Skip to main content

Love Come Barefoot


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

Comments

  1. i love this maggi. you are a beautiful writer/observer

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The First Negotiation

The morning light licks the corners of my face, repeatedly, until I consent to opening my eyes. She makes her gradual way across the bed, nudging her most promising sign of hope unto the tossled ivory. The sun is far more gentle than any alarm clock I’ve ever fought, though no less insistent. In such radiant self-giving, how many times can I roll over? So we strike a compromise: I will flip my pillow and “rest” my head, but promise to keep my eyes a flutter, little windows parted slightly for the streams of her still light. Sometimes I up the bargain, telling her that there is really no better way to receive her glory, no greater praise of her warmth, than to surrender consciousness upon her lap, just a little. She will often reply by shedding new light upon the floor, warming a most suggestive path out into the kitchen. My stomach grumbles. Are you sure you don’t want to try freezing time again? I ask. You, me and the sheets, forever curled in our secret morning splendor...

Another Reflection on Breaking-Up

It’s happening again.   One of my good friends is on the other end of a telephone call, holding back tears as she recounts the details of her recent break-up. She is a strong, fiercely independent woman, who has counseled and coached the rest of us through the emotional train wreck of many collective break-ups.   Two years ago, she told me, “Maggi, when you end a relationship, you find yourself waking up every morning to a dull heart-ache perched upon your chest and you really, really believe your world is over.”   You roll yourself out of bed anyway. You make the route cup of coffee.   You stumble into the shower and let the steam swell around you.   If you’re feeling especially lifeless, you drape your hair over your ears, so that the cascade of hot water makes a deep rushing sound, like being swept beneath the sea to a powerfully calm, fetal state of being, where the roar of running water drowns out all the piercing thoughts in your head.   You...

The Genetics of Compassion

Genetics can be tough. One look at both my parents’ dental history reveals I had zero chances of inheriting strong teeth. A winning smile, sure, but quality, cavity-resistant chompers were out of the question. This is why, by the time I graduated college, I’d lost count of the number of fillings I had endured (over twenty).    I can tell you I had precisely two root canals because they involve the most intensive drilling, complete removal of the pulp of the tooth, and two additional appointments to reconstruct and crown your sad shell of a tooth.   And while you might imagine that the aggregated hours, ney weeks, I’ve spent underneath fluorescent lights with latex fingers and a suction in my mouth have made me into a steely veteran, the opposite has been true.   I’m sorry to say that experience has left me more traumatized than heroic. So it was with sudden panic that I woke one morning to a throbbing toothache.   For two days I traded te...