The Long Highway Pt. 45

Let me tell you about the end of the break-up.

At the college, night before first day of the semester we met up by surprise and stood talking to each other at an event we both happened to be attending along with others.

Akemi said, "I get a thrill feeling from talking to you now."

So she still felt drawn to me as I did to her. We faced each other to converse, touched occasionally, light touches to the shoulder. A powerful connection between us surfaced.

We were in a public setting so couldn't do more than chat. It didn't matter. What a great surprise, confirmation.

Emcee held forth at a welcoming ceremony in the auditorium. I wasn't paying close attention to the guy in a glittering blue suit pacing the stage but heard the end of a comment, delivered by him with a grin: ".. how I got from where I'd been to standing before you tonight."

Apparently, he'd been an addict and reformed himself, rose.

"Or at the reception earlier in the dining commons."

He was looking at me.

"Ah, that was you?" I said. We were near enough to the stage I could speak to him.

He was the guy who'd led us and others through an orientation for the next semester. He told his life story then. African-Hispanic (or Caribbean) and a hundred percent urban American, with a wild but well-tended Afro, in his mid-thirties. Thirty-six, I think it was. He'd been through a lot, I remember- prison, homelessness, rehab- and risen, gone to college, graduated and been hired as a counselor at the school. Was justifiably proud. In an electric blue suit. He might have been in show business, at an entertainment venue rather than a college campus. But we all cheered him on

He addressed us with grins when I responded a moment after he singled us out in the crowd.

I felt sorrow I hadn't recognized him until that moment, should have right away. He might feel I'd taken his tale of hardship, struggle, survival, triumph less than seriously. The success of people like that, who have escaped the lower depths from the sheer force of their will, can be fragile. Denied sufficient support from others, they can sink right back to the bottom. His beaming show of confidence included a need for response, affirmation. My delayed reaction (had I been yawning while he spoke on the stage before and directly above us?) might have hurt him. And my recovery might not have cut it. His type sees through people, can spot indifference, tell when interest is faked. But the distraction I was experiencing couldn't be helped. I was preoccupied with Akemi, sitting there beside me then, after too long!

Akemi was going away again, the next day, and that night we slept together for what might have been the final time. We used the studio apartment of a friend who was out of town. It was a diagonal slice of a bedroom convenient to the airport. Slanted window reaching from roof to floor looked onto wetlands. It covered a side of the narrow room and effectively served as a skylight. Days within would be hot, as sun hit full force.

In the morning I got up to check the view, leaving the bed where Akemi stayed, under a bedspread that was thick but light in both weight and color, fluffy like a froth, cream you might want in morning coffee.

Mist wet the window panes, as dawn hadn't fully risen yet, and the softened effect was impressive. I said aloud, "Beautiful photograph." From the dark green facade of the building that veered slightly outward as it descended, a flat landscape spread to the horizon, which was blurred, impossible to see clearly in the half-light. The ground, wet land, was treeless mostly monotone, undistinguished, but for an isolated area with red marks, so soft they seemed to murmur- roses or berries; the distance made it impossible to tell which. Low light (would the day be overcast or was dawn her always like this?) and low fog further muted colors. The grey of the small oval area in which the red marks appeared looked fainter than the dark bristly surrounding.

The rosy colors were enhanced by sun on the horizon, dim light glancing across them. They coruscated.

The effect was so subtle it might not show in a photo. Too bad I couldn't paint, I thought. Then I could put down exactly the image I wanted. But paintings wouldn't give the sheer volume of images photography did. If I showed Akemi, a painter, the view from the window, could she see the beauty I saw there?

Of course, "break-up" is a misnomer. I'd let Akemi know I was still seeing Pam and finding it difficult to leave her and we'd agreed to separate until I did, knowing we might forever. I didn't ask what Akemi had done while we were apart, trusted she'd do nothing in her life that would damage ours together and now that we are together we both extend that trust.

The reason I bring up photographs here is obvious. I haven't become an artist like Akemi but have taken a lot of pictures, mostly of her. My mentioning the college orientation also shouldn't mystify anyone. It was a great chance meeting. Why did I include the part about the emcee with the inspirational life story? I guess because it fleshed out my account a little. Also, I was at a point in my life when I might well have ended up like that courageous stranger: lost lost lost.

There are details I could add, ones seemingly of importance to me alone but connected to the overall scene, as everything is. Akemi and I had gone that night to a gathering with friends, and I'd briefly ventured off by myself to look at stuff I'd left in a room separate from the others when I heard a voice from the kitchen, door closed to my left. The kitchen had doors on both ends and the person inside must have entered through the far one, from the living room where all the guests were gathered.

She was an older woman and I heard through the baffle of the shut door that she was in trouble, having a problem physically, a fainting episode maybe. She was in her sixties and dressed in white, just a few tones lighter than her hair, a grey going toward complete bleach-out. She wore it long. Her cotton dress was as well, a gown in effect.

"Will anybody help me?" I heard her say and her voice carried some frustration. She seemed annoyed at the guests who had not responded so far to her requests for aid. I sensed she was saying that they acted like they were her friends (most a lot younger than her) but they weren't there to lend a hand when she needed one. They were wrapped up in the fun they were having at the party and couldn't spare a moment's attention to a person in trouble.

I walked through the door on my end, found her standing in the kitchen looking woozy, weak on her feet. She was big framed, rocking. I joined her where she stood by the oven, clinging to it as if she might fall otherwise. I lent support, held her with arms around her waist.

"It's pretty hot in here," I said, less because the temperature had struck me than to ease the embarrassment she might have felt. Anyone could get a little dizzy in this atmosphere, I was saying in effect, though it wasn't true.

I held her lightly, my arms in a circle, making little contact but there at the ready if needed.

And sure enough I felt her slip. She lost balance, really was in a logy state after all, might have taken a bad fall if I hadn't been present- though, it occurred to me, in that case, on her own, she might have gripped the oven harder than she was, made more of an effort to steady herself.

Why do I mention this? Because I remember it. Why? Because it made an impression on me. Akemi was with the guests in the other room, the one you reach if you cross the kitchen as I did entering by the near door and leaving through the far one. I don't know if she understood what the old woman was saying. The meaning of her sentences in English might have eluded her and the distance muffled the sound, which mixed with those of the party in progress. Akemi wasn't a friend of that woman (nor was I) but I feel sure she would have gone to help all the same had she known of her trouble. She's a kind person and doesn't wait for others to act before doing the right thing on her own initiative.

The time of the actual break-up (I mean separation)? I've talked some about it, describing details, scenes that came back to me. A lot of it is a blur, just a mass of fog, time stripped of its usual markers, the ones that help you get from one day to the next: this date, this appointment, this thing to be done, this deed anticipated. No, when Akemi was out of the picture, time expanded (yes, like a fog) became too big to encompass. There weren't so much hours or even days anymore as one vast expanse, like a cloud bank, a hump-backed one you might be able to see around but not beyond. The only time marker that mattered was the one withheld from view, the moment Akemi and I would re-unite- if we ever would; the uncertainty weighed on the rest, compressed the cloud so that it obscured more and more.

Ever had days that felt endlessly long? I'd be visiting friends for a weekend and walk with them on the beach and feel nothing but tedium, each minute blending with the next in a way that made them all barely tolerable. Instead of savoring the beauty and freedom of the sea and sky and sand, I felt oppressed. How could I get to the end of that day, those that might follow, the succession like waves to which you can see no end? How could I get through even the next hour? And what would happen at night when the imperative of sleep made sleep the last thing possible? Ever had a day when the beach looked just like a grey cloud, darker some places, lighter in others, the spectacular beauty incapable of catching much less holding your interest, pulling it away from the dominant concern, the only that mattered.

I wrote today a bit about how it felt, how things went, when Akemi and I did meet again. The setting wasn't the beach, instead about the most ordinary of all, my workplace. But our connection brought it to life, like a stage set that had been dimmed but was now lit up. And as in any good play, even the minor characters matter.