Defiant Daisy #7

We started climbing in the morning, before most of the people got there.

I’d never been before. He told me that it was a difficult climb but that the view from the top of the tower was definitely worth every sweaty and crowded step. So, like the tourists, we started to climb. There really wasn’t anything to look at aside from the other people struggling with the stairs, so we started to talk. It was...amazing. I’ve never connected with a stranger like this before. He was easy to talk to, and, more importantly, we slide into an easy and comfortable silence when there’s nothing left to say.

He told me about his childhood, about being the only jock in his advanced chemistry courses and the only chemistry geek on the football team. I told him about my photographs and laughed awkwardly about how somehow I feel more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

And suddenly, it was as if years have passed, although we’ve been climbing for less than an hour. Somehow we had achieved the laidback intimacy of friends who have known each other for years, and I didn’t even know his name. Everything else about him – sure. His hopes, his fears, his memories. But not his name.

“Ever been in love?”

I paused.

“Well... I tell myself I have because it makes everything I went through for him seem more worthwhile. Right now, I’m on hiatus.”

“Hiatus?”

“I am finally starting to like who I am, but I never like who I become. I don't know what it is about relationships, but I always feel it coming, like when old people know that it’s going to rain or when dogs take themselves out to the woods and lay down to die. And I hate it.

I hate it because I know it’s the beginning of a downward spiral, that we can only climb so far, and we’re almost there. I can’t look back because I’m going too fast. I can’t look down because I’ll realize that there’s nothing left to do but fall or go back from whence we came.

And I run and I run and I run but I never know where I am and I always forget to breathe. and he’s there - in my head - wherever I am, and I’m there - in his arms - whenever I close my eyes. However many times I jump without looking or talk without thinking or cry without laughing, he’s there to catch me and console me and hold me close.

I don’t even know what I’m running from. Not from him. There's nowhere I'd rather be than where I am right now, falling asleep in his arms and getting lost in his eyes. But I’m scared, and I'm running from me even though I always catch myself.

So, I guess I’m on hiatus to give myself a headstart before I have to start to run again.”

A few minutes passed, and I was convinced that I had managed, in thirty seconds, to completely alienate and terrify a stranger who had regaled me with his life story for thirty minutes. Before I knew it, I felt a sudden gust of wind and realized that we were at the top of the tower. We walked over to the screened-in side and stared out over the city. He quietly spoke again, but he wasn’t speaking to me in particular – it was as if the expression was so natural that he just couldn’t hold it in.
“In the hundreds of years this cathedral has been here, buildings have been built and have fallen; people have come and gone; love has blossomed and faded away. Somehow, though, in the decades I’ve been coming here, the perspective I get is always the same.”