This is gonna ramble off course a little so bear with me and read on...
Ok. So I'm meandering through the Daleville Kroger this afternoon. I'm standing at an end-cap looking at some little plastic jugs of minty gum when a cart smacks into mine from the side. I turn to look over my shoulder and a man is standing there looking at me and grinning.
Now a handful of things roll through my head all at the same instant...
Was I in the way?
Was it just an accident?
He's balding.
His ring of hair is kind of Don-King-ish.
He's not saying anything.
He has a bruised lip.
He's grinning like a brain-dead monkey.
He has dip in his teeth.
And on the corners of his mouth.
Ew.
His clothes look like he just rolled out of bed.
Why is he just standing there looking at me?
He's a little wild-eyed. (Have you figured out yet that I am a complete dumbass and would be utterly clueless if I were in actual danger?)
Why is he just standing there looking at me and grinning?
Do I know him?
Did I go to school with him?
He looks older than me.
Maybe he's just had a hard life?
Why is he not saying anything?
And then he spoke.
"I'm sorry." He goes back to grinning. And staring.
So I'm back to...
Do I know him?
But the next instant he spoke again... I'm thinking I'll hear "Hey, remember me... I'm so-and-so...".
Nope. Coulda knocked me over with a feather at what came next.
"I just had to do that because... You. Are. Beautiful."
Returns to grinning. And staring. And says nothing else.
Ok. Now every girl would love to hear that from a stranger, for sure. And certainly in that rom-com movie-plot way... I've never had either happen in any context, so I'd love it, for sure, too...
But I was still stuck on the bruised lip and dip-y teeth & mouth corners...
And frankly, I was creeped out.
Seriously, I don't feel at all shallow when I say, it would be far less creepy coming from, say, someone with clean teeth. Who actually followed that gambit with conversation of some sort. Or from someone without a bruised lip (tried the cart bump on some other, less polite woman, perhaps?!). Or maybe with clean clothes. I don't know, call me crazy... I don't give a damn whether you're handsome or not, my hang ups are grooming and clean teeth. You can look like Jabba the Hut and as long as you're intelligent and/or funny (which would require flashing the aforementioned follow-up convo), brush your teeth and groom yourself, you're golden.
I tossed a quick politician-pressing-the-flesh "Thank you" over my shoulder as I turned back to the gum, hoping he'd take the hint and move along.
Now, this is where I'm gonna ramble, but stick with me, it'll "co-hese"...
10 years ago today, Navy was underway on, I think it was, a six month deployment with the USN in the Pacific ocean. We'd been back in touch for about 2 years after about a 15 year 'break' and we emailed regularly. I was working for a large law firm in downtown Roanoke and hadn't been at work for more than 20 minutes when the receptionist said a plane had struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I went into the conference room to turn on the T.V. - happy as a school kid hearing the fire-drill bell for a plausible excuse to avoid victim/witness interviews - and listened as Katie Couric was reporting the first plane striking the first Trade Center tower. The air around me changed in an instant when the second airplane hit the second tower and it dawned on me this wasn't an accident...
My first tangled, utterly chaotic, whirling thoughts were primarily of the implications... attack... war... and then the military... war... attack... they would be scrambled... we would be at war...
I went straight to my computer and emailed Navy. We were about 8 hours different time-wise and I knew he was always on the computer about the time I settled into work because we'd have email convo most days until about my lunch-time/his bed-time... I told him a plane had crashed into the Trade Center in NY. I told him the second one had as well. I emailed each detail as it came available. USN intel hadn't even gotten the news to them yet. He told the ship's XO (executive officer) who told the CO (commanding officer). And as I fed information to him via email, he relayed it to those two officers who ultimately relayed it by broadcast to all the sailors on that ship. It was a touch stone of sorts for me in the midst of that chaos and tragedy. I don't know what it was for him, "alone" on that ship with 5000 of his closest "friends" and thousands of miles from everyone and everything he knew and loved... I just know I felt sort of a sense of duty to be on the other end for him and by extension for that ship. Somehow I felt like I was helping. Being there. Being strong for him, giving him information for them.
Shortly thereafter, his ship was re-routed to the Arabian Sea off the coast of Pakistan and he (all ships) essentially went off-grid with fluctuating cuts in what I guess was non-essential communications. With reports of ships firing missiles and striking targets inland, squabbles over Pakistan airspace, etc., it was horrible not knowing where he was, what was happening, or whether his ship was involved... it was an agonizing day, week, month, year... but like all things, with time it faded from daily memory and things essentially returned to normal.
Over the last 10 years this day has been our link... it's been special to both of us in a sacred kind of way... hallowed... shared whereever we've been, together or apart... and once we were together, it never ocurred to me there'd come a day we wouldn't share it intimately. Last year, though, when we were apart again and I got the text that began, "On this day, 9 years ago...", it was kind of just another day... I'd had 8 months to heal after our break-down and although it was a good feeling inside to know it still held meaning to him, it was ok...
This year, though... somehow this year is very, very different... last night I got the text... he's been thinking about that day and me for days... wondering if there was a way we'd share it without upsetting anyone... together or apart...
For me it doesn't matter, I have no one to be upset if we share the memory... he, however, having gone straight from the USN to living with his folks, to living with me, to living with the next girl, to now living with the mother of his recently revealed 21 year old daughter... he has someone to upset...
Somehow, this year, it's very, very different... somehow, this year, it's very emotional.
And I found myself wondering last night and this morning why 10 years was any more significant or magical... for us... for anyone... why do we think we feel it more keenly? Why do he and I feel the urge to share this anniversary personally... why is 10 any harder or more significant that 9 years or 12 years?
It's moot, I guess... whatever the reason, I've done nothing but cry at the slightest mention of 9/11/01 and anything associated with it or us... I've cried as much in the last 24 hours as I did a couple of months ago when I lost someone I thought I'd finally found that one true relationship with.
Now here's where we're going to zag...
2 years ago when my relationship with Navy sank, I was devastated and nearly non-functional. I spent nights and weekends crying on my sofa, and during the day I did my crying in the bathroom at work. I couldn't eat, didn't care to, and didn't bother even pretending to be hungry. A grey air like Pig Pen's dirt cloud hung over me.
After a couple of weeks everything in the fridge was past the point of being edible and when I couldn't put off hitting the grocery store a moment longer, I went to the Kroger on Main Street in Salem and wandered the aisles for easily 45 minutes, cart empty, picking up things & putting them back, tears flowing randomly at a family shopping together, a sappy card in the rack, a wedding magazine with a picture perfect bride on the front... eyes puffy, nose snotty...
I round an end-cap and pass a man pushing a cart...
And he grins at me. (What is it with end-caps? Is that the "lurker lair"?)
Not a pleasant half-smile we give strangers to say "good day", either... he grins. Teeth.
Now I know I looked like I'd been sick with the plague - hair stringy and disheveled, crappy old over-sized tee-shirt on, cut-off sweat pant shorts, horribly puffy eyes, dark circles, nose snuffly from non-stop crying...
And I think to myself, "Self, he MUST just be being polite... I had to've imagined the "interested" look..."
So I looked back...
And the man is standing there, dead in the middle of the aisle, not moving, watching me walk away...
And as I turn and our eyes catch, he grins even bigger than the first time.
WTH?!!
I still knew that in my warmed-over-death state of appearance, he HAD to be just being nice... so I went on about my business...
But then I passed him twice more in other parts of the store... and both times it was unmistakeable... the interested smile... that slightly lascivious Joey-Tribiani "Hey, how YOU doin'?" air...
I was stupified.
And all I could figure was maybe he was desperate... or legally blind... or had cataracts...
Which brings us full circle to Daleville Kroger guy...
I tossed my politician-pressing-the-flesh thanks and looked away, intent on those thought-provoking little barrels of gum...
In my peripheral, I saw him move away so I put back the gum barrel I was studying and turned to go...
And just about fell over when I realized he'd just as quickly moved back...
Stare... grin... "I can't help it, I'ma be useless the rest of the day..."
I stood, staring back at his wild-eyed, smiling face, knowing what a trainwreck I looked like with my puffy eyes, dark circles, mascara streaks, snotty nose, and general sad air from the 9/11 text I got from Navy just before I walked in the store...
And I said thank you again. Genuinely this time.
And then I hauled ass. ;)
The moral of the story? Hell, I don't know if I even managed to link all three of these shorts together for you so you can understand the way they mesh in my head, much less came down to the moral of the story... but I will say my personal upset is the thread that ties all three...
And I think the natural conclusion here is that in my universe, puffy eyes, mascara tracks, snuffly, snotty nose and a general Eeyore air about me drives men wild.
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