I went to the park this evening. Sitting in a chilly office all day looking out at a perfectly blue sky has made me envy the unemployed, and I felt that I should try to profit from some of the sun instead of just whining about it. So I took my bike and my book and my backpack to the city park, and I found a spot that would offer anther hour or two of waning sunlight. These are the kind of summer days when even these dying rays are warm enough to feed your skin with energy and warmth.
As usual I was alone. This was one of the things I thought about. I am not a very lonely person, and I certainly have no problem socialising or meeting people. To my own surprise, a fantastic group of the worlds most beautiful people gathered in my back yard last saturday for my moving in-party
((I use parenthesis the way you teach me) and there and then I thought of the TAW song where he sings "It's summer here, with the worlds most beautiful people", a very true summer feeling I recognise(and thinking of Tomas of course made me think of you))and this alone could stand as some sort of proof that I have no real trouble making friends. But somehow, and this is what I thought of tonight, as I have many times, somehow I still manage to spend most of my time alone. Days and nights go by, and I can hear of others in short glimpses of another kind of life, where there's always a group of people going out for beer, having a barbecue, playing freesbee. I have seen people from around me mix while I stand here on the sideline, waiting and watching.
And I really don't want to make out as if I'm complaning, but I really wonder what it is that I'm not doing, or doing wrong. This is one of those things that make me claim that I have my fair share of social handicaps. There are these things about group socialising that I just don't get. These instinctive flock behaviours that everybody seem to go through with the ease of a water slide, I feel like the only penguin left on the ice. When did everybody else slide in?
Because that's the thing. I have no special preference for this solitude. Sure, I like a fair amount of time on my own, and I have quite a few hobbies to keep me busy, but a lot of times I wouldn't mind going to the park for kubb or whatever.
And let me also add that, sure, maybe I can be little stand-offish. And lazy. So, it's not as if nobody invites me anywhere. That's not it. It's the nuance of never have been apart of a group, never having flown with a flock.
Just a long, brooding thought. Thinking it took a lot shorter than writing it down.
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And then I thought a longer thought. And this thought was, as I was looking around at all these groups and couples, summer dressed and happy, and having assessed myself as being the only loner
(and again, I don't want to complain, all I wanted to do was to soak up some sun and read my great book), this next thought I thought was of you. I thought of what I might want more, and I looked at the couple on the next blanket and I really really wanted you, just you, to be there. You wouldn't have to say anything or do anything, I would just have loved to lie with you inches away on a blanket, reading.
This was a long and floating thought.
I thought it as I was sitting, stealing glances at the happy couple next to me
(it seems these days, just about any girl I see, all she does is remind me of you).I thought it as I lay on my back, thinking how the little stringy clouds high above looked the same as still photographs of thin powdered snow being blown into snaky patterns on the asphalt behind timber trucks.
I thought of it as I wondered where I would take you if we got up north this summer.
I thought of it as I fiddled with my remaining dreadlocks
(I haven't told you yet, but I finally cut them. Now, there's only a tuft of them left, hare-krishna style, on my head).I thought of you, and then I thought I'd write this open letter to you.
Hope you read it
Hope you like it
