Cafe Hitch-hike

2021-02-25

Conjured by a mermaid

My buddy Huck has to head back to his town because he's the standardized testing coordinator in his high school (he's a teacher of STEM). Hmm... it will be about 4 or 5 weeks. It's been a whirlwind 3 weeks since I invited him to the Patio Lounge to enjoy the view, and it's been a ride. No, we haven't been stuck like glue to each other or bomb each other's mobiles with messages. We hardly even talk during the days we don't see each other. But, in the time we spend together, it's just us.

Huck came down here once a month on weekends to spend time with his mother, then decided to work remotely because NYC was like a ghost town during the pandemic. I gave him kudos for having the courage to leave, though I doubt he'd ever fully leave, and that he was able get paid and keep doing work he enjoyed. He said he got to meet a mermaid (me) this time and never expected that.

Mermaid, that's me. Sometimes we meet people who yank us out of our usual habitats and thrust us into a new world for a little while. I could kind of see how that was in the time we've spent together. We also feel a whirl or a spin and get a little disoriented because we start feeling differently. He's showed me parts of his world and experience just as I had shown and shared mine. He's gotten around somewhat in this region, but I guess I was able to take him deeper, just like a mermaid.

Yeah, we're thrust into a new world, then we go back to our own worlds and yet we're really not quite the same.

It wasn't easy talking about the what next?, but the short is to do what makes us happy but to stay in touch, and hopefully we can visit each other.

Yeah, I can feel tinges of old abandonment issues come up. (And meanwhile, Donnie and Timmy texted me and asked to hang out soon, so hah to that). Right, and it doesn't look like I'll be completely alone when Huck leaves. But, my magical thinking part of me said this to Huck last night:

We're in global pandemic. Everything went topsy-turvy and we're not going to know how things will turn out for quite some time. But, you left NYC for a little while because you needed to, and you got to come here where things are open. Kudos for doing that and being able to, and then we met...

...we're 2 nice people with a lot inside to give. We've enjoyed each other's company, we've done cool things. It's a great thing we met, considering all the mayhem around us. Maybe we needed this, really.

True. I can definitely think of worse things to happen than a sweet romance between 2 nerds. Maybe that's why I'm smiling a lot more than crying about its unknowns.

Shortly before we started seeing each other more often, I felt pretty loathe to dating and even trying again (no, I still am, actually). Around that time, I was wrapping up a political TV series. It had a character who was brilliant (bordering on Asperger's), Jewish, lean built, and with wavy hair and nice eyes. I thought to myself that I would like to meet someone like that, even if he'd see me as intellectually average and either blandly midwestern or raucously Latina/ Floridian. All I wanted to do was just check someone like that out and feel their presence. I kind of laughed to myself that Huck reminded me of that guy, and we got to meet. I told him this and he joked that I conjured him. Maybe I did...

downwind | upstream