update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object.html

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 <p>Occasionally I will pick up the occasional romantic twinge, and when I do, I will cherish it. I will sit with that feeling and enjoy it, and then I will put it up on some shelf within me to be a part of my life, and yet in some way apart from it. It is not unlike praying in that sense: God is always a part of my life, and yet is apart from it. I do not subscribe to many of the modern evangelical takes on religion, wherein god is within you, but something far more conservative and old-fashioned. God is beside me, perhaps. Above me. He is with me, but not within me.</p>
 <p>Another way to look at this is perhaps that these feelings are embers, or the smoldering of paper that has not yet caught fire into a relationship. You can see the faint tint of red crawling along the fibers of the paper, and yes, I suppose that you could blow on it and coax it into something more, but better, for me, to watch it slowly consume the paper, enjoy the beauty of the ember and the delicacy of the papery ash it leaves behind, and then, once it has gone out, acknowledge that it has left me a new person.</p>
 <p>That, however, is not what Kay has done. She has launched herself into my life as a bright spark. It is not the slow crawl of smolder along paper but the bright flash of magnesium caught fire. Unstoppable. Undousable. Inevitable.</p>
-<p>This - this and the fact that that she is named Kay, instilling a sense of synchronicity in my mind, that I be (nick)named Dee - is why I brought her up to Jeremy, this brightly burning light in my life that has suddenly claimed me</p>
+<p>This - this and the fact that that she is named Kay, instilling a sense of synchronicity in my mind, that I be (nick)named Dee - is why I brought her up to Jeremy, this brightly burning light in my life that has suddenly claimed me. This feeling is new. I have had what I had assumed &lsquo;crushes&rsquo; were before, but to be smitten is a very new feeling for me, one that I do not quite know how to approach.</p>
+<p>Kay and I met during the last year of her undergrad and the first year of my graduate studies at UI Sawtooth. She had taken a job in the campus library to help pay her way through school, working in the interlibrary loan office, a service that I was starting to use more in earnest.</p>
+<p>That&rsquo;s three years gone now, though, and that this was not a love-at-first-site situation clouded my judgement somewhat when I started to pick up so intense a set of emotions. When one feels a yearning that saps one&rsquo;s strength, one expects that this is to be fairytale-level pining. Love at first sight. Smitten by looks. Utterly taken with the ways in which one speaks.</p>
+<p>But no, when I first met Kay, I had made a mental note that she was a conventionally attractive coyote, no-nonsense and to the point, a fastidious dresser, and almost frighteningly competent. I read in her some of the same facets of autism that I see within myself, and I suspect much of her quiet efficiency stemmed from the fact that she, like me, often found herself feeling insufferable. It has taken me training and practice to soften my voice, to understand expressions, postures, and the vocal tics that make up people. I feel myself to be an empathetic person, a fact which drove me first to seminary and then to psychology, but to actually connect that with those around me on an individual basis took effort.</p>
+<p>I freely admit that the ILL office was not necessarily the type of place where one focuses on exemplary customer service, but still, this did not seem to be something that Kay was interested in in the slightest. She was there to do her job, do it quickly, and do it well. After a few visits picking up and returning books, I decided that I would try to befriend her and find out how much we had in common.</p>
+<p>Was this some early expression of my feelings toward her? I do not know. I do not remember feeling in any way romantic toward her at the time, yet for me to deliberately seek friendship from someone was not a thing that I might otherwise have done. I do remember thinking at the time that had I asked her to talk over a coffee would have carried such connotations, so instead, the next time I had an order of books to pick up, I simply asked her major.</p>
+<p>For some reason, I remember that she had been in the middle of typing something when I had asked, claws clicking on the keys, and that she had stopped and blinked rapidly at the screen, and I imagined thoughts crunching into gear within her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Music,&rdquo; she had said. &ldquo;Music composition, actually. Why do you ask?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I shrugged. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I just always seem to wind up talking with you here, so I was wondering. You don&rsquo;t seem like one of the salaried employees.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Her smile was wry as she replied, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not, no.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I don&rsquo;t remember if we talked about anything else that day, and there were not any stand-out conversations over the next however many times I saw her in the office, though we soon started talking every time I came by and the few times I saw her in passing both in the library and on campus. At some point, we simply&hellip;became friends. I do not know whether we would have done so without me having acted with the intent to do so. Perhaps we would have. I do not remember thinking about intent-of-friendship much after that first conversation, so perhaps all it took was that opening question.</p>
+<p>We slid effortlessly into a routine of Friday lunches. I went to a few concerts with her, though she knew far more about the music being played than I and I often felt in over my head as we listened to the instrumentalists on stage. I was surprised to find on the first concert that she wore earplugs throughout. I did not find the music to be too loud, but she explained to me that it kept her from getting overwhelmed.</p>
+<p>Finally, I had the chance to attend her senior recital, where several other students from the various departments performed a few short compositions of hers. The music was cerebral and, to my ears, dissonant, but it was as fastidious as her in a way that I cannot explain. I applauded heartily and after the show we hugged and she invited me out to drinks with her family, who all proved quite friendly and much like her. Thinking back, I suspect that must have made quite the sight: four coyotes sitting around a table at a fairly nice restaurant, speaking in essays to expound on whatever thesis has come into their heads.</p>
+<p>Spending time with other autistic folks was not a strange occurrence to me, as I had known a few in seminary and had of course met several in my training, but for some reason, that night was the first time I could say that I felt comfortable in that portion of my identity. I felt at home with others, and, strange as it seems to say, rather like a member of their family.</p>
+<p>My lunch break is nearing its end, out here in the liminal lot, so I should probably hold off from writing any more, but I should note before I do that it <em>is</em> interesting that much of what I describe here in retrospect bespeaks an early attraction that I had not at the time attributed to budding romance or anything like that. Perhaps it was, in the end.</p>
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                 <p>Page generated on 2021-01-17</p>