In the retail store before it opens I'm mulling over that Death Cab album, Narrow Stairs. I'm arranging the mannequins this way and that--ensuring the cuff of each button down is rolled just so or the cardigan sleeves pinned to the back pockets of the jeans. Everything must look casual and natural.
There is one fitting room with a seat in it. White picket-ish walls like a New England beach house and a mirror that runs floor to ceiling and a dark stained wooden bench facing it. And I sit there at seven a.m. and look at myself in that giant mirror and consider my costume--the look normal. My hair straightened, neat, pinned away from my face. Classic. Casual. Natural. Thinking about that song "You Can Do Better Than Me." This coming apart stuff.
What does it really mean to be seduced by self contemplation in the midst of an arena geared towards over priced self definition? And does it mean anything when I crouch down in the Mens' One Room between the two floor to ceiling mirrors which face one another and try to look into the great infinite? Kneeling there in the midst of infinite reflections considering myself in a place designed to put down self-reflection for the sake of selling high end clothes that will solve all this pesky "WHO AM I" business.
And suddenly I remember. Standing there in the carefully crafted atmosphere, overwhelmed by the "fierce" cologne and "destroyed" khaki cargo shorts. I remember. Walking down a gravel road past the field hockey field approaching the stables and pastures holding hands by the fingertips and he said, "I just want to take you somewhere."
And I said, "Where?"
"I don't know. Like somewhere far away. Like the Far East. I want to take you to the Far East and we can get into some serious meditation and learn that the universe is just a bunch of junk."
"Junk?"
"Yeah, a bunch of junk between us and seeing the reflection of ourselves that the universe truly is."
"So you want to take me on a trip, huh?"
Then we walked around behind the stables and kissed with our eyes open.
