The Romantics Are Dead, Long Live The Romantics!
A true love story from my own life…
[Lights up on a glass of water, resting on top of a small table. After a moment, the author walks on stage.]
The Romantics Are Dead, Long Live The Romantics!
I am a romantic.
And like most things concerning the heart, it’s not a choice. This doesn’t mean I’m good at love, in fact, I am, by all accounts, a terrible love. If I do the math, the work would show I’m not even that interested in love. But the idea of love… Now, that’s something I could die for.
The truth is I’ve never really been in a grown-up, capital “R” relationship. My last attempt at being a boyfriend ended when I was thirteen. I had my sister break up with my girlfriend, over the phone, as I stood nearby, telling her what to say—like a reverse Cyrano.
I was a coward. And cowards do not partake in the feast of love.
But I fantasize about it. In the same way one might muse about being a surgeon who makes “the tough call” on a risky procedure and pulls it off, without ever having gone to medical school. Or how one might daydream about defusing a bomb right before it explodes, even though they are colorblind, and can’t tell which wire to cut. But they can’t all be the wrong wire, right?
I’ve nurtured my share of fantasies about countless occupations I’ve never trained in. I’m a very visual leaner and I’ve seen how they’re done in the movies, on television, and in books enough times to believe, I mean truly believe, that if push comes to love… I’m your man.
When I was eighteen, I fell in love with girl… somehow I ended up living with her boyfriend. And by “living with” I mean, I paid half the rent, slept on a couch in the living room, and got to fall asleep to the sound of them taking baths together (it’s all about the amenities). That’s also how I ended up in the military. After six months of that, who wouldn’t prefer to have a homophobic drill sergeant spit-scream profanities into their face holes.
Fast forward to me living in a dull bricked military barracks in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It was the year 2000. We survived 1999—the party didn’t live up to all the hype, but at least the world didn’t end and anything was still possible, even love. So I did what one does when they survive an apocalypse, I wrote poems and sent them to my fellow survivors.
Poetry was something I began in high school because I was too afraid to talk to girls. Well, not every girl, just one. The first time I saw Sarah was the first day of my junior year. I can still close my eyes and let the electric squiggles work their fuzzy magic… and there she is, like yesterday.
She wore a cut-off jean vest with matching shorts. Not the deep indigo denim of the 00’s, but the light stone wash blue of the 90’s. Every edge was frayed like she wielded the scissors herself the night before. She was cool. She was all I could not poem.
But that didn’t stop me from trying:
Eyes, so blue. Hair, so blonde.
She smiles, and the fiercest storm calms.
- High School Me
I etched that first poem onto a sheet of paper and ripped it out of a spiral notebook so the edges matched hers. And it might not look like it, but I knew in my bones that blonde and calm rhyme.
By the time I was a twenty-one year old combat medic my poems had only marginally improved. But that didn’t stop me from thinking that people needed to read them. So I started submitting them to contests on the internet, which, until then, I had only used for downloading Dave Matthew Bootlegs. And well, one day, I won something—from the poetry, not the copyright infringement.
I was invited, along with everyone else who entered the contest, to attend a weekend long retreat in Washington D.C. We would take classes, attend seminars, and participate in a multi-tiered contest where one poem would be crowned, and the poet would receive a small monetary reward. And all I had to do to was pay for my travel, lodging, and supply a nominal entry fee, of course. (Looking back, I know it was probably a literary version of a Foreign Prince Email Scam, but for some reason young me didn’t ping this as deception, no… He thought it was destiny.)
Quick Geography Lesson: Washington D.C. is only 338.3 miles from Jacksonville N.C.—approximately a 5 hour and 15-minute drive. (You will not be quizzed on this, but it remains important.)
When the time came, I grabbed my binder full of burnt copyright infringed CDs and headed to the nation’s capital. 6 hours later I pulled into the white city Muppet-singing along to the overwhelming melodramatic “Sister” by The Nixons—the acoustic version. (And if you’re not familiar with Muppet-singing, it’s when you think you know the words but end up having to twist them, mid-sound, into the right ones.)
I went straight to the hotel where the festivities would be carried out over the next three days and, well, that’s when I saw… Her. Or to be more precise, that’s when she saw me. It was a crowded lobby, but I felt her see me. It was like when someone arrives at a wedding in the middle of the ceremony, and tries to sneak in through the back but knocks over a vase, causing everyone to suddenly turn and stare—300 or so eyes all laser focused on them. It was like that, only the good version—the kind not disrupting love, but discovering it.
And you know what I did? Nothing. I diverted my eyes and went along with the day. But something happened, or at least started to happen, in my blood castle—a chemical change. The caterpillar entering the chrysalis.
We passed each other in the bustling halls throughout the day. Still, I did nothing, after nothing, after nothing—if a caterpillar exits the cocoon too soon, its wings won’t work.
The next morning, I talk myself up in a bathroom mirror and set out for a day of workshops.
During the first seminar, the host encouraged everyone to stand up, turn around, and greet the person behind them. And when I pirouetted… Well, there was no one there—I was in the last row. And there was no one sitting in the chair in front of me… Or the one in front of that… And so on for three more rows… But that’s where she was, looking across the sea of vacancies at me. And as we were about to smile and wave, some asshole stepped between us and introduced himself to her. But no matter, now the universe was talking to me. The time for words had passed, I was being summoned to the arena of action. (You don’t have to tell me twice—four or five times usually does the trick.)
During the next break I made her an origami rose out of a napkin, a skill I picked up when stationed in Japan (not in the way you might think though, I actually learned it from my roommate who used the internet for open-world role-playing games and the occasional catfishing). And when the moment was right I walked up, introduced myself and gave her the paper flower.
What followed was an hour of us sitting on the floor in a secluded hallway of this grand hotel, sharing poems, talking about our lives, and me teaching her origami.
[The author presents a napkin from his pocket and demonstrates how to make an origami rose]
She tells me she’s from South Africa, and since most of us only know one person from South Africa, let’s just call her Charlize Theron. (No, that’s not her name.) But Charlize goes on to tell me that her sister lives in Houston and is about to give birth. And Charlize is going to visit her after the weekend activities. (Again, you will not be quizzed, but it remains important.)
Now the thing about bravery is that it’s contagious. The more you summon it, the more you have. And I almost had enough to invite her to dinner, but I didn’t. The other thing about bravery is that the less you use it, the less you have. But I figured there was one more day, and I would play it cool—if that’s even possible after giving a girl a handmade paper flower.
The next day was the Goodbye Ceremony, held at 11am. Which meant I would have a whole day to woo her. I planned an elaborate museum adventure around town: We’d share a chocolate croissant, imagine which works of art we would buy if we were rich, and then fall in love in front of a Chagall. It was going to be perfect.
I arrived at the farewell full of hope. Which slowly disappeared as I tried to find her—I ran into her so easily the other two days, I assumed the same lightness. But we all know what happens when you assume: You end up on a museum adventure all by yourself, confident that you will magically run into Charlize Theron, but don’t, and end up in front of the Chagall alone. Well, not really alone, there will be a crowd, it’s Chagall after all, but for you it will be the definition of loneliness.
At least that’s what happened to me.
By the time I made it out of DC and halfway back to Jacksonville it was midnight, and that’s when I heard something… A voice… Inside me… Saying, “Go back.” Now, of course I was like, “What?!” But the voice was steady, “Go back.”
Now look, there was absolutely no way I was going to go speeding back to D.C. through the black of night in search of my destiny, except for the fact that’s exactly what I did. I shed the coward completely. I pulled a U-turn and blasted “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell, on repeat. I was due back at base in a few hours for morning muster, but this was worth the impending latrine duty—I was being brave for love…
When I got back to D.C. I asked the voice, “Now what?”
Every poet booked a different hotel and I had no idea where she was staying. I drove around the city, using every sixth sense I possessed, desperately shooting signal fires from my soul into the darkness, and then I remembered: She’s flying to Houston in the morning.
I look up the airports in D.C. and find two of them. I choose one at random, Regan International. It's 2am when I arrive and the place is a ghost town. I wander around the terminal mumbling, “Now what, Universe?” (This was pre 9/11 and you could practically do anything you wanted in an airport.) But I knew I couldn’t wait there in hope that she showed up, I would look like a crazy person who hadn’t slept—and I was hoping that only one of those things were true.
I decide to write her a note, explaining this bizarre night, and asking if she happened to understand any of it. I didn’t know what to do with the note. Was I supposed to drop it somewhere and hope she was drawn to it—if this is even the airport she’s flying out of? No, that wouldn’t do.
I check all the flight schedules and see that Continental has three to Houston. I write Continental a letter briefly describing her (I didn’t even know Charlize’s last name), and asked them to please get the enclosed note to her—if this was the airport she was flying out of, and if they were the airlines she would be flying out on.
I fold the two notes up together and place this singular, little love square on Continental’s ticketing counter (which was completely empty). I take two steps back, look up at the sky and say, “Meet me halfway, Universe.” And then I leave.
I speed three hundred miles south and only arrive a few minutes late for morning muster.
I left my email in the note to her and waited for a response.
But there was nothing… No response.
Which I realized wasn’t really the point. I changed that night. I was no longer a spectator; I was in the game. I would go the distance for love. I would believe in destiny and the universe and signs… even if they were just airport signs. It didn’t matter if she didn’t get the note.
But friends, the thing is… She got the note.
Continental-Mother-Fucking-Airlines got her the note.
It was two weeks later when I found her message in my inbox. I couldn’t breathe. I was prepared for it to not have worked. I wasn’t prepared for this—whatever this was about to be. She said how amazing it was to get the letter from me on her flight, and that she would have written sooner but her sister didn’t have the internet, so she had to wait until she got back to South Africa.
We email a few times after that, but then 9/11 happens. I got busy with my combat medic stuff and well, we lost track of each other.
[The author shrugs]
Fast forward a few years and it’s 2006. I’m out of the military and living in Los Angeles. I went from wearing combat boots to boat shoes. And so much changed since 2000, especially the internet—it started to come into its own. Suddenly, everyone had their own personal website on this new thing called: Myspace.
One day, I decide to search her name… And there she is! But not only that, her profile said that she was living in L.A.! What are the chances? I really mean that. Fate is obviously, definitely involved. You don’t have to have a degree in Sign Reading to read the signs.
I sent her a message to say hello. She replies almost instantly. She can’t believe how long it’s been. And she tells me that she still has my note and that weathered origami flower I made for her.
Holy Shit! This is it! This is what they write stories about!
I was going to a concert that night, and because I always buy two tickets to every show I attend, I had an extra. I invite her out for the night. This is going to be it—we’re going to go to some intimate acoustic show by a patron saint of indie rock, we’ll get dollar fifty ice cream sandwiches from Dee Dee Rees, fall in love, have babies, grow old, and follow each other into the dark.
All of it, everything between then and now, was just destiny’s grand plan. I waited for her reply.
…And waited. … And waited.
Until it started to get late. I finally go to the show alone and give the spare ticket to someone at the door.
[The author takes a deep breath]
Now, I wish I could say that’s not where things ended, but it is… that’s where it ended. I didn’t bother to reach back out, because, well, I had gotten marginally better at reading signs. But it’s not a sad ending. This isn’t a story about how I was a romantic. This is a story about how, despite all of that, I’m still a romantic.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish we had bumped into each other again, and fallen in love. I wish this story had an epilogue where every time we go to visit her parents in South Africa, we make sure there’s a long lay over at Regan International so we can have a makeshift anniversary picnic in the terminal where she got the note, and then later buy drinks for all the Continental employees.
But that never happened.
Well, at least not yet…
The thing about us romantics is that even in the most desolate fall, we hold on to the possibility of spring.
[The author takes the origami rose and places it in the glass of water. Then exits, leaving the vase on stage. The lights dim as the flower’s paper soaks up the water, and the rose begins to droop, like it’s dying.]