Tyler (tentative)

This is what life is about.

            It’s 3:15 in the morning and I just got in. I’m trying my best to remember the things I narrated inside of my head while in his car. It seems like the things we try the hardest to remember are the first ones we forget. How frustrating, especially for a non-fiction writer who needs to use the honest imagery of the moment.

            Tyler and I spent a lot of time staring up through the windshield. “This feels like such a Jersey thing to do” I said. “Like something from a Saves the Day song.”  One of the images I knew I wanted to remember was the four-headed street lamp in that vast and mostly empty mall parking lot, which resembled stars, as we stared up from our leaned-back seats to the bruised black sky, completely void of natural lights. We spent hours talking, from 9:30 to a trip to a diner because he had to use the bathroom, and back to that parking lot to sit, car parked, our bodies on their sides facing each other, cheeks against the rough, cheap plush seats, as if we were somehow silently whispering secrets. We played through a few of the songs of Sigur Ros, then through the entirety of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity album. The 16 minute harmonies of “Goodbye Sky Harbor” at the end of that album weren’t enough, then Bright Eyes’ Lifted took its place. Somewhere along the way, with all of our joking around about picking each other’s nose, his index finger was extended, and I took the opportunity to playfully smack his hand away as I laughed. That was the opportunity I needed to ensure that I could get my fingers woven in with his. When “Bowl of Oranges” began to play, he finally got me to sing to him, because before, I had so shyly but adamantly refused to put my vocals on display, claiming to need a couple of drinks before I could even consider it.
          My soprano strained against the stifling quiet inside the car:
"So that's how I learned the lesson/ that everyone's alone./ And your eyes must do some rainin'/ if you're ever going to grow./ But when cryin' don't help,/ you can't compose yourself,/ it's best to compose a poem,/ an honest verse of longing or simple song of hope."

            We  kept our eyes locked, my blue on his brown, but both glistening. We couldn’t help but smile and giggle at the absurdity of all of this, because to think we met three years ago, just a couple of band geeks from Pennsylvania with an intense affinity for music on a tour of Europe, only to end up seeing each other like this after I had seen that his band was playing shows in Allentown, where I was now going to school.

            The tour of Europe had been the result of being recommended by my high school band director for the American Music Abroad group. The group had taken kids from the surrounding area’s high schools to play traditional pieces for small audiences in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France. It sounds prestigious, but we were mostly just a colorful group of goof-offs. Tyler was no exception. I remember him most clearly when we were up in the Swiss Alps, the actual mountains, we were brought on via cable lift. He stood in his black Strokes t-shirt, and blue skater shorts, with his aviator sunglasses, and noticeably large belt buckle. What I loved most were his brown, full curls that messily rested on his head. He was playing the part of the slightly overweight jokester, taking off of his shirt, ice on the ground and all, and rubbing snow on himself. And as he did that, a man I assumed to be Swiss or possibly German, crept out of the cable car station and balled up some of the snow. He saw me looking at him and put a finger up to his mouth, as he snuck closer with his snowball to get a better shot at this strange, half-naked American kid. He threw it, Tyler jumped, and we all laughed, foreign man included. Laughter is apparently an international language. 
          I remember also, feeling so lonely and homesick on the bus ride from Frankfurt's airport to our hotel, that he made conversation with me about "good music," or what he considered to be good. When I seemed too withdrawn to want to talk, he let me borrow his cd player, and let me drown in the songs as I stared out the window at the greenest hills I'd ever seen.
          And here I am, in this kid’s car, giggling at nothing, save the waves of heat that come over my face like embarrassment, except that it felt like something purer than that, it felt honest. I’m embarrassed by honesty. I reached out every now and again to scruffle his dense facial hair with my fingertips, not a full grown beard, but a nice layer that extended past muttons, all the way down to the top of his neck.

            As the songs bled one into another, the striking “Nothing Gets Crossed Out” began, and in that moment it paralyzed the static of any immediate thoughts, save those evoked by these lyrics:

Well the future’s got me worried such awful thoughts/ My head’s a carousel of pictures the spinning never stops/I just want someone to walk in front, and I’ll follow the leader./I’m trying to be assertive, I’m making plans/want to rise to the occasion/ yeah, meet all their demands/but all I do is just lay in bed/and hide under the covers./And it’s too hard to focus through all this doubt/keep making these to-do lists but nothing gets crossed out/…But now I’ve got to crawl to get anywhere at all/I’m not as strong as I thought.

            That is the one song that can describe perfectly the sadness I’ve been feeling, explaining in those carefully crafted verses how I’ve felt so road blocked on I-Alone. A tear slipped to the ledge of my eye, slowly creeping down the lattice work of my lashes. I felt like I was looking into a mirror when our eyes met, the way you’d take a good, hard scrutinizing look at yourself, but instead of feeling disappointed, I felt relieved. I felt like I finally knew what I was looking at, and that someone else knew everything I felt, just the same.

            That album ended too soon, and Dashboard Confessional’s The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most replaced it.  From either the early April cold that found its way inside his car, or the tectonic plates of anxiety and excitement colliding inside of me, my body shook enough to aid in my impulse of doing what I had thought about doing earlier in the night, and earlier at the height of my overly romantic hopes--I went in for the kiss. Our lips were dry, but not rough, our cigarette stale breath in mutual agreement.  I forget what song was playing, but it doesn’t really matter now, because the vow of restraint I had made to myself not to slide into anything head first, was broken within the week I made it. And there I was sliding recklessly into the relationship bases, with no “go ahead” motion of my base coach conscience. Honestly I didn’t even notice him miming to me to “stop” where I was. And somehow, four albums worth of songs weren’t enough to narrate the moment, as it extended past the ending track and into the vast silence of early morning.

            It’s around 2:30. I think. I began to doze off a little as he ran his warm hand through my hair and around my ear, cupping my face as he thumbed at my cheekbones. Around 3, the comfort I was feeling was enough to cause my eyes to droop asleep and then flicker abruptly awake in cyclic sleepy fashion. I was evidently tired. I could have slept in that parking lot, in his car, by his side.

            Tyler seems so much more considerate than I was expecting. From what I‘d known of him in Europe, I‘d expected him to be the comic asshole, making jokes at my expense, but I got someone with more depth, someone sweeter, and it surprised me. “I guess you should probably figure out how to break up with your boyfriend.” he said, readdressing a concern I had made immediate to him earlier in the night. I laughed and said “I’ll do it tomorrow,” hoping that I could carry the strength I felt in this moment over into the morning so that I could do what I’ve been tip-toeing around for a little while now, and actually break up with my boyfriend. A boyfriend I have had for four years, since before I even left for Europe, but who had eroded the person I was a little more with each day we were together.

            He also said something to the effect of “You can take this at whatever pace you need to.”  He knew I was hesitant to let myself to slide so easily into another relationship. I’d been in one seemingly continuous one for six years, from one boyfriend to another. A serious relationship right now is not something I can necessarily handle, but nonetheless it seems like that’s exactly what I’m headed for. Relationship. Relationship. Relationship. I hate that word. It sounds so superficial. Maybe if we just don’t name it, if we live in these moments with nothing to define what they mean, they’d mean so much more in their namelessness.

            He noticed the gravid weight of sleep resting on my eyelids, and suggested it was about time we head off to our respective homes. I stubbornly refused, but knew it was probably for the best--I was incredibly ready to feel my pillow beneath my head. We stepped out of the car, and stood for a moment in that awkward transition of having to say goodbye, but not really wanting to. “So, you’ll see me on Sunday. And I’ll definitely talk to you before then.” he said. I don’t remember what I could have said. It must have been a minimal “yeah” or nod of the head, but then we hugged, and I got into my car to drive back to my dorm.

            I’ll be seeing him at his band’s show on Sunday, and then off to a crummy diner that needn’t be more than what it is, just as long as it offers that familiar environment that seems to foster camaraderie.

            I couldn’t stop myself from writing this as soon as I got back to my room, in a mad dash to remember absolutely everything in the most poetic way possible. Time has extended far past the hours that I should be asleep, but what’s the importance of sleep compared to moments like these? The need to transcribe the vibrations of my heart far outweighs the need to be refreshed for tomorrow’s classes.

This is what life is about.