I'm going to try and revive the "songbook" here and there, with songs that crop up on my mix CDs (or in the case of some of them, crop up and crop up and crop up...I must've went through a phase when Travis' "Sing" was my favorite song, judging how many times it crops up, usually at the beginning).
Anyway, this was something that I got off a mix CD from a friend I'd made online, at a forum devoted to The Office. Swapping music is perhaps the most fun and/or disarming thing to do for someone, because it's saying "this is me, based on my record collection." And once upon a time, I'd be wary of anyone who had James Taylor in his or her record collection.
But the song itself, like much of Taylor's work, is deceptively simple, and it's a great example of the "I'm not really good with emotions" genre of literature, something that has been the cornerstone of Nick Hornby novels and so forth. Romantic longing in men is sometimes trvialized in pop culture, because women assume quite rightly that often times the heart we're thinking with is in our pants, but guys do have feelings. We just sometimes can't communicate good, and junk.
I have been guilty as much as any modern man in letting good things slip away, or trying too hard and running people off. And I don't just mean romantic possibilities; many former friends probably cringe when I crop up on their Facebook feed simply because I updated my status with a "witty" saying or decided to "like" yet another Walker Percy novel. I get it, I can be intense and needy and eager to please and about as annoying as a yapping dog at your heels if you don't pay attention, then wonder why you're mean to me. It is my curse.
But sometimes, you have moments of perfect clarity, and I had one about a year ago today. I was at work waiting to use the restroom, and a girl that I'd known since I started there, a girl that I'd admittedly had a crush on without thinking anything could come of it (because she was devestatingly attractive and therefore dating someone when I met her), was petting the dog of a mutual co-worker. I don't remember our conversation much, it wasn't anything memorable, but I knew that, at that very moment in time, there was nowhere else I'd rather be. And the beautiful part of it was that all the anxiety, all the trying hard that I normally do, that didn't crop up at all. I was just there, watching a beautiful girl pet a dog, and I was set.
I don't know if there's a future there with that particular girl (a lot has happened since then), but I'm working on it. And if it doesn't come to pass, there's always the opportunity of someone else, even if I'm not yet ready for that. The thing I've learned this year, what with Jeopardy and everything else, is that as long as you're still trying, you might have a chance to do something really awesome, to have a positive impact on someone who might have never known you existed otherwise. That's a pretty good thing to know, and keep within sight, when all the crap of the world intrudes on those perfect little moments.
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