Every February marks the anniversary of the blog (7 years!) and my birth. It also is the anniversary of the passing of my friend, Raja. I didn’t know him as well as I would’ve liked but he was one of the first people to read this blog. Throughout high school, Raja was the child prodigy who published a book at 15. He encouraged me to write and he encouraged others to read what I wrote. In the days when I was attempting to be anonymous, I knew that at least Raja was reading my public words. Part of me hopes he still is somehow.
Truth is, we were never that close and that’s what I’ve been mulling over this week. During the days that lead up to Valentine’s, a day which makes you evaluate the level of love you’ve chosen to allow into your perimeter, I thought about the guest stars in your personal series. Those that could potentially become a permanent cast member but end up being written off too soon, and not necessarily through death. They play a role, possibly very minor versus the headliners, and exit stage left after they’ve read their lines. You may not even learn their name. The impact of the interaction or just a statement they say can be something that stays with you longer than their own physical presence.
My parents throw out quotes of strangers they met on planes like they’re reciting proverbs, wise words of an art collector they met one summer before El Nino wiped out beach houses, a family lesson from a nameless neighbor who watched me grow up. I see these visitors being logged into my own narrative too. They need to be transcribed somewhere as a thank you for a sentence or a push that pulled you out of a gray day or energy that charged you for free. A brief moment where you got tangled in their light stream, unraveled, and kept moving into infinity.
Uber drivers, that high-heeled mom who help me haul a shelving unit into the trunk in the Costco parking lot, that customer service hotline rep who laughed at the ON HOLD music with me, the carpenter on the corner who told me about his days in a German publishing house, the lady winemaker of the North who teases me for rejecting her olive oil because I’m obviously from the South. I cherish these pockets of humanity and the bits of unsolicited advice you catalog and retrieve on command.
This Valentine, and every once in a while, pop open the caisson and sift through the memories of those who left a smidgen of a mark on you. Love doesn’t always have to be grand. For a few, it can be just love and that still counts.
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