The Plain Girl

Seeing is a creative act; something you must acquire. Life is the proving ground of development.

The Plain Girl

 

Chapter 1

 

Seeing is a creative act

 

 

The Plain Girl

 

 “You think so?” Tom said. “She’s actually rather plain”.

Matt was surprised. This was not a response he had anticipated. He and Tom usually where in sync when it came to appreciating women. To hear this from him now was like a jolt. It jarred him to alertness out of the haze that he had slipped into. This forced him to stop and think about what it was that he had actually said.

A lone girl sitting at the far end of the library who was staring reflectively out the window had charmed him. There was something about her that had bewitched him. He wasn’t trying at all to evaluate her or analyze her, but she impressed him as being deep and mysterious, and he had to know more.

Matt studied her more closely while she seemed lost in thought. He grew even more intrigued, and he now began to wonder; really, why was it that he found her so interesting? He even found her beautiful, but Tom didn’t seem to see anything? He would work on that problem. He was inquisitive and his mind was always filled with questions, but he had learned that it was important to surrender in a timely way to the most important of them. Right now, he only had room in his mind for one question: ‘What made this unusual girl tick?’

He became so focused on her that little by little everything else in the library grew pale and very small, as it faded into obscurity. He was struggling to discover what it was that intrigued him so. There was, he reflected, actually nothing about her appearance or dress that was extraordinary. She was wearing a simple pullover sweater. It was not at all revealing and the table in front of her blocked his view of anything below. Her hair was the lightest brown, thick and somewhat wavy. It was drawn together with a black band at the back of her neck and fell a few inches down the middle of her back. From across the large room, he could discern little of the details of her face, except that her profile lent definition to a nose of splendid character. It was impossible to determine the color of her eyes but there was something about her gaze that suggested these eyes were looking inward as much as outward. But Tom was right, when he thought about it, in general she did seem rather plain.

She suddenly turned, making a quick note to herself, carefully closed her notebook and gathered up her things. Matt was startled by the suddenness and purposefulness of her movements. He realized that she was going to leave. If he didn’t snap to and do something, he would be kicking himself in the a*s forever for letting let her just walk away.

Matt was a person of composure as a rule. His medical training had polished that characteristic even more. He had begun his internship, and matured considerably in the last two years. But now, for some reason he felt paralyzed. She stood up and slipped into her coat, tossing her bag over her shoulder, all in one graceful movement. As she started across the room, her features began to take on tremendous significance. Her bearing, her gait, the focus by which she navigated through the maze of students and work stations all registered at a deep level in him, and from there took on expanding proportions.

In his mind now, she was alluring, mysterious, statuesque and beautiful, and he particularly noted, not to be patronized. Nor was she the type of girl that he would go looking for, because even as she passed before him, he had to admit, it was hard to imagine that such a woman might even exist. He was as if driven by a responsibility to get to the bottom of whatever it was that he was being caught up in. Then it hit him.

‘Of course! This type of woman is especially attractive because she is to be fathomed �" first and foremost.’

 THAT was why he was so interested in her, and everything else snapped into its place in this light.

How old she was, seemed to him irrelevant. She was, he supposed, perhaps two, or three years younger than him; maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. But as far as he knew she might as well be thirty years his senior because she made him feel boyish. He felt like a ten year old, standing in front of the newly unveiled ‘stealth’ aircraft; not matching former experience, not revealing her origin and with only a mysterious intimation of the direction of her future. She was sculpted to perfection, and a little intimidating. You would not want to get on the wrong side of her anger. While strong, she was not at all rigid. And yet somehow she was animated from within in such a way that belied her simple beauty. She was a walking contradiction. It was as if her true aim was actually to be subdued, but only by the most worthy of contenders.

She stopped at the main desk to ask something of the librarian, and Matt’s heart, jumping around in his chest, started to pound. A loud voice rang out in is head. ‘Go, Go, Go, Go, Go, Go! You idiot!’

He started to move toward her, but had no idea what he would say. This hadn’t happened to him since he was fourteen years old. As he drew near her from behind, he noticed that a pen had started to work its way loose from its place in her bag.

“Excuse me,” he said.

The way she turned toward him was just a further confirmation of her unusual bearing. Her bright blue eyes were wide open, clear and alert. They had just the suggestion of patient inquiry. The slightest of smiles rose at the edge of her mouth.

“Yes?” was her simple reply.

The melodic serenity that she breathed into this one syllable just added to her overwhelming charm. It went through him like the first breath of morning springtime air. But there was a change now, since they stood face to face. Something radiated from her that he found strengthening, rather than disabling.

“It looks like your pen may be trying to escape.” Matt was reassured by his ability to express himself in such a simple and artful way. Richness was added to her subtle smile, as she seemed to find his remark amusing.

“That’s all I need,” she said. “It already has a mind of its own. If it gets loose and starts revealing my secrets all over the place, I’ll never be allowed to practice medicine again.”

Matt was certain that she had secrets of the most extraordinary character, and he already set deep in himself the resolution to become familiar with them all. He noticed the familiar pale blue of the scrubs that she was wearing. Over her right shoulder hung a black leather bag. An emblem of a Nurse Practioner swung from its strap. He was well aware of the significance of such a designation. With that with level of education she could easily have continued on to become a doctor, but she didn’t. She deliberately chose to remain in nursing. This girl was not the regular. Her witty and endearing response wafted over his heart in such a pleasant way that he found it quite easy to latch onto it and respond.

“Well, perhaps it could write down your name. Mine is Matt. And if I can be a little forward �" perhaps it could write down a time and place �" say, tomorrow night or the day after, where I might find you again. Perhaps we could have a cup of coffee together?”

For a moment, which for Matt seemed like an eternity, she stared expressionless into his eyes.

“Well it took you long enough!,” her response was bright and a little testy. She looked at him through one eye with it’s brow lowered. After another moment her face raised into a full and familiar smile.

As new as this smile was to him right now, it was as if he had seen it a million times. It was like the sun had emerged from behind a cloud that had enveloped it for an eternity.

At first he couldn’t really decipher her remark, but then it hit him in an instant. He had made no effort to conceal the fact that during the last twenty minutes he had been staring at her uninterruptedly. He didn’t mind at all that she had noticed. He was as unpretentious as could be. He even liked the fact that his earnest inwardness had been laid bare before her. Under the circumstances, he felt that his sincerity was the best thing he had to offer her.

She took her magic pen in her left hand and started to jot on a small note pad at the desk in front of her, and then turning, gave him the paper saying, “Sorry, but tomorrow and Friday I am busy.”

Matt’s heart sank.

‘Of course!’ he tendered the dismal thought.

“But,” she quickly said, “perhaps this evening would work?”

She smiled as she handed him the paper, turned and slowly started to walk away.

After a few steps she paused, and looking back over her shoulder said, “Gotta run now, I’m late.” And then, as if there was something more that she just needed to say, “I can’t wait.”

As she briskly renewed her strides, Matt, who was still in her trance, looked down at the note paper and read ‘Claire.’ He looked up and she had already disappeared around the corner. Beneath her name was a phone number. It was written twice, just so there should be no mistake. And beneath that were the words: ‘Anytime after 6. How about Donovan’s?’

Just that quick and it was over. He wanted to compress every nuance of every impression of her that he had just steeped himself in and lodge it into the vault of his heart where it would never be lost. He began to play over in is mind every tone of every word that she said, each gesture of movement, the care with which she buttoned her coat, the way she held her pen, the presence that seemed to affect every expression.

“You okay?”

This voice trumpeted in his head; it was calling him from far, far away. He came to and slowly turned in response. There was Tom was looking at him through a troubled brow. After a pause Matt was able to reply.

“Aaah, yeah, sure. Why?” He said.

“Well you’ve just been standing there, staring into space for a few minutes now. You really should close your mouth before someone calls 911.”

Matt realized that it would be pointless to attempt to explain what had just happened, and Tom’s next remark confirmed the correctness of his assumption.

“Let’s get going. Somehow, it’s so drab in here today, I can’t take it anymore.”

You often hear it said that love is blind, but today Matt learned with particular clarity that, in truth, it was the other way around. He was simply unable to escape the vision of Claire’s special beauty, even if Tom couldn’t see it at all. It was Tom who was blind; moreover, he was simply disinterested in what he couldn’t see.

‘If Claire seems plain to him,’ Matt thought to himself, ‘he just needs to sharpen his vision.”

He had no idea what he was missing.

“Give me sec. here,” Matt said.

He knew exactly what to do next. He shot off an SMS to Claire’s phone Number: “6PM sounds gr8.” He counted the seconds. When his phone buzzed, he couldn’t push the keys fast enough. “C U then!” came the reply.

“Yeah, let’s get going,” Matt said. “I can’t take it here any more either.”

He was eager to go out now because everything started to look different to him. He wanted to re-experience the day with the new eyes he now had been given.

 

***

 

Soon after, Matt was washing up in preparation for a four-hour duty in the E.R. He started to discover that he was simultaneously two people. While he systematically prepared himself with his usual conscientiousness, he was at the same time totally absorbed in his impressions of Claire. For the last sixty minutes he kept turning over in his mind this chance meeting with her at the University Library and the events that led up to it.

He and Tom had gone there in anticipation of viewing a photo display. It had been some time since he used the student library and Tom really had to twist his arm to get him to go there. As it turned out, it was actually scheduled for the following week. At first he thought that ‘I’ll have to get him for that!’ but then he connected it to Claire. He found it odd that absolutely nothing in his typical day would have ever put him exactly there, so that he would cross her path. This wasn’t a typical day and now he felt that he had really gone specifically there to meet her.

To think like this wasn’t typical for Matt either. He thought much, but tended to avoid those clouds where the Cuckoo Birds live. He wasn’t a dreamer by nature, but today, a dream more or less came true. For a moment he tottered on the threshold between reality and imagination. This was all somewhat disorienting, but he drew strength from the reality of their meeting. The very real presence that she displayed in her gaze seemed to emerge from a place where only visions can go, but she was not a spaced-out dream girl. She was absolutely real, even if there was something about her requiring you to apply more than clinical observation if you are to see it. Yes it was all imagination, but it was a real imagination.

To see just how vitally alive she was, required eyes that were animated from within. He was happy that Tom had been there also, and witnessed it all �" or missed it all actually, for he exemplified the type of dullness that simply failed to notice her unique vibrancy. This contrast of their impressions gave him a sense of certainty. It only reaffirmed the reality of his experience. The distinction was clear. Tom was as if color blind, while Claire stood there in vibrant color. To deny the reality of her extraordinary presence would be as if Tom would stand quizzically before a Raphael or Michelangelo and laugh, “Color? What on earth are you talking about!?” There was an entire domain of reality that extended beyond the plain, and it had just become accessible to Matt.

‘To meet Claire, to actually see Claire, you had to be able to see with clearer wakeful eyes. Furthermore,’ he thought, ‘she not only required such vision; she nourished it.’

He consolidated all this with a deep inward breath. ‘No, this was real all right,’, and he was even further strengthened.

He observed now, how she, and the world that she seemed to move in, had become a presence, a backdrop of his activity. He was happy to discover that all this was not distracting, but supportive. She had opened a world of meaning for him behind the superficial; meaning, he pondered, that can only add to what the senses and mind can know, and this was an experience that took him deeper and deeper.

Matt reflected how he had often observed during his practical studies, that it was a curious fact that when life was present, it could not actually be seen; not life itself - but when absent, it was obvious to him, that something had departed. Now, in Claire’s eyes he could actually see this life. He had gained awareness that life ran through the ordinary and was not just a peculiar condition of substances. They existed one permeating the other, yet were quite distinct.

As the first arrival came through the Emergency Room door, he was thrust into a swirl of blood, hysteria and panic. Somehow he towered over it all. He felt a strengthened focus concerning the matter at hand. Claire never left his mind but her presence in the background gave him a keener discernment. Something new was at his command. He was able to sort through the confusion and chaos of the moment without sacrificing his humanness.

He had often wrestled with the conflict that his quiet sensitivity sometimes brought to his diligence in medical work. The same compassionate interest that led him to take up his studies, tended to disable him when brought face to face with suffering that patients were enduring. It had bothered him as he wrestled with the problem that the very reason he wanted to be a doctor sometimes had to be left out of the practice.

“What was the point, if I can’t bring myself fully into the work?”  Often he would punctuate his day with this question.

Now, however there was a young girl in front of him that needed help. Somehow now, through his tender concern, he found a way into a healthier connection to her. His calm and direct manner steadied the hysterical girl. Her injury wasn’t nearly as bad as she herself suspected, but it wasn’t until Matt told her, “Hey, you’re here now, and we’re going to take good care of you,” that she could be comforted. Matt felt that all of a sudden he could reach deeply into the person in distress in front of him. He was capable of bearing her trouble without being insensitive and yet, not becoming caught up in her excitement. This was something new for him.

In the past he would have to steel himself inwardly. It had been necessary, he felt, that to execute the technical part of his role, he had to block out his heart. He never liked the detachment, but had adopted this orientation as a matter of self-preservation in order to keep both his head and his hand straight. Now, his practical actions became infused with a new dedication. He was not just treating the body.

‘They used to call this the healing art, and now I know why.’

After skillfully applying a final dressing, the head nurse in attendance simply nodded in affirmation as if to say, ‘Well done.’  The patient’s eyes said back, ‘Thank You.’ No words were necessary. Everything that was actually most human about that moment was said and heard inaudibly.

What new riches had become accessible to him.

“To be able to see what before was invisible, and to hear the inexpressible; wasn’t this what I’ve really been looking for, hoping for?”

 

***

 

Matt made sure he was at Donovan’s well before 6:00PM. He had already reserved a table but waited at the bar from where he had a clear view of the front door. He didn’t want to miss one step of her entrance.

“Hey, you’re early.” Clair’s voice snapped him to.

He spun around and there she was, standing behind the bar.

“I still have a few things to finish up in the back,” she said smiling. “I’m done at 6:00.”

Matt was again taken completely off guard by her charm. ‘God, I hope I never get used to this,’ he thought.

“Sure, I’ll just sit tight,” he said. “I’ve reserved us a table.”

“Oh,” she said. “Can we go somewhere else? I’ve had enough of this place today.”

“Yes. Of course,” he replied.

She smiled again and disappeared into the back. At first, Matt thought to himself that she could have said, “Why don’t we walk to Alaska?” and it would have been fine with him. But he quickly realized that a woman like this was going to need something more than a puppy dog to follow her around. Nor would he be really interested in a girl who would even want that. If he was going to win her, she had to be won. He had to bring the same presence to the moment that she seemed to do. This was a challenge he was up for.

True, she made him feel younger than he had in a long time, but it was, he thought, because she was stimulating him at a level that he hadn’t been touched before.  He knew that he would not be able to rely on old reflexes or habits. Everything was new. He must now employ a wakeful mind and vigilance. Altogether, he realized as well, she had given him a new sense of purposefulness. All this would require further thought. He had never experienced this feeling of alertness in quite this way; as if the meaning in the day is only added according to the measure of alertness.

‘It is because we become awake to things that we see the meaning. At the same time, meaning is given to events by us because we are alert.’

Every moment brought something new, as well as expected something new. This feeling would occupy him more and more.

It was nearly six and, out of the corner of his eye, he was watching the door through which she had disappeared.

‘But then,’ he thought to himself, ‘if she just dropped from the ceiling, I suppose I  shouldn’t be surprised.’

He mused that she was resistant to being cast into a mold, and he wasn’t going to start to second guess what she might bring to each new moment.

He caught a glimpse of her through the doorway as it flopped open with the traffic going back into the kitchen. She was talking to a younger girl.

‘Wow! Very pretty,’ he noted. But she was a rather different type of beauty.

When Claire reached forward and kissed her goodbye, he was stunned. He felt like he had been clocked on the forehead with a baseball bat. This was not the type of surprise of hers that filled him with delight as earlier she had managed to do. She seemed to recreate herself moment by moment, but this prospect he hadn’t anticipated.

Carrying her coat, she came immediately out. Before she could say a word, Matt wanted to get a question cleared up. He had been so hopeful that somehow, by some miracle, he was going to be able to really connect with this incredible person, but he did not want to become the left prong in some kind of a weird love triangle. That just wouldn’t do.

“Maybe your girlfriend would like to join us,” he said, in a calm and pleasant manner.

At first she seemed surprised. Then you could follow her thought process as she looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen, as if trying to imagine what Matt might have seen that would have led him to ask that.

She turned quickly back, smiled broadly and said, “Oh, you mean Karla. She’s my kid sister. She’ll be here until 11:00. I’m starved. I don’t think I can wait that long.”

The tugging that had been going on with Matt’s heart today stimulated him repeatedly to ever-new awareness.

‘The events of life are a perpetual wakeup call,’ he mused, ‘if you are paying attention.’

He considered the contrast between what he formerly saw when he imagined that Karla was her lover, and what later actually turned out to be the case �" just her “kid sister”. It was plain to him that at that moment, the extent and range of his vision had been more directed from within by his prejudices and concerns, than by what was actually going on around him. He was strengthened by new resolve. He had to develop clearer vision; one free from these prejudices.

Matt reflected, ‘I am not only beginning to discover what is going on around me. It is becoming clearer to me how quite naturally I manage to deceive myself.’

As he helped her on with her coat he continued to think it through. His openness is what had revealed this woman to him in the first place, and he was going to stay open. He wanted to know her as she was. It was going to be a gradual process of not just becoming familiar with the details of her nature and her life, but disassociating himself from the unwanted workings of influences that seemed to operate inside him; inclinations shaping his ideas without his real co-operation or even participation. In order to truly see, he discerned that veils of illusion in the form of unjustified preconceptions and bias had to drop away.

‘Yes, the truth is liberating,’ he fully steeped himself in the notion. Then he firmly resolved, ‘It is an ongoing work that you just have to stick with, but it is worth the price!’

“Okay,” he said on an up note. “Let’s get going.”

He started to reach for her hand but she had already begun to take him by his arm. His resolution had been honored.

It struck him as remarkable how these revelations would come in such quick succession. In a flash he could see past the questions that he had labored over for years. How many times in the past he had observed relationships rise and fall; not only in his own life, but all around him? He saw then that so often they had failed for the simple reason that they had been built on insecurities and weaknesses. How seldom we are really open, really ready to face the truth of things. How often we prefer the company of someone who will tell us we are right. Relationships are many times built on just that. It feels comforting for a time but circumstances always change. Then, as so often happens, there is some breakdown in the symbiosis, and the relationship collapses. In light of that, Matt considered that they failed because, whether they realized it or not, either one partner or the other, or perhaps both, were really not being helped to grow. It had to be recognized that the most important aspect of who they truly were, was in fact, being trapped by their own weaknesses. He would not make this mistake now.

 

***

 

Once outside, they found that snow had started to fall. They had walked a block and a half looking for a place that seemed right. It’s not that there weren’t plenty of options. In fact, any number of them would have been a place where, under other circumstances, Matt might have gone on a first date. They would peer together through a window; then look at each other, shake their heads and just say, “Nah.”

She seemed so cheerful and Matt was not interested in the least to break the spell. As they went along their way, there was a mood of serenity that was not typical when two people are suddenly together and so new to each other.

It was a heavy, wet snow, and neither seemed to notice that it was 19^o, and rather cold. But this was a special time when the highest ideals and dreams can surface from the depths, and one’s heart can be filled with extraordinary hope. Claire seemed to gain her bearing by the way she inclined herself to him; aligned with his erect posture, his steady gait. Through all this, she appeared to be drawing on Matt’s stability. He demonstrated gentleness behind his sober bearing. He laughed easily, but was sure footed and not distracted in his duty as they crossed the snow-covered street. At times she seemed to flush with satisfaction as she observed his manner. As they moved along Claire demonstrated remarkable poise, and Matt was feeding on that. She brought out the best in him. This was no dream, and he knew it. He began to live his life in a new way.

They had passed eight or ten places and nothing seemed right for them. When they had crossed the street and started down a third block, Claire suddenly turned and said, “Look, we can do better. I only live five minutes from here. It’ll take no time to put something together.”

A suggestion like that ordinarily would have sounded quite differently than the way it registered in Matt right now. You are not supposed to simply invite some guy who you just met up to your apartment, that is, not if you want to be respected. But he interpreted it for exactly what it was, and he was flattered. This gesture of confidence only deepened his appreciation for her character.

“Let’s go,” he said. And with renewed energy they turned the corner and stepped up their pace. She was tightly clutching his arm with both of hers, and they moved quickly along through the thick snowfall as one.

 

***

 

“Here we are,” she said kicking off the snow, as they ascended up three steps to the entrance of a small two-story apartment building. As she keyed in through the front door of the building, an apartment door opened just past the entrance foyer. An older, gray haired man inclined his head out of the door. He was smiling generously to greet her. He seemed very kind, and somewhat mischievous.

With an air of respectful playfulness she taunted, “Okay, let’s have it.”

This appeared to be some sort of ritual between them. He pretended to ponder deeply while he sized Matt up, and then challenged her, “Siegfried - Act Three: Scene Three.”

“Okay,” she slowly said, as if enchanted. She started toward the stairs, and without looking back began to sing. Her voice filled the hall with the awakening Brünhilde’s glorious praise of the Sun.

Matt was simply overwhelmed by the strength but delicateness in the quality of her voice.

He warmed himself with this, yet other dimension of her nature, ‘Yeah, she’s just as plain as day. Like the brilliant sun.’

Some people just take the Sun for granted. Indifference like that leads people to the type of blindness where they can no longer see what is right in front of them. No, love is not blind, it sees; it is indifference that is blind. And sad to say, there are those who are determined to stay blind. There are those who are so caught up in their negativity that, when you attempt to draw their attention to such remarkable phenomenon, they respond with a comment that equates to: ‘Nice sky you painted there, but there’s a cloud in it.’ There is always a way to find something objectionable about everything. This is especially true if it provides you with a fulcrum for your insistence as to why you are right, and everybody else is wrong. People with this disposition are those who curdle the milk just by walking into the kitchen. Unfortunately as well, they are also usually resistant to help. This combination is so very sad. Neither indifference nor obstinacy can be confronted directly; they remain the prerogative of a self-imposed solitary confinement.

Having ascended to the top of the stairs, Claire pushed the stiff door open with her shoulder. Her first step inside connected with a boot and launched it into the corner to rest with its mate. Every place Matt’s eye roamed was appointed with her personality. And here again an entire other dimension of her nature was being revealed to him.

‘She has more petals than a rose,’ he marveled.

There wasn’t a surface that didn’t make a statement; a half eaten apple on a plate, a mug with a spoon in it, a pair of hand-knit, thick woolen socks on the floor by the couch. In the corner was a music stand, and on a table nearby, a violin trying to leap from its case. There must have been a dozen open books lying about; Medical Textbooks, novels, journals, photography magazines and he didn’t know what all else.

She took Matt’s coat and laid it with hers over the arm of a chair. There wasn’t enough room on the coat stand by the door for one more garment. Matt had to be careful where he stepped so as not to trip on something. He picked up an umbrella lying on the floor and added it to the others in the rack. She looked at him somewhat glibly, shrugged her shoulders and motioned to follow her.

“The kitchen’s yours,” she said, as she pointed to Matt’s left. “I gotta get out of these.” She looked down at her scrubs, smiled in mild embarrassment, turned and disappeared around the corner.

She seemed to move almost insensibly. Claire was so physical, yet at the same time ethereal. He had noticed when he followed her up the stairs to her second floor flat, that her feet barely seemed to touch the stairs. Her footsteps were so light you couldn’t hear them. But the way she pushed the door open and kicked her boot into its place in the corner, displayed a kind of physicality that reminded him of a professional soccer player. He was sure that she knew how to pour it on as well.

The snow continued to fall heavily, so he found a large can of soup in the cabinet above the sink, emptied it into a pot, and then quickly slapped together a few sandwiches from among the peculiar things that he found here and there in the fridge. He felt so much at home, while mindlessly stirring the soup. In a way, this comfort allowed him to be somewhere else. He played the events of the day over and over in his imagination until they swirled into cohesion like the gay figures on a carousel. As he was reaching for the teakettle, he noticed over his shoulder that Claire was standing there watching him. The start this gave him caused him to drop a spoon. Before he could bend over to pick it up, she was there. Not only were her movements fast and graceful, it seemed like she had already started to move before he dropped the spoon. It was almost as if she commanded some form of pre-cognition. She stood in front of him; spoon in hand.

He immediately sensed something was different about her. Earlier, her wavy fair brown hair had been pulled back, but, when she bent over to pick up the spoon just now, she had to draw her flowing wavy locks to her breast to keep them off the floor. As she stood up, she released them from her clasp, and with a flick of her long neck, she sent this sparkling stream over her shoulder like the sweeping cape of a matador.

Matt took the spoon from her hand and could not fail to feel a flush as their hands briefly touched. They were delicate, yet strong. She made him work a little to wrest the spoon free. She was an artist, but very much in control of herself. She seemed to be rich in feeling but not volatile. He wanted to take her hand right then, but she turned to remove some tableware from the cabinet and then placed it on the table.

They sat at the kitchen table watching the snow gently falling. Sometimes for several minutes they would say nothing, alternately staring out the window and staring deeply into each others eyes. Sometimes more was said in those glances than with their words. They shared some of the details of their work interests, but it was far from shop talk. Matt had never met another medical professional that was so ready to put every emphasis in the context of well being. He shared these feelings and was himself determined to approach his practice more as a vocation than a livelihood. But then, as if sparked by a deeper interest, for the first time he asked her something that had a particular bearing on herself.

“So, who is your favorite composer?” he asked.

Without blinking an eye, she plunged into this passionate characterization of what Richard Wagner brought to the 19th century by the way he wove mysticism, poetry, drama, voice and orchestra (and he wouldn’t be able to remember what all else) into such powerful expression. He almost fell backward out of his chair. It was like he had rubbed a genie lamp, and this enormous spirit, breathing fire, hovered over him. Matt didn’t have a strong music background, so a lot of what she said went right over his head. Every word, however, registered strongly in his heart. She wasn’t just speaking, she was sculpting.

He lowered the volume switch in his mind for just a moment and simply looked at her. She was vibrant in a way he hadn’t seen before. Her eyes glowed. Her cheeks flushed. She was so animated. She bounced around as she acted out what she was saying, and she had to keep pushing back her hair from her face. She seemed to abandon all the measures of concealment that she ordinarily employed. Claire was on stage. He was her devoted admiring audience. The more she went on, the more he loved her. She was feeding on the devotion that streamed from him. The more she imbibed this fuel, the richer the aura around her grew, and the hungrier he became for what she poured over him. Women, he realized, don’t just live in the world, they fashion it into existence around them. What marvelous creatures they were!

He was astounded when she thanked him and said she was so happy to have someone to share these things with. The enrichment that swelled in his heart with the experience, made him feel that he was the one to be thanking her. In the afterglow, the sandwiches somehow looked inedible. The soup remained in the pot untouched.

“Hey, excuse me,” she said, peering into her empty teacup. “I gotta pee.” She sprang up and once again, she disappeared around the corner.

This was all going so fast, he was glad to have a moment to reflect. Claire was anything but plain now. Nor did she have any false piety. But what a tremendous contrast all this was to the girl in the library just 8 hours ago! Matt started to realize that what he had just witnessed was a universe of pulsing music that was so rich you could be bowled over by it. She was at that moment complete. But at other times he was certain she was lost, spellbound by pointlessness, as she moved through her day without a beckoning ear to pour those sweet tones into. She said she had chosen Geriatrics as her specialty as a Practitioner because she found countless opportunities to share her inner world with those she cared for. She always managed to pour her song into even the most banal activities. She lowered her eyes and remarked that she often felt that she needed them more than they needed her. Matt was certain that none of those in her care would agree.

He remembered the way Tom had responded to her earlier that morning. And he could envision that much of her day was spent in a desert. He sensed that she had gotten so used to that, and that her natural modesty slowly surrendered to this camouflage of plainness that concealed her radiance. That was the key; her plainness was pure camouflage! He wanted to tell her, even though it seemed so unnecessary, that he saw through the camouflage and loved what he saw. He resolved that he would have to find a way. It wasn’t she who was plain; she was simply passed over by the superficial deafness of those in her environment.

He reflected on how at the kitchen table she burst into powerful movement when he showed the slightest of interest in her inner world. She didn’t need a special place to perform her art. She became the place. Her words were not the bearers of ideas. They were the earthly garments for the elemental forces she poured forth from her inner being. They had swirled around him, over him and through him. He was enveloped by her soul.

When she reappeared through the doorway, she stopped at the fridge.

“Beer?” she asked?

“Sure,” It was refreshing to see her as so human, and it made her appear all the more delightful.

She opened the door to the fridge, and leaned over peering inside. It was obvious that she was struggling. Pondering deeply, her chin rested in her right hand; her left supported her on her knee. Without changing her posture she cocked her head to the left. Matt was growing anxious as to what was coming next. And then came the fruit of this determined and pained contemplation.

“Cheeseburger?”

Matt was unable to conceal his relief.

“Wow,” he said. “Sure, but under two conditions.”

“Shoot.” She cheerfully retorted.

Usually he would eat a little before a date so that he wasn’t distracted by hunger. But things had come together so quickly today that he had even skipped lunch. Now he really was getting hungry. Everything he had seen since he walked through the front door, punctuated by her demonstration in front of the fridge just now, undermined any confidence he might have had in her domestic prowess �" including even in the ability to prepare an edible hamburger. And so he voiced his first condition.

“I make the cheeseburgers.”

“I’m crushed!” She threw her head back as she used the back of her hand to cover her forehead and grimaced. She quickly recovered, steadied herself and showed that she was ready to face another blow and said “and the second?”

“You kiss me first.”

Instantly her mood changed, but still theatrically she said, “I thought you’d never ask.” She just stared at him at first and after a brief pause continued the performance, “It took you a whole thirty minutes, before you came to talk to me in the library this morning. I was afraid I’d grow old before you actually kissed me.”

This stage routine thoroughly took hold of him.

“I apologize for that,” he said and then he played along. He found his way to tell her. “I was so blinded by your light, that it stunned me. I had to wonder whether one so fair would even talk to such a knave as I.”

“My gallant knight,” she said, as she amplified the performance, “you have finally come to rescue me from the isolation to which I had resigned myself, for dread of the disgrace of an imperfect union.”

As she walked toward him, he was plunged into a sense of timelessness. It was as if they had already done this a thousand times before. The combination of anticipation and this strange familiarity caused him to lose any frame of reference.

Claire, appeared so comfortable, both with his entire nature, and her deep longing to be his, that she did what seemed in that moment as the most normal thing. Raising her pleated skirt enough to give the necessary freedom to her sweeping movement, she swung her right leg over his lap, took his head between her two palms and brushed her lips across his.

“I’ve been waiting for you so long,” she whispered, and kissed him deeply.

These words simmered right through Matt, causing him to wonder, ‘How long, is so long?’ He couldn’t even begin to know. She spoke from depths that most people never visit.

Matt met her embrace and pulled her close to him as if he never wanted to let her go. Their lips danced and played over each other in a kiss that went on and on.

Matt brought his lips close to her ear and slowly whispered, “And, just how long have you been thinking about this?”

Claire gently pulled her head back and smiled at him.

“I haven’t. I’m not even thinking about it right now, �" like you are trying to do. Thinking has nothing to do with it.”

Under the impact of this comment, Matt had to reconsider not only his question, but also the manner in which he confronted life, which lead to it. With some effort he was able to reposture himself inwardly so that he could, from this new view, not depreciate thinking, but put it in its proper place. It came to him that, if one wasn’t careful, a healthy sense of responsibility toward the life of thought, could easily lead one to the overly meticulous preoccupation with the details of thought.

‘Here,’ he reasoned, ‘you could easily get lost in a maze of endless particulars. That would never do.’

But he also realized that in the search for answers in this way, we learn to wipe the sleep from our eyes and discover doorways to hidden meanings; meanings that arise in a different way in the heart, and not the head.

‘Yes, we must be alert to notice these doors, and have the courage to open them.’

He more or less parked his brain and began to think in his heart. Recognizing the difference between the thoughts that we have and who we are, is essential if we want to awaken to the resources we have within us.

Claire became for him a portal, not only to another world, but somehow he felt she would enable him to become aware of who he really was. She seemed to have a primal grasp of what it was that he had to bring alive in himself. She had quickened in him a new manner of approach to the experience of life that would make that possible.

Matt kissed her cheeks, her eyes, gently pulled on her ear. She sighed as he ran down the length of her neck.

“Maybe we should just forget about the cheeseburger for now,” he said.

With tremendous economy of expression, barely audible, she queried, “Cheeseburger?” She had long ago forgotten about the cheeseburger. That was in Act One. They were now well into Act Two.

“Can we move this to somewhere else?” Matt asked.

“Sure,” she softly replied. “But you’ve got to give me just a minute.”

As she got up, she gestured in the direction of the couch and said, “How ‘bout if you wait for me there.” And once again with her mysterious levity she floated out of the room.

 

***

 

Matt was lost in wonder as he sat there. After just a minute or two he noticed Claire’s approach; not by her footsteps, because she had none, but the very air began to announce that she was moving near. These waves surrounded him and loosened him from couch he rested on.

Entering the room, she seemed to be floating. She was wearing only a long white T-shirt that reached the middle of her thigh, and yet, was as elegant as a bride. Claire was even more radiant than before. Matt gazed into her eyes and was transported further into a meadow of tall soft grass that bowed to the waves of wonder that blew over it.

She slowly approached him; by what means, he could no longer tell. Her presence had a gravitational force. The closer she drew, the stronger the force pulled on him. He was moving toward her, but it was not through anything at his command. As he enveloped her in his arms, they melted into her. Her arms around him became his arms. His sense of time was confused, because the measures were no longer accessible to him. She was the one who was completing every moment. In a sense, Claire had again disappeared. She became the moment into which he was transported; the moment where the clock stopped ticking. He felt, she was both the flute and the pure tones that floated in the rarefied air he was breathing in. She was the fire in his heart. It was she who lays her self down as the ground of substance in which his soul now rested.

He could not even say how they ended up in her bedroom. Neither did it matter. By virtue of the qualities she radiated he was able to throw off the shackles that bind one to any particular place. He was in her elegant graceful neck, the deep well in the center of her palm, the serene waves of her forehead. There was no goal, no direction, and no specificity. There was no particular part of her that stood out, one over the other. It seemed as though he was flowing into the totality of her nature, and what did he find there? It was he himself, his own nature, just as she was enveloping him. They had become one, contracted into a single center, radiating outward.

Time now had completely lost its former meaning. He was living now, in this moment. He was also back at the kitchen table when she first poured the waves of her being over him and yet, he was in the farthest future where, even though they may be separated by space, she would be present. She had merged into every color, every sound. He would see her everywhere. He would be able to hear her in every moment forever.

Claire was always simply tasteful and in reserve, but when she was stirred, she drew the stars down from heaven and revealed their light through her very eyes. She was in perpetual expectation of such nuptial moments. She was the earthly portal of the celestial firmament.

Both Matt and Claire remained absolutely incomplete in the absence of the other. No one he had ever met summoned him to such dutiful bearing and sense of purpose. What he offered her in return was nothing tangible, but a sincere openness; yes an open heart that was willing to respond to the splendor of her being. And she in turn poured her soul out over him.  The line between masculine and feminine had become a complete blur.

In a certain sense they were joined in a way that was familiar to each of them. But the rapture that came over them elevated their spirits to levels formerly unknown. They were left to wonder what each new sensation would bring, as they discovered a world about which formerly they had only dreamed, but now in which they began to dwell as adventurers.

They streamed over and under each other as they swam on the sheets, led only by the intensity of the love that flowed between them. Their ecstasy elevated them so, that the puppet gestures they enacted through their entwined bodies below them was but a pale reflection of the pure tones that animated their souls from above.

Afterward they lay embracing each other for what must have been an hour. Matt realized that what they had just shared was not something that could be understood by ordinary mind functions. He would carry forward all that he had experienced as an integral part of his being like a dream. Claire in contrast seemed ever so awake. It was as if she had been resuscitated from some long deep sleep.

She lay beside Matt, her left leg over his, with her cheek on his chest.

She was deeply moved by the sound of the steady beating of his heart.

She inwardly sighed each time her head was raised as he drew a new breath.

She pressed his strong hand to her.

“I have been waiting for you for such a long, long time,” she softly whispered.

The mix of warmth and moisture that blended in the air she breathed over him with those words was like a quickening force bringing him back from the spell that had come over him. Claire looked up to meet his eyes; strong, deep eyes that he had fixed singularly on her.

Seeing was an all-new activity for him. He painted her with his eyes using all the rich hues that were suddenly on his palette. For him, seeing was now a creative act, directed by the strength of inner character that had crystallized in him in that hour.

After another few minutes Claire softly said. “Hey, we never had dinner.”

“How about a cheeseburger,” Matt replied; “just a plain, cheeseburger?”

Author's Note

Looking for the right website to develop. Any helpful comments, esp. in regard to formatting for this site, would be appreciated.

Reviews

[Plainguy]

This introductory short story, one about love, contains the germ for expansion into a deeper study of human nature as regards the impact of one to another. As a idealistic character study, it stands on its own, but leaves much unexplained and unexplored.