These Days

Last Sunday was grey and cold and rainy, and I spent a good portion of it on the couch doing crossword puzzles and listening to The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack, pausing occasionally to space out while looking out my window at all the tops of rowhouses I could see through the rain, and sort of smiling to myself, because hey, rainy Sunday in New York.

At one point it registered with me that it was January 4th, which is my mother’s birthday, and then the music and my crazy detailed memory made me remember that exactly two January 4ths ago, I went to the opening night of The Royal Tenenbaums with someone I used to love. I remember this night especially because it’s the night I remember loving that person more than any other night we were together, due mostly to something he said. We took pictures of each other that night, in the snow on my balcony, and even now, when I look at the picture of me, I think, man, I look really, really happy. It’s undeniable how happy I look in the picture; it sort of jumps off the screen at you.

And so then I started thinking about that person, and our time together, and man, I wonder how he’s doing, and man, I wonder if he ever pauses and thinks about things like this too, and this feeling started to well up inside me, this feeling that makes me want to cast aside the past and grab people and be close with them again, but then I remembered the last time I spoke to this person, and how he’d told me about the very thorough job he’d very purposely done of making sure I didn’t remember him fondly, so instead I got off the couch and changed the CD and called my mom to wish her a happy birthday.