Love One [4 life]
Before I went to Los Angeles, I weighed a lazy 220 pounds of lackadaisical and flaked out fire to escape my dire and dangerous circumstances. I wanted to run from the things that put me in danger. In fact the day I left for L.A. I was told by members of the local police that I was under suspicion for the murder of someone, and I became the frightened victim of unsubstantiated claims. With my mental health in question, and my romance with both getting high and my manic super strength, it was a recipe for extreme paranoia. I had not murdered anyone, and did not intend to possibly fall victim of false charges. So, I skipped town not to return until the following spring.
By the next spring I was a fit and tight 162 pounds of determined efforts to make each day an opportunity to grow stronger, to go further, and to win my battles with the thin curtain dividing us and the between. I had won all of these battles yet the final steps toward my final claim of the profession I chased alluded me. Late one night at my Historical Society Crenshaw home, I saw my opportunity to find home in the place I had not thought to look and act on, San Diego. Late in the night, I walked out into the darkness and began saying a longing goodbye to that powerful city. But, I was headed to a place considered a part of “The Greater Los Angeles Area”, which seemed to light my spirit wings aloft and carry me on and away.
That night, I caught the train to Long Island, and wandered the streets there which I had not yet seen. I felt the power of conventional society, and a lifestyle I have never quite achieved. Touring all of the Historical places I could, I walked for miles as was a regular thing for me finding that there were fantastic spots not yet on my map to see. I ended my night with a midnight showing at the cinema with a very tenacious screening of “Hunger Games”. The following morning, I left from the Greyhound Station on the earliest bus to San Diego.
The first few weeks in S.D., I was still struggling to get my bearings. I simply needed to find a way to get a home base to start from. I had my Social Security income each month, but my “Crazy check” was not sufficient for me to find shelter. Everywhere I looked, the minimum income was $850 per month, and in some foul twist of fate my ex had been able to take $260 for child support, and I fell way below that mark. My check came and went with its usual shame of not being able to escape my homelessness.
I remember the first time I saw my Rose. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She wandered into the kitchen of the crisis house where I was staying. I watched her walk around the dark wood island station in the center of the room, and into the dining room with another girl. As I went back to chopping vegetables at the island, I heard her ask the other girl, “Who is that?” briefly pointing at me. Light blonde hair, very petite with an angelic Filipino face, sensuous curves, and exuding a glow that instantly ignited the first spark. Shaking it off, I went back to my cutting reminding myself that the last place I wanted to pick up a girlfriend was at a crisis house because “Two sick-ies don’t make a well-ie”.
I remember the first time I saw my Rose. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She wandered into the kitchen of the crisis house where I was staying. I watched her walk around the dark wood island station in the center of the room, and into the dining room with another girl. As I went back to chopping vegetables at the island, I heard her ask the other girl, “Who is that?” briefly pointing at me. Light blonde hair, very petite with an angelic Filipino face, sensuous curves, and exuding a glow that instantly ignited the first spark. Shaking it off, I went back to my cutting reminding myself that the last place I wanted to pick up a girlfriend was at a crisis house because “Two sick-ies don’t make a well-ie”.
The next few days I would fall absolutely and completely in love in a way that almost led me to believe I had never been in love, because nothing could compare to this attraction. Yet, even in the fashion kind of pure excitement that was totally unprecedented in my experience, I stayed with my modus – operandi. This basically was that denial that this sort of thing could go anywhere until I had the perfect set of circumstances. Then we had our first encounter when she sat on the couch next to me in a group therapy session.
“Is this seat taken?” she asked in a very delicate and direct fashion.
Then she sat down next to me in her yoga pants and pink sweatshirt. We did our introductions and a second later the group convened. I distinctly recall the first time she touched me, her leg coming to rest touching mine. It gave me the chills and a rush of some nervous kind of high. After group ended I had butterflies in my stomach, and a kind of curiosity I had not felt quite practically ever. Over the course of the next two days, we would spend hours each day together, just talking about everything we could cover. She tried to kiss me I swear, but she denies it to this day.
The thing I remember most is getting that first hug, and holding her hand, all in a silent knowing. We both clearly wanted much more than could develop in this setting, but it did. I began to shed my preconceived notions about “rehab romance” and was willing to go the length, but stressed to know how this fate could require so much faith and certainty.
The thing I remember most is getting that first hug, and holding her hand, all in a silent knowing. We both clearly wanted much more than could develop in this setting, but it did. I began to shed my preconceived notions about “rehab romance” and was willing to go the length, but stressed to know how this fate could require so much faith and certainty.
In an act of absolute confusion and fear of loss, I simply walked out of the crisis house on the third day of our meeting. I tried to get my medicine, but the staff would not release it to me. The counselors at the door to the staff office simply said “No.”
They weren’t helping me find a place to live, and would simply be putting me back out on the streets in a few days anyway. I remembered in my brash and heated exit, feeling a hurtful sob inside of me thinking we might never meet again. Out of yet another Historical Society house I walked, and headed this time, to the beach in hopes that the ocean would give me some peace.
The serenity and answers I chased would not come to me, though I fell in love with the place almost immediately. A couple of weeks had passed, when it came.
There was an e-mail from her, yes the self same object of my attention I met at the crisis house, and instantly on seeing her letter my heart started to try and pound its way out of my chest. A day or so prior to me leaving, people had been trading information, when she had asked for mine. I gave her my email address, and then let the topic be at rest. This was a sign, this was my answer! I wrote her a reply.
In the subject line it read simply, “I love you.”
I did not care to be careful, or hint around this. I felt her out there, she filled my senses from wherever she was in the world, and I felt sure this was real. With my pay being a week away, I desperately feared that this moment must be seized much sooner. I left the beach area and headed back downtown to wander around there and try and work out a possible solution. My late night walks were the host of my minds escapism, and the city lights, my beacon.
I arrived downtown on the latest trolley headed there, and walked down to the Embarcadero, then on to Seaport Village and the bay. I walked the long boardwalk past the convention center, the yacht club and shops and restaurants further down, past the war memorials and then stopped just short of the cruise ship terminal right where the aircraft carrier Midway Museum was. Trying to wrench free from my instinct that not doing something about this love, it would wash up and be over, I tried to steady my aching feet.
Love sick crazed in this moment, a thing I could only term in the future as divine intervention, I shuffled over to rest in front of a table in the front of the aircraft carrier. I saw a wallet sitting there, with no owner. I looked up and down the walk, over the streets, and everywhere within 200 plus feet in every direction. There was no one in sight. I picked up the wallet, and looked inside.
There I found $320 in cash lying folded inside its leather keep, and showing no way to find its owner. I raced off and down the street invigorated in a very guilty way of sorts, residing in the notion that the next person would have done the same thing, and that this may be my only chance. I went home at once. It was off to Pacific Beach with two red, white and blue necklaces from Starbucks, two long weekend transit passes, a triple espresso latte and a smile.
They weren’t helping me find a place to live, and would simply be putting me back out on the streets in a few days anyway. I remembered in my brash and heated exit, feeling a hurtful sob inside of me thinking we might never meet again. Out of yet another Historical Society house I walked, and headed this time, to the beach in hopes that the ocean would give me some peace.
The serenity and answers I chased would not come to me, though I fell in love with the place almost immediately. A couple of weeks had passed, when it came.
There was an e-mail from her, yes the self same object of my attention I met at the crisis house, and instantly on seeing her letter my heart started to try and pound its way out of my chest. A day or so prior to me leaving, people had been trading information, when she had asked for mine. I gave her my email address, and then let the topic be at rest. This was a sign, this was my answer! I wrote her a reply.
In the subject line it read simply, “I love you.”
I did not care to be careful, or hint around this. I felt her out there, she filled my senses from wherever she was in the world, and I felt sure this was real. With my pay being a week away, I desperately feared that this moment must be seized much sooner. I left the beach area and headed back downtown to wander around there and try and work out a possible solution. My late night walks were the host of my minds escapism, and the city lights, my beacon.
I arrived downtown on the latest trolley headed there, and walked down to the Embarcadero, then on to Seaport Village and the bay. I walked the long boardwalk past the convention center, the yacht club and shops and restaurants further down, past the war memorials and then stopped just short of the cruise ship terminal right where the aircraft carrier Midway Museum was. Trying to wrench free from my instinct that not doing something about this love, it would wash up and be over, I tried to steady my aching feet.
Love sick crazed in this moment, a thing I could only term in the future as divine intervention, I shuffled over to rest in front of a table in the front of the aircraft carrier. I saw a wallet sitting there, with no owner. I looked up and down the walk, over the streets, and everywhere within 200 plus feet in every direction. There was no one in sight. I picked up the wallet, and looked inside.
There I found $320 in cash lying folded inside its leather keep, and showing no way to find its owner. I raced off and down the street invigorated in a very guilty way of sorts, residing in the notion that the next person would have done the same thing, and that this may be my only chance.
Of course little did I know what I was getting into. I actually believed at that I could save her, like the brave knight come down to rest again on the frosty cold beer I slugged down at the Pacific Beach Pub.
Liken this point to the “oh shit”, phase where I am sitting at the bar, new crisp white Kenneth Cole jean jacket on, two buttons up at the bottom, tone as fuck and waiting to drop a hit of anything that swings my way, love style. Maybe I would get along with her brother, but then he’d probably pull a knife on my sketchy homeless ass and rob me and her too. Guess that’s why I had the second Guinness, and pulled out my new android and e-mailed right there and then before I changed my mind.
Liken this point to the “oh shit”, phase where I am sitting at the bar, new crisp white Kenneth Cole jean jacket on, two buttons up at the bottom, tone as fuck and waiting to drop a hit of anything that swings my way, love style. Maybe I would get along with her brother, but then he’d probably pull a knife on my sketchy homeless ass and rob me and her too. Guess that’s why I had the second Guinness, and pulled out my new android and e-mailed right there and then before I changed my mind.
“Today, tomorrow and the next day I change the world done the way the world has done me…” I was telling her in my head all the way downtown. Don’t you worry, that bus took me to a trolley, to a Starbucks, to a position in front Torrey Pines National Bank. Then the phone rang, and it was her calling the number I had e-mailed.
“Hi.”
The conversation that ensued was the sweetest taste of a lust for giving life a cherry on top that my world could ever imagine being rocked by. This girl, five foot two, an even hundred pounds, long blonde feathered bangs and a face and temperament that even the devil himself would repent.
Together on our first ever phone call we talked nervously, anxiously as she gave me her parents address and invited me to come immediately. There was a long silence on the line and then I heard the most beautiful thing I would need only forever.
At the very same time, we said “I love you”, I mean like jinx you owe me a Coke!
“Bye."
I met her standing there on the veranda of her Spring Valley home and we held hands.
I met her standing there on the veranda of her Spring Valley home and we held hands.
“What is going ON here”, she asked.
“I don’t know what has to be done to arrange this, but I want to kiss you. Can I have a kiss,” I asked sheepishly.
She kissed me long and with love with the presence I had known at her first attempt over a month ago.
“So,” she said “what IS going on here?”
“I love you and I don’t know what to to make you realize that I want this, forever.”
Shy and eager and trim and proper, she scooted across the stone near the barren white trellis and closer to me, taking my hand.
That soft voice I would come to know so well in our years to come simply returned with a grin.
“I love you too.”
I was a goner.
10+ years later:
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