Dating : That Cold and Bleak December

As I sit down on this hot summer day to think about that moment, the one that anchors me to who I am, waves and waves of memories wash over me and I let go; the wind starts blowing, it’s not June anymore. I close my eyes and I am back to that place, that moment, the one that stands out despite the distance between then and now. He is sitting in front of me and we are looking at each other.

It was a few weeks after we met. We used to sit on the stage in the college ground and talk for hours. Why is that moment so special? Well let’s see what he was talking about that day… Walking further down the memory lane I remember; yes, “Visual silence” a term I had looked so hard for but couldn’t find; not in a book, or a web page, not until a lecture delivered by our history teacher. It is not an official term, at least in the context of our conversation. It was around those days, some years apart.

Was it early October? Or was it the mid? Was it October at all? Was the party over or was it starting? These things remain as uncertain now as they were unimportant then. The important thing was, that he was talking to me. I couldn’t have imagined someone like him talking to me in thousand lifetimes. I can still remember the way his eyes would react when I teased him, or the way his mouth curved when he smiled, or the way his lips parted when he laughed, the way his Adam’s apple moved when he swallowed, the way he would hold his cigarette or give me a side smile when he was about to tease me. Pretty ordinary, right? Actually, no. He did all of those things in his own unique way. I had never seen a human being up close like this before. And it occurred to me how much beauty a moment could hold.

Every passing moment seemed like an eternity. It isn’t true what they say about time passing quickly when you’re enjoying it. Time slows down when you’re there, living in the moment. And I was. So that moment is still there. Everything, as if it were yesterday. And yet it was years ago. I can still feel the chill in the air and the warmth in his gaze, as I talked to him that day. The conversation had progressed to “Silence and Understanding”.

“What it means to look at someone and know, without either of you uttering a single word”, he was saying. I think he knew. I can still hear the people in the background, the song playing on the cafeteria speakers and the sound of his breath, the merriment of a party, and the sound of the fading smile in his words. Was it before or after the party?

Years later, I still find myself going back to that place, that conversation. I don’t think I have ever been this honest with another human being before. I told him that day how much it meant to me; for him to sit and talk to me without any filters. Soon afterwards, he left. It was the last time we ever talked. But it was the first time I realized what it means to “see”.