i_know_him now_now When I was fourteen, I met this beautiful girl. We met in a summer spent traipsing about Europe on tour, her mother was our conductor. She was older than I and though I'd often been told I was mature for my age, she made me feel like a child, enraptured. I did all I could to be near her. At the time I lied to myself, thinking I was bewitched because she was such an inspiring role model. She played guitar and sang while the rest of us, crammed on a bus, hating each other [touring is a tedious thing. while one gets to see many beautiful places and people, it's the indoor views that become an eyesore] were lulled into this pseudo_submission. I can still sing some of the songs she played. I could say they moved me, and that would be partly true, but mostly they did so because they were hers. My friends antagonized me because I wanted to spend all my time with this amazingly cool and confident girl. They didn't understand how I could become so enamored, and I couldn't explain it either. It was this magnetism. She was the epitome of cool. 17, tongue pierced, platinum hair impossibly short, baggy jeans and button down dress shirts. She was home from boarding school, having to attend after being kicked out of public and private school alike [I found out later that she had been in numerous fights over her very open attitude toward her sexuality, orientation and identification, but at the time, she was just that rebellious kind of cool]. One evening in Paris, just after a concert and just before sunset, we decided to storm the eiffel tower [or rather it stormed us, the rain came down in sluicing sheets]. On a whim she and I slipped away and, with a few other girls, went up the tower, as far as we could go [the very top was closed due to rain]. I found out later that everyone was looking for us. I got seriously punished and my friends were outraged that I had left them grounded... But for those brief shining moments, I had tremendous clarity of thought. Gripping the railing in the howling wind and blinding rain, seeing -in the distance- the parting of clouds and a sunset that would've found Stendhal on his back, I was honest and whole. There was a resonance that transcended language. A kinship. I watched her gently shut her eyes and sigh, rain trailing down her freckled face. She was so calm. Existing at this height; we two, alone together. She was beautiful and vulnerable. We had something in common, though it would take me years to admit what it might be and for a moment I could feel the lines of consciousness streaming between us. Rain clinging and rolling along psychological cables. It wasn't love, or even a child's crush, but rather the fulfilled need to seek out similarity. To find someone who resonated. To know someone else has these feelings that I couldn't name yet, and to address them with strength. It was a beating of the heart. This finite_infinite part of my brain, my body, my heart, my mind knew who I was before I did and tried to reach out. She was an incredible, strong, brave courageous young woman. And though she has changed into someone I have yet to meet, I know I'll like him, too. He is filled with strength of character and a fathomless courage. Some things will never change. So now, when I see him for the first time in eight years it will be the first time I truly see him. But even so, I know his heart. I know him. 080408 what's it to you? who go blather from