Clandestine Confessions

“What are you writing about these days?”
We had just received our food when he asked.
Just having shared a good laugh over Gabe, the waiter, showing us where to find our “hidden” spoons.
Which were so clearly visible on our plates.
We thought up some scenarios as to what situations may have prompted that explanation.
All the while he was struggling to get the fork and knife out of the rolled-up napkin.
“Perhaps your current predicament is why,” I said with a smirk.
His laughter loudly escaped.
–
“Well…,” I paused as I pondered how much to disclose. He still had yet to know of anything in my past life – my Before Wedding (B.W.) era.
“I write short stories. Right now, I am really into sharing moments from my past and connecting it to what is happening today. Showing how our previous choices make our present realities what they are.”
“Intriguing concept. Not sure I have ever reflected on my life in that way.”
“It is the butterfly effect. The power one yes has to impact the rest of your life.”
He went to take a bite of his soup as I continued talking.
“Take for instance the wedding.”
I lingered here.
–
He was once responsible for triggering an avalanche on a ski excursion.
He was at the precipice of doing it again at this table.
The releasing of these next words had the power to induce the liberation of all I have been suppressing.
Perhaps it was the atmosphere – with the fire burning behind us in the cool autumn night.
The string lights shining above.
The yellow leaves falling on the ground beneath our feet.
The sound of joy procrastinating its departure from the air.
But it seemed scarier all of a sudden to keep living in the stillness of undisturbed ground.
So I gripped firmly onto my heart.
Rooted deep in the soil of truth and peace in which it was replanted after the last heartbreak.
Making it now the most unshakeable part of my identity.
And prepared for what could come as I finished my thought…
–
“Had I never met you that day, there would be no Utah for me. It was your introduction to the state that prompted me to visit. It was all our conversations that day that sparked the road trip concept. Which then ultimately landed me here at this table with you – having just received my license plate to make Utah home.”
He froze briefly before gently placing his spoon back down on his plate.
Leaning back in his chair, his eyes never straying from looking at mine.
“And to think,” he said. “How much would have changed had I missed my flight that day like I did for the bachelor party.”
It was a story he told me back in May – his “$400 mistake” as he calls it – the most expensive one of his life thus far.
The mere thought of that caught my breath.
Which I tried to disguise with a little chuckle.
Trying to not give away the depth of fear that alternate reality inflicts upon a soul now living in inconceivable infinite bliss.
I never dreamed of myself here but can now never see myself anywhere but here.
“We would be living in a much different reality,” I replied. “All the dominoes had to be perfectly lined up, in their proper place to make all this possible.”
–
“Do you ever share any of these writings?”
“Some, but most I just have saved on my laptop. I can write much more transparently and vulnerably knowing nobody is going to see them. There is a filter that goes up when I write for the intent of other people’s consumption. It is that fear of judgement and the worry people are going to try to connect the pieces of who I am writing about that makes it hard to fully let go.”
Those words said as the image of the folder with ever accumulating documents flickered in my mind.
The one that had me considering making an anonymous blog so I could share them all.
Even having made a brand new email address completely unattached to anything associated with my identity so nobody could locate the source of the writing.
“It is unfortunate though,” I said as I returned my thoughts back to the moment. “Because my favorite pieces are the ones nobody has yet to read.”
“You know, very often it has been the work, whether that be music or art or writing, that was never intended to see the light of day that has become the most successful for the artist; the pieces they created for what they thought was just themselves and their healing. Because it is the most authentically raw. It is what people crave in this perfectly curated world.”
“You leaving me a hint with this?” I said in a playful tone.
“Ha, I just think a book of honest short stories from you would do really well. It is something I know I would read. And it would be a lot less daunting than writing an entire novel.”
I circled my finger around the edge of my glass as he spoke – always my tell of being lost in thought.
Taking in how it would look to walk this path he has presented as a possibility.
–
“But,” he said. “That is coming from a man who knows nothing about writing and just turned his journal entry into an Excel spreadsheet.”
We both broke out into laughter.
The analytical side of him is much more prominent.
“Here is what I am going to do,” the words laced with his lingering laugh. “I am going to share with you my Amazon Prime login information. There is a hiking documentary I just watched on there that was composed of various people each telling different stories on prompts given. The unique way it was shot may give you some inspiration.”
–
This would normally be where I break eye contact as the crying begins.
Afraid that emotional disclosure would tear down that last line of bricks to a wall I meticulously built to keep people out of my heart.
But I couldn’t look away that night.
My vision obliged by a gratitude driven magnetic force to not stray.
Lost in the sight, in the feelings, in the safety.
All of which I pray I never forget.
A tattooed memory that never fades with the passing of time.
The sacred sensitivity to the image my heart captured never losing its power to effortlessly evoke the tears.
–
This was a depth of being seen my soul had never known.
And I was well aware I was only exposing myself even more by refusing to look away.
There would be no more hiding.
The barrier to keep him from discovering the relics of my past would be abolished.
But there wasn’t even a question as to why that mattered anymore.
–
His eyes now the skis.
The avalanche began.
And it only seemed fitting what words would find their way to him later that night…