"A year after the first last date" an anniversary & other musings
On the first of many years as beloved art. Let us revisit.
There are things about life that I do not remember now. I hope they stay forgotten.
A year ago, I wrote a piece called “When did love become a paint and sip?”, an only slightly dramatized retelling of my first date with the man you all have come to know as B. I call it a piece because it was far too early then to call it a love letter. A love letter to a man after a first date would be criminally insane and for all of my misgivings, I try to keep a touch of sanity in my purse pocket for a rainy day. Words have served me well when emotions were too big, too messy, too consequential. I was so damn tired of the heartbreak I brought to myself being hopeful and then being mishandled.
But I said yes to dinner plans with a familiar face, a friend of a friend. Sunday. 7 pm. Bar Margot. Atlanta, Georgia. We had 24 hours in the same city. And he felt like someone I’d known much longer, not hours but years. So when he asked me how my dating life was going, I was honest without agenda. There was an easy metaphor that came up over dinner, of being art and no one caring to see it, to color on canvas with me and to also stay. It was an honesty I hadn’t even heard from myself before. It leapt up and brought tears to my eyes. And quiet shame. I vaguely remember that girl now but she was my everything once.
It’s been a year since and I have learned so much about myself through the loving lens of another person. I’ve learned that I’m as fragile as I think I am. That it’s okay to be that, to be loved like a Faberge egg or a whipped meringue.
Come back in time with me, to the moment that I knew I’d found the person to share my glass heart with…
“When did love become a paint & sip?” poetry & other musings
It is the first Sunday of February and I am early to the Four Seasons Atlanta. “What a perfect place for a date,” I thought to myself as I valet my truck and walk up, up, up the stairs toward Bar Margot. The sun is setting behind me and I wished I could stop to take a selfie without looking pretentious. I take a quick glance at my reflection before proceeding to the host stand. I was glad I’d buttered my legs for the occasion. All this thigh I’ve got but rarely show is lightly covered by the hem of a navy blue and white cable knit dress. The W embroidered onto the left shoulder resembles the remnants of an Ivy League ex-lover’s closet. The kind of keepsake they miss in the breakup but are too proud to retrieve. My calf-length pointed-toe boots are a chocolate crocodile texture. I feel polished, but playful, like new money with old money friends. I am sitting in a cloud of ambered vanilla perfume and checking my phone in a low seat in the hall near the host, legs crossed so that they might be seen and appreciated, but only as a nod. From my periphery, I see a man walk past the host stand and down, down, down the hall toward me, toward the bathroom. He is not the someone I am waiting for, but I smile in his direction anyway.
He is just past my feet when he stops dramatically and turns around. It’s the sort of move I’m sure he thought was cute or interesting. He trains his eyes on me, still seated, and says “I just had to let you know how beautiful you look. What’s your name? You single?”.
“Thank you. I’m Courtnee. And I’m not.”
“In fact, there’s my guy.”
I move past the gentleman toward my date and hug him as he lands on the last stair. The two exchange a brief, light string of words, some sort of easing of tension and assurance of no intended disrespect. I smile and pretend not to notice the exchange as he and I walk to the stand to get seated. I also note to myself that I already want to hold his hand.
For it to be a first date, I feel strangely at ease with this man. Our banter is breezy and light and rich from the moment we sit down, both tucked into the same side of the U-shaped dark leather booth. Laughter bubbles up between us like La Croix, like hints of flavor, like static, like sparkling.
Our first round of drinks has been placed on the table, when we cheers to something new. We trade cocktails for tasting and I wish I’d ordered what he had when I note that he is watching me curiously. I do not remember what we are talking about, and yet I am retaining every detail. We are making decisions about meals and telling stories when the real inquiries start.
“So, how is dating going for you?” he returns the question to me.
A soft smile parts my lips as I recall an old hobby. I am about to take the long way round.
“You ever tried oil painting?” I ask, pulling the dewy coupe glass of mezcal and lemon from the wood on the table and up, up, up to my lips.
Glossed so he could see his reflection in them, maybe.
He gently shakes his head no and is curiously raising a brow. I catch my breath before speaking.
“I used to paint when I was younger. I had an eye for color, for lines, for texture. Not a steady hand but I had the hours.
Hours to correct. To sharpen lines. To blend and contour. To shape a vision.
I used acrylics. It’s all I knew was out there, really.
Colored pencils and acrylic paint and canvas and soon I’d have a tangible something. Something like art.
Late last year. I wanted to create again and so
I picked up oil painting. And I am… bad at it.
The color theory feels new.
The brushes feel stiff.
The paint will not thin out so easily.
I need a medium for blending.
I can correct mistakes with another coat of paint, but it takes days to dry.
And I watch people make beautiful things with their oil paints and wonder how long they got it wrong before right.
They look so happy. So vibrant. So colorful.
Making art with a new medium is so much harder than I thought it would be.
I am questing to create something beautiful.
But the paint isn’t drying.
It slinks off the canvas and onto me, into my hair, and the cuffs of my sleeves.
I am covered in slippery, oily colors.
Vibrant streaks that won’t wash off.
I am making art everywhere by accident.
Everywhere but the canvas.
And it makes me wonder,
If I am the only art here.”
“Damn”.
“Yeah.”
And we both let the sheer absurdity of this analogy sit between us. His face is frowned into an amused question mark, and I can feel the followup questions coming but I can not contain my laughter. What started as a small chuckle grew into shoulder-shaking, hot-eared laughter and I wondered quietly if I would have to explain to this man that I’m not drunk but I don’t know what good it would do. I laugh until I realize how unfunny it is. To want to share your art and not have anyone care to see it up close. Or to see it and stay. And when the tears began pooling at the corners of my eyes but did not drop, I hoped he didn’t think this was an unhealed heartbreak resurfacing. It wasn’t. I’m just tired. And sensitive. And wanting. And an optimist.
And with my left hand I am dabbing away tears. Trying to explain that I don’t generally cry on dinner dates unprompted. That I’m a sane person, and poetry got the better of me again. I am trying to reel my crazy back in for this man, who I’m so certain I’ve terrified.
My left hand is waving away pity and lightly blotting my eyes and gesturing that I’m okay, just fragile these days. The left is so busy explaining away the things I love most about myself… that I do not realize he is holding my right.