note to self

it really can be that simple.

a heartfelt, mutual "I love you" barely two months after we met and seven weeks after our first date? the normality of it something i've been waiting for again, for a very long time.

you know that whole *knowing* thing? works much better when the other person knows what they're about, too. try not to forget this again. :)

happy. surprised. loved. :)

sometimes you have to go in circles to go straight ahead.

a story, or how you have to come full circle to go straight ahead

long, long ago in a land far, far away, i was walking across the amherst town common, hand-in-hand with my brand new first-ever boyfriend. it was all still so new to me that i was bemused by the mere concept of having a boyfriend. everything was freshman-new: the people, the independence, the boyfriend, the red-leaved trees, the crisp bite of a fall breeze that suggested a coming winter far colder than any a california girl like me had ever endured before.

ensconced among our fellow freshmen, we waited for the a cappella show to start. there would be an opening group, the virginia gentlemen, but at that point i was more excited about the sabs, because i wanted to be one of them.

we sat, fingers entwined, as the gents launched into a string of peppy pop tunes. they bounced around the "stage" and flirted outrageously with the audience and sang multipart harmony and i harmonized along softly with them. and then they slowed it down with this ballad:

baby i've been searchin' like everybody else
i can't say nothin' different about myself
sometimes i'm an angel and sometimes i'm cruel
but when it comes to love i'm just another fool
oh i'll climb a mountain
i'm gonna swim the sea
there ain't no act of god, girl
could keep you 'way from me

i fell in love with them almost immediately, and their CD Seven and Seven was on repeat on my stereo for many nights after that.

mere months later said first ever boyfriend and would have a sharp, startling breakup, which would lead to a messy spring where he did many reprehensible things that ruined the song for me for a little while. but i eventually determined that i would not let him do that to me, and slowly, true companion and the other gents' songs made their way back into the rotation.

seven years later, a similarly cool fall breeze blows across the parking lot of the malden stop-n-shop. noghri and i have just picked up dinner ingredients, and we're walking back to his car, hand-in-hand, swinging bags of groceries. my gents cd has gotten scratched beyond repair, after countless trips across the country and the world, and time spent in many moving bins.

we pile into the car, and a cappella spills out of his ipod, a song i've not heard before, but his a cappella collection is much more extensive than mine, so i assume he's not switched the playlist genre back to "all rock" from "all a cappella" yet.

we're cruising up main street and i'm babbling when i pause, because i recognize the song playing now. and i'd mentioned it to him once before, maybe even on our first date, when i was playing with his ipod and asking him if he had any a cappella songs. "of course!" he responded, and the conversation went from there. he didn't have true companion, though, but i wasn't surprised because i'd been searching fruitlessly for the mp3 for years, ever since my cd broke.

but now, there it was, sitting and singing and beaming at me on his ipod.

he's good at surprises. now i have to think of a good one in turn! :)