A spring that love remembers

I remember the plane.

I remember the plane and the people who sat around me and how the back of the seat was striped. I remember the gross food and the movie they showed and the way they gave out pretzels instead of peanuts like I assumed they would. I remember looking over and seeing the whiteness of a million clouds come together to form one cloud or perhaps the other way around but it didn’t matter really – this was Vancouver from 35,000 feet.

Through the clouds (though not able to see everything yet) and I remember peering over the people closest to the window and seeing the white of the wing and beyond that, the brown rock of mountains. We don’t have mountains in Ontario. This was Vancouver from 15,000 feet. And I remember seeing the tops of houses and tall buildings and cars that looked like the toys we had when we were kids. The little ones that had the commercials where the guy talked really fast. And I remember wondering where she was. Which tiny house was hers; which tiny little car was hers. And I remember thinking, as the mountains grew larger, that home was so far away.

And I remember seeing cows pass by when the plane’s wheels first touched the ground. Which was weird, because I was under the impression that planes tend to land in airports, and not on farms. For a moment I thought it was all a dream. That perhaps I’d wake up and find myself where I had always been. But then there was gray cold concrete and big glass windows and loud logos and I knew in the lump in my throat that I had arrived. This was Vancouver from the ground.

A million thoughts went racing through my mind. Every doubt, every worry, every exciting thought, and every dejecting thought – a cavalcade of good and bad, emotion after emotion and I just sat there as the plane slowly emptied. It was my turn now – my turn to stand, and mine to turn and walk off that plane. The thought entered into my mind that perhaps she was a forty-year-old man, or a psycho killer of some kind – the thought entered into my mind that she was as beautiful as I thought she was. The thought entered into my mind that she was nothing I had pictured.

It was brighter than I thought it would be as I exited the long tunnel to the terminal. I looked for her there, amongst the people gathered and waiting. I didn’t see her. My eyes adjusted to the new light, and I began to follow the herd of people from my flight. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going – my experience in airports is mostly limited to following other people who seem to know what they’re doing. And so I followed them down an escalator that wasn’t working, and I took bigger steps than I needed to because escalators usually move, when they work right. I guess you can’t expect them all to work perfectly.

There were signs to baggage. Signs to her? I wondered what the hell I was doing there. And the bags came down and spun around the little carousel and I always think airports should add music to the baggage claim areas. And who is the guy who gets his bag first? Have any of you ever been that guy? I hate that guy. I stood and I stood and I waited for my bag to come round the way and I scanned the faces of everyone there. And none of them were her. Again and again, none of them were her.

And then one was.

Her hair dark, and long. I noticed that first. And her eyes, and her face, and I immediately felt like I had been in her presence before. She yelled my name, a little too loud, I think, and she was in my arms and there was a lady standing near us who was staring way too much. We hugged, and hugged, and hugged again and her head was on my shoulder and so many things spun like the baggage claim carousel and there really should have been music.

I can’t for the life of me remember the first thing I said to her. It was probably something stupid; I didn’t care. You spend a year loving something intangible, worrying that you’re idealizing and kidding yourself and so many other things, and then you find out that your idealization is, in fact, real, and is pressed up against you and suddenly words don’t have quite the weight they usually do.

And I’m not sure how long we stood there, looking at each other in the middle of that baggage claim area. I just know it wasn’t long enough for my bag to come down. We stood there, close together, in front of the carousel and I remember feeling her hand touch mine – I remember exactly how it felt, and how her fingers threaded through mine.

The bag eventually came back to us, as all things do, and we walked outside, where the cold air felt so nice. It wasn’t raining that day, which is a rare thing for Vancouver, I’m told. We towed my bag along and worked out how exactly we were going to get over to my Hotel room. At this point her hand kept touching mine, which was sending shockwaves through me and yet my mind was still spinning – what was really happening, what she was thinking, where were we going?

We took a cab over to the Ramada Inn where I was staying. Our hands sat together in the middle of the back seat and explored each other. I was taken by the mountains, which are absolutely huge, and we talked idly about my flight and the things we past. I compared the city to Toronto and the cab driver, sensing a Torontonian, went on a bit of a rant about how great Vancouver was compared to Toronto. And then he talked about how many Starbucks there were, and how their coffee sucked. He followed that up by mentioning how he picks up people on crack sometimes. He was a nice guy, our cab driver. I really only remember the hands anyway.

We checked into the hotel. My heart was going to explode. I was surprised I wasn’t sweating. I had trouble working the elevator on our way up to floor four. It wasn’t so much worry that I’d mess things up as wonder that all this was happening after so many nights spent a country apart. I remember moving up with her, standing there in that elevator and she was so beautiful. And god, every time her hand touched mine…

We reached my room. The door clicked when I opened it with my key and we walked in. There was a balcony, over which we could see the high buildings of Vancouver, and beyond that mountains. I called my parents, who were incredibly worried – I told them that I had met her and that she wasn’t a crazy psycho killer and blah blah blah. We sat on the bed. She was close to me.

And then closer.

I don’t know exactly how it happened. I remember talking about things to do. I remember touching her arm and feeling my head swim. I remember staring at the ceiling and wondering if anyone could ever count all the white stucco bumps. And her hand near my face, and my lips near her hand. She laughed, I loved her laugh, and told me that that was the hand she had burned. Her body came closer and the world stopped and started and I could feel her breathing. I didn’t want it to stop. Her hair was so soft against my face. Her eyes so bright with mine.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” she told me then as I looked at her. My heart. She could feel my heart.

My lips touched hers as a million doubts and worries faded to nothing, and a year of distant nights melted away.

Matt