When I went to a rock climbing class last month, the instructor asked what got me interested. He was a sweet, awkward guy who reminded me a little of an old friend from middle school. Anyway, I lied and said I’d always been curious. I didn’t tell him that the girl I have a crush on at work was once profiled for a fellowship, and in it, she said she loved the squishy mats at climbing gyms. And because I can’t bring myself to ask her to spend time with me, I am here - at the climbing gym - to feel the squishy mat for myself. Just so I can feel what she feels. And when I strain to raise one hand above the other, I imagine that is just what she feels too.
Lately I’ve been listening to Paul Simon’s Let Me Live in Your City. I love the way he sings it: Let me live in your city, the river is so pretty, the air is so fine. How else to know someone when you can’t really get to know them? If I can’t know you, then at least - let me live in your city. Let me echo your rituals, learn your mother tongue, and, well, go rock climbing.
I walked around Governor’s Island recently, taking photos of plants to identify them. It was delightful. Because then, when I’d walk around and spot a burst of orange amongst the green of the grass, I would think to myself “Scarlet pimpernel!” and for a brief moment, I was pulled into the smallest detail on the smallest patch of land - able to name the detail and make it solid in a way it wasn’t before.
As the subtitle of this post suggests, I am out and proud these days (more or less) - but intimacy still scares me. I think having spent the majority of my life in the closet has something to do with the fact that often when I have feelings for someone, I have this longing to be near what they love as a way to be - and almost as a susbtitute for being - near them: a predilection to name the flower, but not to pluck it.