Anything But Blue Serge (11/06/08 Thursday)

A good day. And a good week so far, in an ironically Julie-centric way. The rope of emotional attachment has frayed considerably. The irony is in having accomplished this by striving more ardently to get to know her. I've had to put myself aside somewhat, try to forget how I (once) felt toward her. She still, very much, fascinates me, but now I want to know her, not simply search for validation of a misplaced affection. Yet I find I have not given up hope. There's a kind of reality to this hope, though, not of its fruition, but of its essential truth and necessity. That may be as well as I'll ever be able to explain it, but it's right. Stripped of what I wanted, what's left of this attraction may be what I actually need. I can't say now whether it's been either my heart or my head guiding this endeavor. It's been both, but in an almost evil manner, as if in league against my soul. The dawning reality to this hope is the dominating emergence of a unified control over this poisonous collusion. I'm shocked at the extent of the manipulation of these forces, but nearly elated at the apparent triumph over them. I hedge my glee knowing the war's far from over, but I'm claiming more territory every day. It remains to be seen just what that territory is, but I can't question its value.

I've had significant time with Julie this week in both quantity and quality. I have both bided that time and made the most of it. I've been confident--truly confident, not arrogant. (I can hate myself later, if I still feel like it, for being the selfish ass all these months; I just can't indulge those feelings now.) We were on the desk together again today. Julie spoke first; I was in no hurry. "I suppose I should bring a cart out." I read the reluctance in her voice and laughed, then she laughed. She thought it might be a slow hour. Neither of us made a move to bring out the lease books. Tyger stopped by on his way up to the "village," chatted with us and left. I said to Julie, ignoring misgivings of her wondering what brought this to the front of my mind, "Did I see you in glasses a few weeks ago?" "Who, Tyger? I don't think so." "No. You." "Yeah, I guess you could have." And we talked about that until we were interrupted by work. When the patrons cleared I sat back down and stared ahead, into Children's, seeing nothing. Peripherally, I saw Julie's head turn toward me once or twice, but as I was in the first seat, she would have to look past me to see entering patrons. Maybe bored, she got up to check the event schedule under the register. "Pruning class tonight," I said. "Oh, is that tonight?" "Mm-hm," I replied, and barely hesitated, with the usual qualm but with highly unusual disregard of indiscretion, before saying, "So, why horticulture?" (Her degree, I'd found out at the coffee shop, with no little surprise.) "I don't know," she said, after some hesitation; then, as if she'd willed it, a patron walked up to her counter. Off the hook, I thought, because I considered the answer untrue. When the patron cleared--and it was a few minutes--I waited, determined not to press and confident I wouldn't need to. I was rewarded: "I was living with a boyfriend at the time, and he was into gardening, so I thought I'd try it." "And yet," I remarked, noting her casual tone and recalling the "personal mess" she mentioned in the coffee shop that drove her from Blacksburg and horticulture, "you went all the way with it." "Yeah, well, I still like it, but if I did it over again I'd probably have done something else." "What would you have done?" "Oh, I don't know, probably something in music or the arts." She would have studied voice or illustration, she said, when pressed, though how she would follow the learning professionally she had only a vague notion, a vestige of a dream. Then she muttered something in that way I've seen several times now, turning away and lowering her head, abashed at revealing herself. I didn't catch it, and as much as I wanted to know what she'd said, I, too, looked away and down, chuckling with her, feeling it would be insensitive of me to ask her to repeat the utterance, and tried to satisfy myself with at least understanding her tone and respecting her for the difficulty of the disclosure.

I bided my time, too, for her to ask me something of myself, but when it didn't happen, I didn't waste energy rueing it. I'm expecting it to happen--or maybe my confidence is stepping out of reality. I imagined, as I sat out there in silence, that the more time we have together the more comfortable each of us will be with the other. I can't tell how far Julie has to go in that respect, but I can't even see halfway from here. The next hour off the desk Tammy passed me on the way to posting Friday's schedule. She tapped it with a "V" and whispered, "Two times." Boy, I have to come up with more material.