Proximities

What do you see in me?

She had asked in the most quiet of moments, in an evening across the room.  It was darkening outside, cold, and there was really no other noises...maybe heat ticking, maybe fans whirring somewhere, maybe a plane flying 40,000 feet above them and maybe car lights glazing yellows across roads but her question was the only sound he heard.

He looked up at her.

Really?

A stare, across the distance, like a buoy in a storm.  It could move up and down in the tempest but it would hold steady with its light.  Right now, the question caused the room to move but her eyes were the light that centered on him.

How much time have I got?

From the brief distance he saw a wan smile, but her eyes revealed a darker curiosity, a potential vulnerability.

Well...he started...are you familiar with the law of unintended consequences?

Uhm, why don't you give me the Reader's Digest version.

Okay.  Well there are three versions of the law, but the one I favor is the first one, meaning a positive, unexpected benefit.  A windfall.  Serendipity.

Windfall?

An avalanche of goodness. 

I don't really get it.

Okay, let me put it another way.  How about the little things I learn are endearing, they are special, enigmatic.  You don't add up.  You're like a math problem that each time gives a different answer despite the same variables.

I'm a math problem?

Well, sometimes.  Other times you're geometry.  Or maybe even a new language.  My point is you are greater than you first appear...greater than you first arrive.  You know, you continuously get better...each moment...even when not doing anything other than sitting there.

That's what you see in me?

No.  That's what I look forward to seeing.  You reveal in snippets, rivulets.  You are like rain on a window, taking different paths, but always following certain rules.  

Rules?

Yeah, like gravity.  You have to, sort of.  But each time...it's different.

Different.

Yes.  Which is why I could never paint you.

Well you can't paint. 

Well that's true, but doesn't mean I couldn't try.  But if I did it would be a poor rendering.  It would be static.  And you change too much.

I do?

For me, yes.  Daily.  Maybe hourly.  Which is why when I see you, each time, it's still very different, very unique.  Like seeing a rough sketch or a draft work for the very first time, but still somewhat familiar.

Okay.  She was nodding like she understood, but probably didn't.

You know how people take pictures of sunsets, paint pictures of forests?

Yeah.

Those things happen daily.  Each day, around 5 or 6 the sun sets.  But the image is different...there are clouds, there are low pressures, there are elements of light and winds...no sunset is the exact same yet they are consistently beautiful.  Even if they are just marking the end of a day in a quiet, colorless effort.  That...he realized he had found the metaphor...that is what I see in you.  I wait for you to reveal to me how you will be and each time it is different...yet the same.

That's what you see in me.

No.  That is what you project.  I see much more, but that's what I will allow myself to share.

She was quiet, and he loved that.