Clocks

When i was younger. When I was still in high school, a friend of mine said "I don't wear a watch, watches constrict fun." I spent many years remembering that. It was stored in that file in my head marked "really important things people said without knowing it." (a long title for a file, but you get the idea.) It was always there with "walk it off" and the others.

Last night, It wasn't filed. It was staring me in the face. Diners are amazing places. The people, the mood, the overall aura that exists in a diner is one that defies all clocks. I walked in not feeling well, I was physically "under the weather", and I was spiritually a little worn. I left feeling physically tired and still a little "under the weather." Spiritually though, I was alive, I was soaring.

We talked. All night. We talked about everything. We played the game of smiles. My face still hurts. She proves to me time and time again that I cannot win and still I try. She made me talk about my life. It was scary. I felt vulnerable, naked. I remember when it was, though, that I decided that I could trust her, at least that much.

I always thought that blue eyes were enchanting. Brown eyes, like mine, are beautiful at times, but seldom do they give clarity like the blue. But then I looked in those eyes. Her eyes. And the clarity, the depth, the movement i felt made me catch my breath. I trusted her then. The night was still young when it happened. The clock wasn't laughing at me yet.

It was a night for honesty. It was a night for paying attention, for watching. I watched so many things. Movements, people, eyes, expressions. Sometimes I even watched myself, feeling a strange sense of third person. I didn't watch the clock. I didn't care. I admitted I didn't want to leave, even when we did. Too much real life and cold out that doorway. But the clock is my friend and the clock is my enemy.

So much and so little space. No specifics. No need. She is. I am. This is so many things. Complicated and simple and easy and hard. It's contradiction and confirmation and deep and shallow and humorous and dire. It is two sides of the same coin, of the same feeling. Comfortable and unsafe should not go together. But they do. This seven course meal of diners and late nights and laughs and coffee and smiles and smiles is dangerous and wonderful. It is alive.
The clock ticks and I ignore it.

All I have is time.

Things I learned before 3 am today:
- When feeling ill, go to a diner. It won't make your sickness go away, but at least you're at a diner.
- Trust is multi-tiered, and multi-teared.
- I agree with Kat when she said:
"The song is wrong. Love is NOT all you need. You also need friendship, coffee, early morning conversations and laughter. Lots and lots of laughter."
- Sometimes memorizing a person just happens.