He is one that I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget this feeling of nostalgia , returning to my innocence. I want to remember experiencing this man of substance. Dirty, gritty and real; honest, surfer. Raised by four women and a biological father, his parents are lesbians who remarried. Solid. I want to dance with him, sit around campfires with him, surf with him, get back to my roots with him. I don’t want to take a shower, I want to smell him on me all day. I messaged date#16 because he said that he liked coming up with puns. He gave me his phone number and I began texting him random subjects.
Me: Math
Him: What do you call the top story of an academic houses? Mathematics.
Me: how about one about being a writer?
Him: It’s better than being a wronger.
Even by text he was cracking me up, Laughing out loud, his puns appealed to my affinity for cheap thrills, like a roller coaster. He also mentioned in his profile that he would like to make art with someone. I am always looking for fellow artists to hang out with and create together. We were texting back and forth and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was editing. He asked what I was working on. I told him a book. He asked what it was about, and I blew my cover. “You mean you actually went of 52 dates in one year?, “I’m still doing it”, I said. He asked if doing art together counted as a date and was he going to be famous? I replied yes, and yes. He said we might want to make the date at my house since he has no electric lights. I was slightly surprised. I debated how much effort I wanted to put into a relationship with a man who didn’t have electricity and probably pooped in a bucket. But instead of judging and jumping to conclusions I kept the conversation going. I asked why he didn’t have electricity. He told me, maybe because he was a hippy and that he lived in a cob. I had never heard of a cob before. Apparently it is a structure, nicely stated, which is sustainably constructed out of earth and straw. I furrowed my brow. The point of this project is not to find the craziest people to go out with and exploit their stories. However the more I texted him the more I liked him. So we decided Monday night for an art date. Monday morning came and he texted, asking if we were still on. I’m glad he remembered cause I forgot and was happy to have something to do that night. He let me know that he would be out of cell phone service, all day and he would text around 4:30. At 4:00 he let me know that he was going to jump in the ocean and then we could meet up downtown. He wanted to give me directions to his house in person because he thought it would be hard to communicate over text. I liked the way he communicated clearly, succinctly. I told him to meet me at the library.
He texted me, to let me know he had arrived and informed me he was the guy in the lobby, with wet hair and one green sock. My first impression of him, disheveled, hippie type who needed a shower. Our eyes met and I gauged his energy. Good. Very laid back and go with the flow type guy. We tried to figure out logistics, he had his bike but no lock and I was uneasy about wandering around in the wilderness looking for a cob. After thinking about it, I figured it would be easier to take his bike to my apartment and we could come back for it later. I asked him if he would hate me if I went to Starbucks. He said, he wouldn’t be embarrassed to set foot into a Starbucks with me.
We approached his property and as I parked my car, he pointed out his vehicle, a converted ambulance. We trekked up a hill and around the corner was his freestanding structure. It was pretty nice, it was box shaped not like a dirt igloo like I had been picturing. He had a double bed and his computer set up facing out a large glass window, over looking the forrest. We talked about some linguistics concepts, which was his major, and he noticed that I was the kind of person who has to find the answer (“I’m going to get to the bottom of this” type), when I’m curious about something. I felt like he appreciated that or thought it was cute. We set up two lawn chairs in the garden and I began mixing colors and he began applying those colors on the canvas one point at a time. We talked about all kinds of things, our past lives, surf culture in santa cruz, the dangers of being a local at UCSC, crazy party behavior and relationships. He told me about how in his last relationship he didn’t feel heard. He felt that he was always the one holding it together and sometimes he wanted to be sad too. He emotionally shut down and needed space, which his ex had a hard time allowing between them. I told him I have a hard time with that one too. I was beginning to bond with his character. The air cooled, and he asked me if I wanted to borrow a sweatshirt, I did. He made me mint tea out of hot water and fresh mint from the garden. Somehow this complete stranger was warming my heart like the mug was warming my hand. The vibrant green hue of the steeping mint leaves was beautiful, intense, just like us. I saw wonderment in his eyes. He told me some things and trusted me to keep them off the record. I was starting to get hungry and it was getting cold so we decided to pack up and go back downtown. As we approached my house. We started talking about our emotional edges and what gets us there. An emotional edge is where we notice, in the face of being ourselves, we are fearful and concerned about what others think of us, or of what we think of ourselves for that matter. He said that dancing in front of other people and expressing his emotions by way of uncensored primal sounds would be his worst nightmare. I was getting to the root of him, the beautiful place of vulnerability where he began to censor and stumble over his words in fear of being misunderstood. I was really starting to like the guy, quickly in my mind I took a poll and asked myself if I could see myself spending a few more hours with him, or if it was time for me to turn in for the night. I asked him if he wanted to get dinner. He said yes. We walked down to get chinese at Little Shanghai, closed. We both agreed indian, Khyber Pass, closed. Somewhere in front of Logos he outreached his bicep toward me, his elbow bent. At first I thought he was showing me something on his sweatshirt, then I realized he wanted me to take his arm. I smiled and took it in mine and sparks, mini silver, grey smoldering sparks materialized. We kept walking to the mediocre chinese place at the end of Pacific. We sat down across from each other and it felt like we had known each other for years. We talked about old santa cruz (for us) memories and I told him about how I barged down the end of Ocean Street at Broadway with my friend tandem on a skateboard one summer when I was 19 and we made it to the bottom unscathed. I think I impressed him. I asked him if he was the one who said he was a bibliophile on his profile, he said no. I told him he should then. “I don’t read that much”, he said, but he was mentioning books all through the night. He admitted he was name dropping books to impress me with his intellectualism. I said it was working. We ordered. In my head I thought to myself, “he seems far away I wonder what it would be like to sit next to him”, and about 15 seconds later he asked, “would you like to sit here next to me?’ “yes, I would”, I said. I sat next to him, it felt great. We laughed, he said some more puns we shared some more stories, we felt like friends. We walked back to my house arm in arm. When we got back, it was very dark inside. I felt my way in and switched on the lamp....except, nothing happened still pitch dark (I forgot that I had unplugged it, to vacuum earlier). He flipped another light switch which was connected to an outlet with no lamp...still nothing, dark. I walked over to my stove to turn the overhead light and remembered I took the lightbulb out a few days ago and put it in a different lamp....still dark. By this time I could hardly speak because I was laughing so hard, at the irony; how I was so put off at first by him not having electric lights, in the first place. I finally found a lamp that was plugged in and had a lightbulb in it. He looked at me very cutely and asked if we still were going to hang out for longer. I said yes. I think we talked for a while, but what happened next blurred all of my coherent memory. All I remember was kissing him. His lips were smaller than mr.ten but his energy was so grounded. I found what I was looking for, traction. It was like we were inseparable. It felt like we were crawling inside one another continually trying to get closer, closer and closer. Until we were as close as two people can be. There was something about the way he maintained a stillness I found unique. Steady, strong and so incredibly gentle, sweet little movements. I watched his hand on my waist and hip. He touched me. He was paying attention. He was paying attention. He was not acting. He was there, and he noticed I was there too. I told him out loud he was beautiful, he really is. Total surfer body, tight stomach, lean, with sun bleached hair that waves as it tucks behind his ears at his jaw. Scruffy blonde beard, blue eyes and angular features. Really hot. We looked at each other. I was being called to turn the lights off. Something about him and being in the dark was a repeating motif. I turned off the lights. I was able to feel, really feel. For as long as I can remember I have been having sex with the lights on. I think somewhere along the line, it was a statement of not being afraid of someones flaws and my own. But sex in the dark is just as valuable. My sense of touch is more sensitive when my sight is disabled. I think we went into a meditation together. I asked him to stay the night, I couldn’t bear the thought of him riding his bike home in the dark at 1:30 am. We slept beside each other, in the same bed, in the same house.
the next day:
It rocks my confidence. I begin to feel small and I begin to want more. More of the feeling of being wanted, more of that connection. My brain labels it insecure. As if somehow I should be unaffected, by such an intense major connection between me and another person. I start to doubt my feelings and feel guilty about having them, as if I should be more detached. This is the feeling that deserves deeper investigating. This feeling doesn’t exist when I am not dating. What am I really afraid of? The space. There is something about the space in between that is so incredibly vulnerable and uncomfortable for me. What if I change my perspective? What if I revel in the vulnerability and let go of the results. There are those words again, let go. Oh boy that is so challenging. I am constantly coming up against the edge. Trying to find rules and regulations that will lessen my anxiety. This anxiety is directly related to fine tuning my asking for and communicating my needs.
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