2. Love

Originally posted February 25, 2008

I remember living in Oakland, in a house that I did not like, pining for a particular girl for another month or so...

Oh, my.

Love, then. Love lately is patience, and asking for patience. Or: hoping for patience. Love is understanding -- or, hoping -- that March will be better, and April better than that. Or at the very least that better is coming.

Love is that smell -- you know that smell -- that even if they're not around, when you smell it you think of them. Okay, of her. It's the sound a text message makes, on somebody else's phone, that all the same reminds you that someone somewhere is thinking of you.

Love is making a mixtape, and the state of continual courtship.

Or understanding that you can get together and talk about, I don't know, the Oscars or comic books or how and why you're quite so nerdy, even though there are plenty of other things to discuss. Important things, or, "important" things. Misunderstandings and arguments and being-hung-up-on. But knowing that you'll get to those things in time. Not that you're ignoring them -- more that you're trusting the process, and that you'll get to them in time.

Or, you won't.

It's trust even in absence. Trust even in mistakes, your own or theirs. It's not quite knowing what they're thinking, but looking forward to finding out -- when the time is right, and not necessarily now. And while I'm thinking about it -- it's looking forward in general. And looking forward, and looking forward, and looking forward.