Do I know you? Do I love you?
Reflections, alone in front of the fire at 9 AM
I’ve been happy this month. I’ve been surrounded by people who seem to like me. But what do they know of me, really?
Some of the people here met me more than eight years ago. I was a different person then. We haven’t spent time together in years. Do they know me?
My ex-husband is here. We lived together for almost seven years. But it’s been a couple years now, since then. I am not the person I was when I was with him. He knows a lot about who I was, and he can still predict my reactions to many things, but his information is outdated. I have changed in ways he doesn’t understand. Does he know me?
Many people here, I only met this month. We’ve known each other for less than four weeks, out of decades of life. You don’t get someone figured out in that time, not even the ones who open themselves to you. You are only seeing little glimpses, and in an unusual context at that. You can feel affection, and care for them, and want to keep them in your lives. But can you know them?
When we went to Bodega Bay, my friend was there, and I love them. I had hardly seen them in the last five years, and we’d never been the closest of friends. But I needed support that day, and I knew I could ask for it, and they made me feel better. Loved.
I use the word ‘love’ more freely than a lot of people, more freely than my boyfriend. We said “I love you” when we’d been dating for a month and a half, I think.
I use the word ‘love’ freely but it means something specific to me, but I’m not sure what that thing is.
There are people here who I spent a week with once three years ago, and only saw rarely if ever after that. But we had become part of each other’s lives, we kept up online a bit, and if we ever saw each other, it was a reconnection. We’d shared something in the past. Do I love those people? I don’t know. They are my friends. I feel affection for them. If I traveled to the cities where they live I would tell them, I would ask to see them. I’m happy to see them when they visit my city.
I am sitting in front of a fireplace. Three years ago, I came here at night for no particular reason, shortly before Christmas. Most people were out of town, but some of the team was here, sitting by this fire. I talked with my friend as he made a pot of lentils in the kitchen. He and I have known each other for eleven years. I haven’t seen or spoken to him in eight months. He doesn’t really know me, at this point. I would still say I love him.
Sometimes I wonder if old friends don’t love you because of who you are, but just because they’ve known you for so long that they have to.
Maybe I can love the people here because of who they are. But maybe I don’t really know who they are. Is the person they’ve gotten to know this month really me? This is not how I am when I am at home, alone. This is not how I am out in the world. My problems are different, my environment is different, my life is different. Do they know me? Would they like the dull me of everyday?
Time-boxed relationships are special. They are intense because you know there is scarcity. There’s no time to not open yourself up. You just have to be who you are. But the stakes are also lower in time-boxed relationships. I can open my whole heart and not be hurt, because these people are not deep enough into my life to hurt me.
The gas flames in front of me change faster than the flames of a wood fire. The movement is frenetic. Still frame after still frame like lazy animation.
I will sit in front of this fire again, like I sat in front of it on that winter’s night three years ago. But the flames will not be the same, and this place will not be the same, and I will not be the same.
The day after tomorrow, these people will scatter. Some of them will return, sometimes, and maybe I will visit their cities, and be filled with joy and relief to see them after so long apart. But this, what I still have for two more precious days, will exist only in our shared memories.
The makeup of our group changed nearly every day. Our relationships within it changed. People came and left. But the flames were always there, even if they were changing.
In less than 48 hours, the fire will be turned off.