One day

I haven’t been doing much personal writing lately…mostly it’s been essays and updates about my novel. In a tribute to the old days of online jour­naling, this is going to be one of those self-indulgent personal pieces that also serves as a writing exercise; I’ve fallen into a rut and need to stretch my imag­i­nation.

My first novel was a great success. It started out as just a small success, a little known cult classic. Then word spread and it garnered the attention of those literary critics I don’t give two hoots about. They heralded it as an insightful glimpse of the face of lone­liness. There was talk of how it touched on the growing phenomenon of urban isolation. Some folks likened it to a classic country song about alien­ation and ‘urban wickedness’. It was never one of those New York Times best­sellers, but it put me on the map. I was 26 when it was published, and 27 when I was inter­viewed. The reporter said that she loved Mark — the protag­onist of my novel — and how tragic his lone­liness was. I asked her if she caught the priestly angle, and she said that that was actually some­thing that deeply resonated with her — her father was a pastor who always seemed so aloof. She also remarked that Mark’s separate from the rest of the world, he’s on a whole different plane of exis­tence. A clever gal, that one.

That article got me noticed enough so that I could get an advance on my next book, which was about a darker side of lone­liness, the festering violence of a man with hate and intol­erance in his heart. That’s only one side of him though. He’s a protector, a guardian. But he’s got nobody to protect, nobody to save. Yeah, yeah, it’s sort of yet another spin-off of a different side of myself, but hey, it’s still good work, and the publisher gave me and advance, so I must be doing some­thing right.

That was my second book. In between that one and the one I’m working on now, I finally met a woman who ended up being my fiancé. I remember the day after she confessed that she was in love with me, I wondered if maybe that psychic I saw all that time ago was right, that I wasn’t destined for dating lots of people and that I would only need to meet that one single perfect woman whom I would marry. If she was right about that, that means she was right about me living ’til I’m 80 or 90, too. Back then, I didn’t think there was any reason I should have to live that long, but now that’s all changed.

So yeah, about that woman. I love her. It was funny, we met through the Internet. She was all the way on the West coast, and I’ve always been a New Yorker, so I figured that we’d never meet and that she was probably too different for me. It was totally platonic at first. That’s why I felt alright showing her my website; otherwise, if I was roman­ti­cally inter­ested, I probably wouldnt’ve ever showed her. I’d be afraid of what she thought about my writing, whether she’d misin­terpret it and all that. Plus, she’s a good three inches taller than me. While I’m not threatened by women who are taller than me, I just always envi­sioned myself with a smaller woman. I guess it’s that protector in me (yeah, that one, the one I drew inspi­ration from to write my second book).

But yeah, she didn’t let the fact that I was shorter than she was stop her. She secretly read my writings and I guess she saw in me some­thing she just couldn’t shake. With time, I saw in her a fiercely loyal woman who I knew would be a devoted mother to my children. There was this one evening when I was at her place and we were baking a cake for her aunt — we were still rela­tively new to each other as boyfriend and girl­friend — and we ended up talking about our child­hoods and dreams. She started talking so honestly about how she wanted to raise her family, what she envi­sioned. I always wanted to talk about that sort of thing, but I didn’t want to scare her away with such talk.

Anyway, that night, when she was sifting the flour and talking about what sort of mother she’d be, her back turned to me, I just stood there, staring at the back of her head. It was that moment, when my heart told me that we were both looking for exactly the same thing, that I fell even more deeply in love with her. She noticed I was quiet and turned around. Our eyes met, and some­thing inside both of us just clicked. Without saying a word, she walked to me, floury hands and all. She took my hands in hers and stood real close to me. We just stared into each other. It felt like an eternity. I didn’t need to say a word: she knew what I was thinking. She knew that we both wanted the same things, the same future. She knew that my heart was completely hers, that we could spend forever with each other. It was just one of those leaps of faith.

I proposed to her two weeks later. Quick, I know. But you know when, you know, you know? For me, I don’t fall in love often, so I know when it’s real. Anyway, I had planned on putting the ring on her finger by levi­tating it over her finger and, after having it hover for a few seconds, let it descend — I was an amateur magician. I wanted to do this one starlit night in a park. But then the damnedest thing happened. One day, she found it in my jacket pocket, and after waiting for a week, she couldn’t keep quiet about it anymore. We were in Crate and Barrel, shopping for some baking stuff (I once attempted a cursory psycho­analysis of her: I thought her penchant for baking was a domestic yearning for parts of her childhood she felt she missed out on; she yelled at me for about a week after I pulled that stunt), and when there was a quiet moment, she grabbed the ring box through my jacket. “I can’t wait any more, you idiot. Are you going to ask me to marry you or not?” She’s always been strong like that, it’s one of the reasons I even dated her. I pulled her in close and kissed her. “What do you think?” I asked. She gave me a sly look, said, “I’m not sure yet, show me again.” We kissed rather passion­ately, which I’m embar­rassed to admit. Hey, we were in Crate and Barrel for crying out loud.

And now we’re married. We’ve got a nice little house in a nice little suburban neigh­borhood. I’ve got my psychotherapy practice in the well-monied part of town. It’s a part-time gig though. That’s alright because that gives me time to write. We’ll probably have the two kids we planned on having once I get more steady clients. We both worry about what that’ll do to my writing though. Getting more clients I mean. Well, I guess the kids too, when you think about it… But yeah, she’s a sort of creative type too, so she knows how it goes, the creative process and all. Oh, did I mention? She took the photos for both of my book jackets. I didn’t let her put a portrait photo of me on the back of it though. I’m not too hot about getting famous. Besides, it’s better to let people wonder.

Oh, right, my latest work in progress. Well, this one is on family and siblings. I’m looking to examine themes like loyalty, taking the people in our lives for granted, and how precious our family is. That and death.

My wife’s putting on some dinner, so I’ve got to go give her a hand. We’ll finish this interview tomorrow, alright?

“Talk about yourself as you want to see yourself. And some day, that will be yourself.”