Spring Awakening
It was nearing midday. My eyes are focused on the road but my body was on autopilot. My mind was elsewhere, the way it increasingly had been these past couple weeks, on you. I take my eyes off the road and look down for a second just to confirm my suspicions. My hands are shaking. Why? I shouldn't have these kinds of nerves going on a date. Especially a third date, but there is just something about you that I can't put my finger on. Surprisingly, I find myself smiling while I look at my trembling knuckles. I resume my gaze on the pavement ahead, I'm almost there. I pull up to your house and put the car in park. One final deep breath and I grab what's in the passenger seat and get out. Focusing too much on whether the wrinkles are all pressed out of my clothes, whether my breath smells good enough, whether my hair is messy and I almost trip over the curb out front. I shake it off and continue my trek up the lawn. I'm late.
I get up to the front door and find myself stuck in my head. Do I ring the doorbell? Should I knock? How many times? Do I say Hi first? STOP! I shut out my nervous thoughts and just knock on the heavy mahogany door. No response. Did I not knock loudly enough? I knock again. Again, no noise from inside the house. I raise my nervously shaking fist to knock a third time and-
"Sorry about that!" I hear the cheeriest voice say from my right side.
I lean back from the door and see you coming around from the right side of the house. Stepping out to start walking toward you and looked back down at my once trembling hand. Steady as stone. One look from you was all it took to rid my body of every loose nerve that I had. Left hand behind my back, I walk over to you. You couldn't have been more then ten feet away but the entire distance I walked felt like it was in slow motion. You looked stunning. Every time I had seen you until now you looked equally great, but it still wasn't something I had grown accustomed to yet.
On your feet are a simple pair of rawhide leather sandals, showing off your freshly painted toenails. They are orange, which made me smirk for reasons still unknown to you. Your toes are cute, not a surprise given that all of you matched suit. You're wearing a flowing white sundress with little yellow flowers all over it. The wind blew it almost constantly, but never with enough strength to cease the use of my limitless imagination. For a moment you were still wearing your large brown sun hat that you had said you always wore when you did your gardening, but you removed it and let free a beautiful wave of hickory colored hair. Of all the alluring attributes about you I have to currently feast my eyes upon, this is the detail that takes my breath away. Thankfully it seems that you don't notice my staring.
"I figured you are running a little late, so I figured I would take the opportunity to water my garden." You say without the smallest hint of anger or aggravation in your voice. Always so understanding.
"Yeah, just a little bit. It was really the florist who-"
"The florist?" You interject.
"Oh. Right, yeah." I say, almost forgetting.
"These are for you." I say, pulling my left hand from behind my back to reveal your gift, a bouquet of bright orange flowers.
"I got you Tiger Lilies, I hope lik-"
"They're beautiful, I love them!" you add, completing the thought I had hoped you were having.
"Let me just put them in some water and put my hat back inside the house and I'm all yours." You say with a smile.
You come to pass me to tend to your current deeds but not before planting an appreciative and unexpected kiss on my lips. Fireworks. Every time we kiss it's like my heart had forgotten how to beat and your lips were the electricity that jolts it back to life. What may have only been a quick kiss seems like it could have taken hours, and I would have let it gladly. To the disheartenment of my lips, you release yours and head inside temporarily. That kiss. If it were a currency, I would consider myself to be the richest man in the world at this moment. All yours. Those words resounded like church bells inside of my head. In all the universe, there was nothing that mattered to me more than those words and that kiss.
Jerked back to reality, I realize that my daydream must have lasted longer than I expected as I felt you back at my side again, taking my hand in yours.
"Are you ok?" You ask, noticing that I haven't moved and inch from the spot we kissed in the time that it had taken you to put a hat away and put your new flowers on display in your house.
"I am now" I said, letting out a little laugh as I realized the same thing.
"Well let's go then! Where is our adventure going to begin today?"
"I thought we could start with a nice walk through the park." I say "Its going to be a nice day and the flowering are finally blooming after that harsh winter we had."
"Well it is the perfect Spring day for it!" You say, smiling again. Always smiling, and I can never get enough.
We walk a couple blocks from your house to a nearby park with a nice walking path and colorful garden beds that I know you enjoy. As we walk, we make simple and nonsense conversation about nothing in particular. I realize in this moment or any other that there is nothing I would rather be doing and nobody I would rather be doing things with than being right here with you right now. It also serves the double purpose that every time I answer a question, I get yet another excuse to simply look at you. I get the chance to drink in your beauty, your figure, your wondrously deep eyes. I get to be enveloped by that intoxicating scent, a perfume yet unknown to me but quickly becoming one of my favorite smells.
Before I know it, we make it to the park. It seems to be mildly busy but not as crowded as it should be for how nice a day it is, to our benefit. We make our way down one of the smiling paths, taking in how much effort and time has been put into making this park so exquisite. For what seems like the first time on our little adventure, I reluctantly pry my eyes away from you and really take in how nice this park and this day really is. I notice the bright colors of the flowers in bloom. The quiet hum of bees pollinating. The delicate chirp of birds on the wind. How this picturesque scenery is perfectly illuminated by the bright springtime sum. I wonder how in the midst of all of this I hadn't taken in all this charming scenery before. I look back to you and realize the answer to my question.
Almost as though fated to do so, we look at each other at the same time, locking eyes. As soon as our eyes meet, I realize why this day has been so lost on me. Nothing is taken away from this moment, but the addition of you to it makes the rest of the world just a bit less brilliant. The flowers are somehow less magnificent than the person I see in your eyes. The sun is somehow less bright than the radiance emanating from you. I honestly can't tell if everything else is just a fraction less of itself with you around or if you are simply a fraction more. This time we are both smiling wide, and I tell myself there isn't a possession I own that I wouldn't give for just a glance at what you are thinking. Again, whether by mind-reading or fate or some other unknown force, I quickly get my answer.