One pleasure generally denied the very young woman is the experience of having a former lover re-enter her life periodically. The ecstasy of the present clearly owes it's richness to ecstasies past.
The first experience of meeting they eyes of someone who knew you intimately in another time, another place, is an exchange suspended in time, in which you both stand, terribly naked and afraid, for an elongated second before the expected hug. And then speech returns.
You swallow hard and say: "How have you been?"
Then the rituals begin.
"It's been a long time."
"Tell me everything you've been doing."
"Whatever happened to..."
When all you really need to know is how he's changed and who he's become. And how that makes you feel.
If there is any magic left, you arrange to meet again.
You prepare yourself for this meeting with elaborate care. The dizziness you felt when years were compressed into seconds is now exactly reversed. You see yourself in slow-motion and your self-preoccupation is total. You find yourself protective of your memories, perhaps unwilling to damage their crystalline containers with the invasive present.
You dress; hiding this, accentuating that, remembering something you shared like a favorite song. You sprinkle your appearance with something old, something new; all the while watching new memories, like embryos, expand and elaborate their delicate features.
When you meet him now, the exchanged look has lost its nakedness. You are both planted firmly in your present and separate selves that challenge each other to hold out against the quicksand of nostalgia.
You wait for him to push you to the edge of this swirling eddy. He circles cautiously and waits for you.
You talk, and - sooner or later - at a sudden remembered incident, you reach out at the same time, and it begins again.
April 3/2004