The two of them sit together, pouring over a shared notepad, thinking intently about whatever question is written there. He in a fleecy-looking blue sweatshirt, she in an equally roomy grey one. A dainty pair of glasses slides down the slope of her nose and tuck behind locks of frizzy brown hair. She is plain and unremarkable, unlike the slew of sorority girls gathering across the street, decked in ultra stylish dresses, synched with flattering waistlines.
His elbow leans lightly upon her shoulder, draped in some expression of love and friendship. In their unassuming comfort with each other, love is flaunted best. I do not know if what they are gazing upon is a physics equation, or a crossword puzzle, but I do think that the rest of us should notice them, in their quiet ways.
I do not doubt that he loves her body or her face or any of her feminine attributes. They all congeal together to make her the dynamic person she is. But he does not isolate the parts of her, corseting features or surveying their independent attractiveness. No, that would be like shattering a poem into piecemeal, analyzing its literary devices, until the beauty of its entirety is lost to these fixations. We pervert reality, when we favor the parts of person, however stunning they may be, before the person herself. And while the sorority girls and the lusty boys who chase them think that they have it all, one look at this happy, nonchalant couple, reminds me of a much more desirable way of loving.
I wish the girls teetering in their blister-forming heels and unforgiving belts could see this comfortable couple, and know that they deserve love such as this, know that attraction can originate from a much gentler place. I wish they could see the way that he looks at her, with undeniable affection for all that she is, swaddled within that grey, hooded sweatshirt.
-Maggi Van Dorn, June 2009
i love this maggi. you are a beautiful writer/observer
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