A girl I knew

One girl and her intersection with my life.

Bella. Beauty. It’s been a long journey you and I.  Or was it just I who wandered, wondering who or what the girl beside me was? You changed me, taught me, trained me, met me. We’ve danced a thousand dances, talked a thousand different times. I’ve poured out my heart and you have poured out yours. All in my mind.

 

I do not remember the first time we met. I am told we were often in the same places as children, I am told that we met long before, but the first time I noticed her I was thirteen and a patron in her mother’s restaurant where she, the same age as I, was a waitress. She came and smiled at me as we took our orders, and I felt very grown up. There was a sense between us. Mama had her bemused boy-with-cute-girl smile so that I could not help but be aware.

 

The first time she came to dance I wanted to dance with her and didn't have the courage. I was in the habit then of sitting cross-legged with people and holding their hair, then. I did so with her, hands cradling her long dark red-brown curly locks. Others had always thanked me, or at least acknowledged the healing I had done, hands cradling head, love flowing freely in. Bella simply got up and moved, then left without a word to me.

 

She didn't come regularly, yet enough that I began to obsess. Everything about her said yes, dance with me, but she never met my eyes. To me we were the perfect match. No one else our age came to dance. I adored her, yet I, too shy, would never say a word.

 

Images. A dance workshop, the teacher is calling dancers by age. We are left alone in the center of the hall, surrounded by 50 elders around the edge. I don't seek to engage her here, each simply dancing our own dance, yet I have been watching her dance so often that my movements have begun to mirror hers. She turns, I turn. She shakes, I shake. Our eyes never meet.

 

Images. We’re both at a costumed birthday party. She wears a white dress. I wear a black mask. I am the first on the dance floor, she is one of the last. Flanked by two girlfriends on either side she is a force in of herself. The dancers part where she walks while I circle edges looking for a way in.

 

Images. She comes to a game of fugitive. Runners get a five minute head start to get across town without getting caught. Drivers circle and send runners out to catch. As we wait for the game to begin I watch her - surrounded by girlfriends - whimsical. She hums a note, dances a step - foot tracing a circle on the cement. Then she’ll look up, a bemused smile on her face. As we run, I join her group. It’s the only time I’ve ever gotten caught.

 

When I begin community college I am surprised to see her in both of my classes - Botany and English. She draws botany mandalas in class, and her laughter fills the room. We finally do exchange a few words. I remember her leaning against a door. Cool, calm, collected - suddenly someone opens it and she falls, shrieking in surprise. Then laughs, loud, like bells ringing.

 

She still won’t dance, but I see her enough I know she notices me too. After dance one day she’s standing at the altar, back turned to me. I walk up to her. “Bella” I like to say her name. She turns, my courage vanishes. I try to speak but cannot. There is silence for a moment. She laughs.

 

“There goes courage” I murmur and smile. This gives me enough to speak. “I was wondering if - maybe you’d like to come over for tea or a walk or somesuch?”

“Let’s go outside. I can’t think in here”

We make a date . She’s terribly impressed by my day planner and laughs and laughs. We’re to walk next week.

 

We meet and walk in the hills. I learn that her passion is herbal medicine and she’s looking for a mentor. That the first philosopher she ever read was Heidegger, and that she learned it makes most sense when sung. She tells me about a year spent on her own in Portugal - to test her  capacity, and how sometimes her mind flips to Portuguese of it’s own accord. I enjoy it, I think so does she - but we never set another date. I never get a chance to ask her why she doesn’t dance.

 

In class every week we give each other our papers to edit. Few people give me theirs to edit twice. In a three way switch Isabelle gets mine. Afterward I go over to clarify some notes. I tell her I like her editing style and wonder if we could set up a paper switch outside of class? She agrees. I give her my next paper, she never gives me hers. It’s such a hassle we never do it again.

 

Images. I’m normally early to class but today I’m late. Printer problems. I charge down the hill full speed and turn the corner to see Isabelle jumping out of her ride’s car and hurtling towards the building. We see each other. She laughs. I grin. I hold the door open for her and we run to class together

 

Images. I’m at a Michael Meade lecture. Bella and I are the only teens I can see. Michael is reading a Rumi poem with a funny punch line. We all laugh. “That was so good I’m going to read it again.” He announces. This time a few chuckles. Bella bursts into peals of laughter, obviously getting it for the first time.

 

Images. Class one day she comes in dressed in dirty overalls and rubber boots. Dark red hair pulled back into a curly ponytail. She looks awful, and I feel something break inside - the part that wants to think she’s perfect. I force myself to look at her.  Relishing the pain. I want to memorize this moment.

 

Most of the time I did not want anything of Bella. I wanted to dance with her. To explore how our dance would grow, stretched by the other. I wanted to be friends. In odd moments I would fall in love with her, but only for a moment, gone the next. I wanted to understand her. Figure out why she refused to meet my eyes, even when I knew she knew. I wanted to ask, yet somehow asking would have destroyed the game between us.

 

A boy my age started coming. She danced with him. His girlfriend came. I watched the dynamic with interest. She went off to Brazil for half a year then returned. She got a boyfriend - an acrobat. I tried to stay out of their way. I got a girlfriend across the seas. My interest in her burned more towards friends.

 

Bella. Beauty. It’s been a long journey you and I. I have loved you for your bright spirit. Hated you for the narcissism that masks it. I have learned so much of how not caring fosters passion, and the game of I-can’t-see-you. Thank you. I will always remember.