More than spit & lips
I walked home from Inman Park tonight.
I had a date.
The walk was light and cool, as the Atlanta air sometimes is in early spring.
I walked the beltline to the Stone Mountain Trail, to N. Highland, and made my way on to downtown.
The lips of the men I’ve kissed, I think.
I didn’t kiss anyone today though.
I just walked.
No one tells you how to do all this.
All this adult living.
This being single.
All this life—
after love.
When you’re just 5 and on the swing set nestled next to the cow pasture in the farmland of North Georgia—
you don’t know how life comes at you through the teeth.
It’s just fun dip and hotdogs grilling on the little league field (also next to the cow pasture).
And ice cream sandwiches at the Circle 5 gas station. The one with the biscuits in the morning. The good kind. The kind someone’s grandmama made every day and then put a piece of tenderloin on with some cheese.
Daddy taught me that order. He’d get the same with his black coffee before we’d go off to the neighborhoods under construction. To his Saturday jobs.
The cow pasture.
The cow pasture that’s now a Kroger. A Kroger that houses the Las Palmas Mexican Restaurant.
No one tells you how the world will change on you.
How it won’t always be chicken coops and the hog farm smell when the wind blows right.
How they’ll clear cut the 100 acres behind the house.
How everything’s suddenly so different—
No one tells you anything about any of it.
I expect that’s because they don’t much know themselves.
We’re all just making it up as we go along.
We’re just dancin’.
Just Two-Steppin’.
Just, slow, slow. quick-quick. slow, slow...
Just keepin’ time.
Then the beat changes,
and the partner moves on,
but you’re still dancin’.
And so it goes.
Back to the lips—
It seems love is the taste and feel of spit.
Perhaps from behind the curtain in the basement of BJ Roosters,
or the front seat of the car when you drop him at his apartment,
or the last time you were happy with each other—
if you can even remember when that was.
The touch and caress of lip to lip.
That connection.
It’s still cool tonight.
Too cool for the plants to grow, which I am desperate for. My balcony is a wasteland.
(And I hate that lol)
But still, the world is moving.
Things change.
And life whirls forward into the next season.
My phone buzzes as I cross the street. It’s a text.
“I had a lot of fun tonight,” it reads.
"Me too :)," I reply. (15 minutes later. That’s important with these men.)
(Eye roll and chuckle)
I call M.
“Helloooooo,” she answers.
“I’m walking back from Inman,” I tell her.
“That’s a hike,” she says, “but then we run that all the time.”
“Exactly,” I smile. “It’s a nice night. I thought we’d have a glass of wine.”
“Ooooo and we can sit on your balcony! I’ll be right over,” she says.
“Perfect! I’ll be home by the time it takes you to drive the mile between us,” I say.
“See you shortly!” She hangs up.
A quarter of an hour later we’re sipping wine over a quiet downtown Atlanta.
“You know?” I ask.
“What?” she says sipping her Sauvi B (Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand—our favorite).
“You remember that time that Susannah asked you: When is Atlanta going to feel like Chicago or New York? I mean, when is it going to feel like that here?”
“Yeah, I remember,” M nods taking another sip.
“Well, I’m glad that it doesn’t feel like that yet,” I answer taking a sip myself.
“Why?” she asks looking out over the city. The cool wind blowing the early spring air.
“Because— I dunno. I just think how lucky we are to be here. You know Atlanta is like— well, it’s like we’ve found our favorite restaurant. The one that nobody really knows about yet. And we can go on a Tuesday or Friday or a Sunday or whenever. And it’s just our little place because no one else has found her. But she’s not always gonna be like that.”
M nods her head.
And the wind blows.
And two friends drink wine in the cool of spring, somewhere between the downtown streets and the world’s busiest airspace, on an idle Tuesday—after a date.