And then we're gonna go out and roam across the field

A diary entry

I am spent and a stranger enters my room. I am surprised he cannot sense the tension in the air, the anxiety I have been breathing in and out the whole evening. The air is stifling. Me and my drawings and an empty bottle of wine and he enters oblivious to all this and instantly expresses his amazement at the room he's in and my drawings spread around me. His words pierces through the dense air and creates a space where I can breath. Because he has no idea of the storm inside me, so I see me through his eyes and the storm slowly subsides. I feel relief, almost from the very first sight of him, like here's something solid in his 70s coat and keen candid interest pointing with his long arms and asking about things, stealing my attention away from myself. I am smiling suddenly and can feel the pain inside, like a shy cat, crawling up into a little ball, taking a rest. Purring. And I neglect my work and join them in the kitchen with booze and music. He closed his eyes and shook his head in a strange way when he entered and saw me, like reality was shifting for a second. He overwhelms me with compliments of my work, and I feel my pride and passion crawling up from under the piles of useless drawings, blinking, it's red eyes unused to the light of the day. He wants to see more of my work. Few ever asks. There is pure honesty from the very first second between us, words unleashed without thinking, and a friendship growing between our blue eyes. Honesty like one can only give to strangers, we don't need to hold back. So we don't. I hang my restless gaze on his clothes, his manners, his accent, his way of moving and smoking and I assume he is gay. And I pour it all out, during the next couple of hours I tell him almost everything. Not holding back, like a thunderstorm I grab him and pull him into my life without even asking first. I drag this stranger into the turmoil and craziness that is my mind but he sits still, eyes barely blinking, and listens and talks to me through the night. Helps me get through the night with his insights and compliments, insights that are crystal clear and sparkling. There's a depth of understanding in him that shocks me and makes me humble. I had wanted to leave this town all evening, the cat inside of me wanting to leap out and run and be gone, but a second after he's in my life, blocking my escape. Building me up again with his words and wisdom and praise, like colorful lego parts we stack on each other throughout the dark hours of the night. And there between us, in the wee hours of the morning, is a colorful castle that only we can see. When the morning comes and before he heads out to walk home along the beach, we hug hard. Like two friends who have been away from each other for a lifetime and finally meet again. 

I hold him under the arm and skip to catch up with his long strides when we walk places. His gestures and strides quick and erratic and his vintage suits and woolen clothes are like from a 1940s sepia movie. I feel home and proud next to this funny well-dressed man. We comment on the world and make up stories about everything and I cannot contain my laugh as soon as I see him or hear his voice on the phone. We laugh our guts out. We are both clumsy and walk into things and drop things and hurt ourselves in shops and cafés. But we just laugh. We look at clothes together and know what suits the other one. He helps me steal and carry things back to my home during our drunken escapades and we're up talking till all the pubs close and until they open again. We defy the night until we can barely stand up out of exhaustion. He says you are completely mad and shakes his head. We sit in cafés, pubs, walk the streets, talk and talk and he heals me with his wisdom and friendship, he saves me. From my eternal thinking, from being trapped in my mind. He lured me out if it from the very first second. Wouldn't let me hide or be quiet. He will not let the anxiety cat take over, but forces it to eat cupcakes and fresh air and new music and his funny laughter. Chuckles, like the sound of water under a boat on a summer's day. And I heal him, the wounds that are beyond his smiling exterior and many jokes, and I prod and ask and he tells me. I'd listen for eternity. The world makes sense again. Things fall into place, were there was an empty gaping hole before. It's a new unexpected shape. Life has surprised me for once. He's a clumsy angel in a tweed suit falling down from the sky, ending up in a heap in front of me on the road I thought I was heading down. Being in my way in the best way that he can. Just when I needed it the most. And some kind of healing has begun.