Little Trite Hook

"There was a time
you and I were everything...
You'll never know the days and nights
I spent imagining...
But yesterday is the only place we'll ever know..."


Tuesday night's dinner left me feeling happy, with a sense of resolution and even optimism. Our perhaps-not-so-odd friendship feels solid, familiar, and comforting. Finally.

I felt unabashedly joyful and thrilled, even though we were saying goodbye until who can say when...

And of course I was reminded of — if somehow I had ever forgotten — all the reasons I had loved him so crazily and ambivalently once. And yes, I'm convinced there's such a thing as Ambivalent Love. Maybe it's the only kind there is.

Love is still there, but Wednesday morning I considered Fitzgerald's line about there being "all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice."

Also, Michael Cunningham's words continue to resonate and will, I believe, nag me forever: "He was the person she loved at her most optimistic moment."

I managed to scrawl a goodbye — some send-off wishes; an inscription in a book — and included a bit of verse of Hafiz:
"I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world"

Has the most optimistic moment passed, or is it yet to arrive?

The most optimistic moment.

I am grateful to know you, I wrote.