Wide Open Spaces

We dragged our bikes up the hill, peaked over the top, and as if we had been twirled upside-down, saw the city below us like it was the galaxy our telescopes could never find.

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It has to be the best feeling in the world when you fall in love with someone when they’re in front of a wide-open space, like a skyline or vast ocean or a mossy green forest. When you’re on the beach their naked feet are sunken into the millions of grains of sand shifting through their toes. They’re just one grain of sand, and your whole world sits in the crook of their smile. The beauty that surrounds them gets tangled up in the salty wind of their hair and nothing else exists except for that moment and that frame of existence, a raw negative exposed positive. There are so many places to travel but your country and your language is spoken in the rhythm of their body against the sea waves. 

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It was the most complicated simplicity. You.

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The first wide-open space I ever saw you stand in front of was our 2^nd grade chalkboard. The white chalk puffed dust in front of your face, and you would occasionally make a swish movement with your hand to push it away. Sometimes though when you did that you accidentally touched your nose and got a little chalk residue on the tip of the illuminated peach fuzz. You were drawing a picture of a character from the book Mrs. J had just read aloud to us. You drew a little girl with big shoes and pin-straight hair with bangs. You seemed to turn around in slow motion when you finally finished the details, and I watched as your hair swung slowly around your shoulders and you looked pleased with yourself as you walked gracefully back to your seat. That was the first time. The whole rest of the classroom disappeared and the teacher’s comments didn’t exist, the only sound was my little boy heartbeat matching up with the scrawling beat of your chalk scratching the surface of the tall green board.

The second wide-open space I ever saw you stand in front of was your backyard tree house. We were in 5^th grade and you invited me over to play. Our mom’s exchanged hellos for the first time and nice to meet yous too. By the time my mom walked out of the front door you had already moved toward your back window and your silhouette was black against the bright exposure of the outside light. Your tree house stood tall and majestic, representing my feelings at the time of seeing you stand there. I couldn’t see your face from the distance, only the way your hair was lit up from beyond the window frame and the way the sunlight hit the few stray frizzy pieces at the top. I knew then and there that day that I should have kissed you up in that tree house. There was nothing more romantic then the way the ladder swung beneath us creaking against the old bark of the Oak tree and the way you looked at me when you asked me if you should go get your radio so it wasn’t so quiet.

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I continued to fall in love with you in front of wide-open spaces as the years passed and we grew from 8-year-olds to 18-year-olds. Getting up the courage to ask you to prom was just as much courage as it took to ask you to marry me. I planned to ask you in a song I had written for you on the guitar, but one day when we were standing on the marina’s pier and I saw you with your feet dangling above the ocean I didn’t have my guitar, and couldn’t stop myself from asking you right then and there to the dance I was so terrified of going to. As you said yes a Seagull yelled as it flew overhead, applauding me on my approval and the goofy smile that spread from shore to shore. I think I felt a pat on the back from whatever sort of fate had allowed the word yes to escape from your mouth.

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I remember how we saw a rerun of Roman Holiday at midnight in the theater down the street. I remember the way the red velvet seat bounced slightly as I pretended to yawn just to lift my arm around your shoulder.

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The first time we held hands was when we went to see that concert your friend gave us tickets to. I kept that ticket in my pocket for so long their band name wore off from the many times it rubbed against the inside pocket of my jeans. I thought it was my good luck charm, I could feel it inside the cotton lining just as I could feel your hand bumping mine until your pinky rested against the crevice of my finger, then turned slightly so your small perfection fit into my big mess. It was a wide open space in a small closed space, but I could only feel your hand and that consumed every emotion I had and I didn’t even care that the band was bad because you made them sing the most beautiful harmony. We stayed like that for a while, awkward and quiet, until a slow song came on and they sang about falling in love and you moved your hand around in mine a little bit and that was my most favorite memory of all.

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You told me you had been in love with me ever since you saw me swinging alone on the swings during recess one day in 3^rd grade. You said you remembered me watching you from my seat in the 2^nd grade, but you always thought I was kind of weird and there was a possibility of cooties, or so your friends told you. But now we were in a wide-open space in a giant field with golden grass and you were wearing a dress with wildflowers and your hand was only touching mine enough to make it tickle whenever you flinched. You laughed at my stupid jokes and looked down blushing into the grass as you twiddled it nervously between your right-hand fingers. Looking at you while you were looking at something abstract made me love you even more. We could feel the same because I was looking at something beautiful and so were you. I told you I had been in love with you since the 2^nd grade and you learned addition. I said I learned that our two hearts made one whole.

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We rode our bikes down the hill, putting our feet forward and our hands gripping the breaks as we smiled and laughed that same smile and laugh that you get when you fall in love with a person in front of a wide-open space.

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