Reflections on Today

My leaf, last I checked, is still hanging on. OK, so, obviously, it’s not my leaf, but now that I’ve noticed it, yeah, I’ve sorta singled it out as my favorite leaf. Mostly for its beauty, but also for its imperfections. And how its appearance changes, based mostly on the sky and the sun above it, behind it, around it.

And today, in the breeze, it danced. And still hung on.

I will be sad when it finally lets go.

: )

I have a friend — well, she’s not exactly a friend. I like her more than a friend ... but that’s not exactly accurate, either, because I love my friends; in fact, I have always felt that, with my really good friends, my best friends — and I’m very lucky because I have more than one ... which would probably require another superlative term besides “best” because best is a word sort of like “favorite,” in that, strictly speaking, a person can have only one best friend and one favorite ice cream — I have actually been a little bit in love with each one of them, to a certain degree. Because once you see that special something in someone, once you make that connection, there is a special place in your soul for that person, forever. And it doesn’t mean that you would ever take the friendship beyond the level that it is; it simply means that this is a person I will always cherish. This is my friend.

But this girl ... this girl, for whatever reason, is someone I have cared about from the moment we met. And funnily enough, we have never actually met, in person, yet sometimes it seems as if we have, many times. Though, once again, I suppose you can actually meet someone only once ... although, now that I think about it, what about when you meet someone for drinks? You could do that hundreds of time, if you were so inclined ... and if you were a drinker ... and we all drink something, right?

Interruption: At this moment, Jeff Buckley is singing “Hallelujah” on this LAX show that I have never watched and am not watching now, actually; I merely have the TV on NBC because I do not want to miss Jimmy Smits on The West Wing. Though I am sort of disappointed in myself for noticing, as I watched Jimmy/Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue last night, that he is no longer drop-dead gorgeous, as I had once found him to be. (Perhaps it was the camera angle.) Anyhoo, I was listening to Over the Rhine’s version of “Hallelujah” just this afternoon, and I have also heard the song performed by Rufus Wainright and k.d. lang (though never by its writer, Leonard Cohen), and so far, my favorite rendition is Jeff’s. And I am sad all over again that I did not even discover his music until after he was gone. Just like Nina Simone.

Anyway, this girl ... this girl and I are friends (but not quite friends) again, and something about having her in my life, occasionally, makes certain moments a little bit brighter and better, somehow, but also makes me incredibly sad, sometimes, every once in a while, unexpectedly.

Today, though, I think of her and smile. She has a girl, a new girl, though now they’ve been together for many months. Since the very beginning of this year, actually. And when I heard that this girl had a girl, I felt this odd sense of ... I don’t know, joy, or something very much like it, because I love her, in that way that I love and am a little in love with all of my best friends — only a little differently, somehow.

What makes me smile, today, as I think of this girl and her girl is the fact that everything they go through this year, together, is a first: First tail-end of winter together, first spring, first thunderstorm, first fireworks, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas together. I am a little envious, I think — not envious of this girl, or her girl, or them, but of all those firsts.

Firsts are fabulous, and unforgettable.

Fourteenths are fabulous, too, in their own way ... yet it’s difficult not to think back, occasionally, to those firsts, and miss them, just a little.