Unexpectedly

We outgrow love like other things
   And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
   Like costumes grandsires wore.
~ Emily Dickinson
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My power went out today, and as I was pulling books off the shelf for something to read while I waited for the linemen to come out and figure what squirrel-accident had caused it, I laid hands on a very old Dover Thrift Edition called Great Love Poems. Since it is almost the Day That Shall Not Be Named, I sort of smiled to myself and took it down along with Pride and Prejudice, the volume I actually intended to peruse.

I noticed that I had dog-eared pages in the poetry collection, and I became curious. I long ago stopped doing that because of the damage it does. Now I use post it flags or something removable instead. I looked at the pages I’d turned down, though, to see what had moved me at the time. Predictably, all of the poems were full of yearning and unrequited love. I had no idea how old the book was until, rather unexpectedly, a photo fell from where it had been tucked in at one of the turned-down pages near the back.

And there he was. Strawberry blond hair pulled back into a ponytail that would curl just at the ends, but as was so often the case, some of it was starting to escape. Sitting cross-legged on the edge of that low stage, he had his Martin guitar in his lap, those beautiful hands were engaged in tuning it. The ever-present brown leather sandals and beat up, worn-in jeans finished the picture. The whole of him was there, unexpectedly and rather unceremoniously dumped into my lap once again.

I picked it up gently, as if it were some ancient thing that might come to pieces in my fingertips, and I looked at him. I can’t remember now even how that particular picture got taken. I know I must have been on one of the couches at the front that were our usual seat just from the angle, but I really have no memory of shooting that photo. Even less do I remember tucking it into that book next to the overly sentimental poem that has sheltered it all these years. Yet I must have done so, and I probably did both with strong feeling in my heart for him at the time. Everything I did related to him had such strong feeling attached to it….

I continued to page through the book, and then I slipped his photo back where it had come from. It seemed the right thing to do, almost like laying an artifact back in a protective case or putting something back inside a time capsule. This object has no relation to the me I am now, but it did relate to the person that was me once. I cannot deny that there once was a girl who loved that boy, and she sat on a blue couch, watched him play a guitar, and she took a picture of him. When he finished playing, he probably bounced over, sat next to her, and they had a really good time. Or not. Maybe that was one of the nights he sat with somebody else or ignored her because he was in a bad mood….

And then, as always, once I closed the book, I began to ponder. I look back at the depth of emotion I had for him, the strength of feeling that made me turn down those page corners, and I wonder sometimes if I am capable of feeling that for anybody else again. I wonder if I should, if it is a good thing or a bad thing to have that depth of feeling for a single person, a flaw that should be remedied altogether or simply something good that was applied to the wrong situation. Was it in me or in him that the fault lay? Was I deficient or was he? This is the last of the questions I need an answer to, the one that through the years has made me doubt, and ultimately, the one I know I will probably never get resolved. I guess I’m glad I’ve come so far from the girl who put that picture in that book, probably with tears and sighs, but I wonder if I will ever be able to lay aside the fear and the doubt as well.