Attachment

In stillness we meet, in movement we depart

Why is it that in the most tectonic times, I think of and write about who I love?

Many years ago, I loved a friend. Memories of him surfaced recently when I felt I’d lost my grip on what I need to move forward. He had long, dark hair, climbed trees, bent down to kiss dogs, and moved with a gentle sensitivity. We met on a canoeing trip, where we rowed with and against the waves, cooked food, meditated and dreamed. Embers of the campfire tucked away stories and secrets that made us cry. The trip returned the rhythm of my life back into one of deep listening. As a result, I was effortlessly moved by everything.

His holiday house party. Standing in the hazy living room light on the hardwood floor, I inhaled cedar and sandalwood. A haiku squeezed between the pages of A Thousand Mornings. He smiled at the book and gave me a hug. I wore my new alpaca cardigan, which was so soft that it made hugs linger a bit longer. Was there a vinyl playing in the background? Or was it just a JBL hard at work? Someone tapped through the softest, moonlit playlist on a screen: “Today is the Day” by Yo La Tengo, “Movie” by Tom Misch, Frank Ocean’s “Moon River,” “Let’s Be Still” by The Head and the Heart… Beautiful cool kids sat sideways and on each other’s laps, sprawling on the couch and on the rug, like a sepia postcard from the 90s.

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Graduation marked the uproot season. In summer 2021, I said goodbye to many friends who were a year above, including him.

We stubbornly attach ourselves to places because they temporarily still the transience of people. In stillness we meet, in movement we depart. Ohio, the most mundanely special place of all, brought together my people. In a town with no view-blocking skyscrapers, just one long river winding through campus, life was very little and a whole lot at once.

We stubbornly attach ourselves to people because they mirror what is lovable. Love is an outbound ray until it reflects homebound to us again. Why is it that in the most tectonic times, I think of and write about who I love? This friend held a mirror that reflected a part of me I’ve missed and lost touch with.

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A year later, he returned to our town, fresh out of a breakup. He pulled up with another friend to pick me up. We shared pho and spring rolls and clinked bottles of Belgian White at a quaint bar illuminated by fairy lights. Watching friends hug goodbye always makes me want to cry a little. Don’t we know how precious these encounters are, how roads rarely lead us to the same place again? It was my season to pack and uproot. When he dropped me off, I handed him On Love by Alain de Botton. In stillness we meet, in movement we depart.

Books, poems, and pictures exchanged. Books, poems, and pictures forgotten. And so we will love again, bump into each other again. True knowing happens once every few lifetimes, so how can we blame ourselves for wanting forever and forever to last? May the most important memories always be crystalline.

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I don’t think he’ll ever know how much our friendship meant to me. In memory, every point of space and time feels private and vague. I open my shoebox of keepsakes; it’s forever I want to relive. Shrinking the distance until that feeling is within reach. That feeling gets so close it couldn’t have been any further.