Today as I was watching “Today in Class 5-2,” I was reminded of all the innocences and complexities and emotions of youth – and its wide-open honesty. Five years ago, on New Year’s Day, before I was in a relationship, before I received notice that MIT would accept me after that heartbreaking deferral, before I had ever considered becoming a doctor . . . even back then, I had already unfurled the full expanse of my dreams and ideals. Those fantasies warmed my heart even as my life leapt and plunged forward through rocky times, and they kept me alive through the imagined interactions that touched my heart in a profound way that maybe only artistic creation can achieve. This particular short story (a diary-like entry which is best imagined as being spun patiently by a voiceover talent as the reel plays back the memory) is one that marked a turning point in my understanding of my heart’s deepest desires. It was a time when I was untamed by the forces of adulthood and unafraid to write about a perfect world and a perfect life. Love has since entered my life (two years and a month), a duration coincidentally approximately the same as the romance below.
You’re already there, a bundle of warmth in the forest glazed in snow and ice. The snowflakes are falling intermittently. I catch one on my tongue, relishing the brief sensation.
In a way, that crazy passion has already worn off, grown into the deeper, more subtle love that could last an eternity. I’m sure you feel the same way. It’s like how the trees seem to greet us now as if we’d been inhabitants here for all our lives – a tree’s romance, a faerie’s tale: a slow dance under many a moon, under the stars as they change like the sand dunes on the beach.
I’m wearing the little ring; I hope you notice! I still remember your cute whispers last year when you gave it to me. You tried to be confident and logical, but alas, even I, watching with my eyes, felt that overwhelming wave as the light leapt off the simple gold band. You were blabbering, and I loved every word of it.
I still remember our meeting two years past, when you had to keep your promise and tell me what you’d done when you slipped away that day we were shopping in our mother land. And oh, how I knew before you even showed it to me that I’d forgive you for keeping a secret! I still finger the necklace every day when I wake up to dawn’s radiant shouts. I can imagine the words of some future construction worker who should dig up my coffin by mistake and find the necklace still there – “Aw, she loved him all her life!” And I should hope that they’d say the same about you!
Oh, you’re already there, a bundle of warmth in the forest glazed in snow and ice. I approach your huddled figure, sitting down on the rock beside you. There isn’t enough room and I have to press against your side lightly to prevent myself from sliding off. I hope you don’t mind.
This year it’s my turn – I got you something special this year. I hope it can be a memento worthy of our four years of friendship. Carefully, I hand it to you; it’s in a wide, flat box to protect it from the snow. Delicately, you open it.
It’s a painting of this very spot, but in our place are two young trees in full bloom. I say that I couldn’t paint you well enough, so I had to think up something else to represent you. You say I’m just being modest. I just blush and remember the other painting I have stashed away in my room; I tried! but sometimes things don’t turn out how you’d like. That’s life, too.
I love the way you squeal in delight like a little child on the swings for the first time. Oh, squeal more; it makes me smile. Gratitude is best expressed in those little cartwheels of the voice.
To protect the painting from the snow, you close the box, getting your fingers caught in between the top and the sides. We both laugh but I don’t let you fix the box because I suddenly have you in a tight embrace, our heads side-by-side so that we can hear each other’s ears doing whatever ears do on cold days. I don’t giggle like this very often, and it feels so good. The wind is blowing against my short hair and my crimson cheeks. Don’t you wish it felt like this every day?
Shyly as always, we move about our faces until our lips brush against each other. The kiss is gentle and pacific like the air around us. ‘I love you,’ I think as I close my eyes. I love you I love you I love you. We don’t have to wish for it to feel like this every day; it already does.
On to another great year of our lives!
