I don't know what it is about today that just makes the prettiest song seem like a lullaby of happiness.
I see my toes peeking from behind my laptop as I quickly roll my fingers across the melodic keys, the pattern reminding me of my heartbeat as a soft autumn song caresses me.
Today I talked with a "kindred spirit"(as Anne Shirley would say) in a slot of time where time did not exist.
We talked and talked as though we had been talking for decades and this was our usual spot in a cafe and the salads we talked over were our usual orders and the customers around us were just paintings on the wall watching our every word but not caring one bit what we actually talked about.
I recall it began around noon when we met together at a cafe after running in to each other a few days previously and deciding we needed to get together.
But the funny thing about running in to someone is usually, as humans, the natural response is, "Oh it's been so long, we should really catch up!" but then funnily enough they usually never desire to see them again, let alone actually follow up with the notion they just gave.
Humans are weird.
Just a few days ago after saying those exact words to Caitlyn, but actually meaning them, she texted me. She asked to go to lunch.
What human does that? Then again, all good humans do, actually.
It made me so happy that some friend, some human actually followed their word and took action to see it through. I was elated (even if it wasn't a Tuesday, it felt like one then).
I awoke this Friday morning with the crisp Autumn mid-morning air waltzing about my exhausted figure and it's strange how few people actually don't stop and smell the roses--literally.
There I was in love with life and morning and breath itself, I stopped my thinking for a moment or two and smelled every single rose on the rose bush beside me.
They were decadent.
I remember one crumbling at the soft brush of my fingertips and my heart sank as I scurried to collect them and lay them somewhere special (a statue of two children reading a book together).
It's incredible how much humans miss in one day if they forget to live the life that was given to them; I guess every human being elects the life they think they deserve.
I guess.
But the moment came when the beloved luncheon arrived and our long and mid-conversation-like talking was awakened. We talked and talked, but we never once reached for our devices of distraction and false conversation. We only looked around us and between us. We were two friends of alike minds and intellect so closely related our conversations could've filled three books in just one sitting.
We talked of everything, too.
Books.
Love.
Life.
Humans.
Movies.
Poetry.
Books.
Love.
Music.
Sadness.
Ice cream.
Family.
Books.
Life.
It sounds like our conversation was a pumping heartbeat rising and falling but truly it was more like a constant, needed vein leading to the next topic and the next as if they were already connected and waiting to be used all leading up to the same place--a heart.
You don't know real conversation until you forget you're even having one. A truly valuable conversation doesn't feel like two people using their voices, but rather two spirits holding hands and understanding.
Caitlyn gets it.
We can talk about everything without reservations and yet we talk about anything that makes or doesn't make sense to us and we always understand each other.
I remember at one point she said to me, "You're really easy to talk to." Wow. I can't explain in words how happy that made me. I always try and try to listen intently, but often find myself wavering in flowing conversation unless I'm truly immersed.
But I've had an epiphany. I've discovered through the immersion of truly deep and valuable conversation today that the only people worth surrounding yourself with are the ones, the souls that don't make your spirit saunter, but the ones that make it soar. A friend, a sister, a brother, mother, dog, bird, book or plant--whoever or whatever it is that makes up the company you have make them worthwhile.
"We accept the love we think we deserve." And so it goes with company.
If you are surrounding yourself with insipid spirits--why even waste your one and only precious life on them?
I spent hours last night feeling miserably lonely in the company of many I thought were alike spirits to myself. There I sat curled up in a blanket next to them, a chilling night breeze rattling my bones, hot cider on my breath, and the stars watching in wonder probably whispering to themselves, "Why is she with them? Doesn't she know what she's worth? Doesn't she see that we find her just as fascinating as she finds us?" And that's the key--finding people who find you as exciting and brilliant and beautiful as you find them.
Words.
Words as Caitlyn put it, are the key to expressing exactly what we mean in the precise manner we mean to express it. Art, music, poetry--they are not
echoes of thought, but are
direct thought.
So hear my words, read them as they drip from my lips, and know that I am worth a thousand sunsets drenched in gold and becoming starlight.
I deserve every book that sings to my soul louder than any song of a lover ever could, for now.
My soul delights in beautiful things that find life and love and sadness equally as beautiful as the find me.
I am waiting to be hugged, held, caressed and ignited by someone whom I can hug, hold, caress and ignite as well.
I do not reject.
I deserve a friend with whom I can talk hours with and still never realize we're talking.
I am accepting the love, the life and the world I think I deserve--and by heaven and hell I deserve a beautiful one.
I always have.
