice that brought my attention back to the small group of fellow patrons, not so much the words. “If you had been paying attention lad…you would have jumped right in when I mentioned James over there was late for his wife’s nagging.”
“Sorry Gaven, I seemed to have slipped away for a second.” Gaven hates when his audience is anything but glued to his every word.
“You’ve got Heather on your mind. I told you she would wrap her fingers around your...the look in your eyes says it’s serious this time. Best we leave that subject alone for talk and buy you a drink and tip to your good fortune! Dennis, a Scotch for Davie and one for me!”
“No; come on Gaven, no toasts!”
“Nonsense, besides, we haven’t had a decent toast in this fine establishment since United won their last match. Bill how long ago was that? Never mind. OK, a toast to Davie. To Davis and the lady of his dreams!”
‘The lady of my dreams?’ No, I was thinking about life's journeys in general; recent and long past, and why this one was ending. The journey to this last evening at the Pub was not a short one. Nor was it a journey that started with a proverbial first step. This one started with a cataclysmic, paradigm shift in my life.
Her story is for her to tell. Mine, I was standing on a corner and saw the most desirable woman in the world. It was a most beautiful day of early spring.
Then, as the Italians say, I was moon-struck. I felt her presence long before I saw her. It was as if the world stopped turning, people and cars stopped moving past, even the birds were enveloped in silence. ‘All’ was defined as this beautiful girl walking on the far sidewalk, moving within a sea of out of focus objects. At the corner she turns to cross to where I am standing. I'm captivated, and my heart spoke the words that lifted from my lips, “I know I’m in love.” Before I could say something to the vision of my dreams, the world came back into focus and I could once more hear the noise of the traffic, I felt a chill from the rush of air. As fate would have it, someone else called her name. I remained silent.
I would carry my soul’s secret around with me. My secret was baggage that would become so heavy to carry; my heart burst. Then one day, years later, I held Breen in my arms. The very thought of that first moment still today inflames my heart. Then it was over.
The hard part was not my acceptance that she had made the smartest decision in her life, turning me away. The hard part was accepting the slow setting in of the reality that I was so selfish when I had my chance to kiss an angel. I turned to my writing. The words poured out on paper. Prose so deep and haunting, that I finally became too scared to write. I stopped photography because I saw only darkness in the images. Life went on, nevertheless.
I just had no idea where I was going. I knew I had to change. I worked at it; nevertheless I just could not believe change was taking place. Then one day as I was riding to work I realized I had changed as a person, and it was only me, myself, and I that was keeping me from believing in that new person. That baggage of love lost was still sitting in some corner of my mind, reminding me of what I should have been…keeping me from believing I had truly become a man who could not just say he loved, but could show it, live it. I realized I was on a new journey.
Not everyone is given a second chance, so you must watch for it. That’s why it is so important to recognize life is a series of journeys; not one long continuous, unbroken birth-to-death trip. Maybe it’s the cause and effect factor, chaos principle, three (five?) links to everyone else on earth, the butterfly in Brazil flapping its wings, that all inconclusive predestination, freewill, predetermination, philosophical rhetoric that education empowers us with that puts blinders on our eyes.
I once bet on a horse that died on the back stretch of Pimlico; at a point where, if you are standing at the fence, the infield tote board is right in your line of sight. The horses zip out of the second turn, then disappear behind the tote board. They zipped in, the gaggle zipped out less the one I bet on. You wait…your mind does not accept the reality…your brain does not process the fact eight horses went in and only seven came out. The horses cross the finish line and still you look for your horse. You move further over to the left and can now see the horse lying on the ground. You see the meat wagon roll onto the track. They cart the horse away. I turned to my cousin, “obviously the blinders worked, he was too distracted looking straight ahead at death to finish the race.” Life is a race. One day life will be over. I don’t want blinders on my eyes…there are too many wonderful things to be missed if I only looked straight ahead.
It’s not that I have a disdain for conservative people, I just feel sorry they never take the time to look right and left. Blinders on their eyes keep their memories so blasé. You meet someone who at sixty-five suddenly professes, reminisces
about the good old days. You know full well in his twenties the guy would not have been caught dead listening to psychedelic rock music or riding in the rebuilt 70s muscle car he now drives to the Pink Floyed cover band show. Conservative lives become rewritten history once the commercial symbols of the society “rebels” they disdained in their youth become K-Mart retro purchases. Poor Jimmy H., if he only knew how his detractors now wear tee-shirts emblazed with his picture.
True happiness does not require danger or rebellion. True happiness only requires taking the time to see the beauty of a flower, to savor the smell of fresh baked bread, to really feel a woman’s touch. Life is a series of journeys and it’s never too late to start enjoying yours.
As a person I had to change. As the years passed I became more understanding of her feelings, her dreams, and, most of all, her hurt. My quest to atone for the hurt I caused her by my childish, selfish, self-centered ways gave importance to my becoming a better person. She would never know because she had closed the door to my existence, moving on to find a man that would want her, and she him.
Thus, my last night at the Pub on Trinity Street. I eventually learned to live with the memory and move on with life.
As a romantic I believe that memories are the only truly personal thing we have in this life; with time so much more vivid they become.
my one wish
is to hold you once more
in my dreams
only
in my dreams
On the day I woke up and started to live once again
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