Misdirection

Originally Posted Saturday, March 1, 2014

People tell me the most incredible things, intimate things.  "I've never told anyone that before in my life," they'll say. I think that since they have shared this secret part of themselves we are now BFFs.  Sometimes I never hear from them again.  Sometimes we do become friends.  I imagine that the ones I lose contact with have a bit of remorse later and wonder why they said it.  They shouldn't feel that way, though.  The moment is beautiful.  It is important to share. 

I love people though I can't stand them as a crowd.  Some are attracted to crowds.  If I see three people standing together, I tend to move away.  I try to think of memorable things that have happened in crowds, meaningful things.  I can think of only one.  It was sometime long ago, maybe the late '80s.  I was in Reno, of all places, for an outdoor trade show.  My girlfriend was working for an outdoor company owned by friends of mine.  I had been going to these things for years.  This was, of course, the best of all possible crowds.  The zeitgeist was created by a crazy mix of daredevil hormones, beautiful bodies, relaxed, liberal attitudes, a love of the outdoors, a minimalist lifestyle, and a generally natural, healthy way of doing most things from eating to building companies.  For some, I guess, it would be miserable.  For me, it was Valhalla. 

One beautiful, crisp evening after a big picnic/barbecue for hundreds of people, there was a concert featuring Lyle Lovett and His Very Big Band.  The stars were just beginning to sparkle in a sky that got suspended in its transition somehow as it went from that lightest of blues to the deepest of purples. The sun seemed to have paused just below the horizon, reluctant to go, perhaps as enthralled by the thing before it as we all were.  There is nothing to tell, really.  It was just a feeling, an emotion that was shared like an electrical charge.  I have friends who have described their nights on ecstasy in clubs listening to music as a shared magic.  I don't know.  I only have this one thing, this one moment in a crowd that wasn't a crowd but something else. 

This is not a story or a post or a confession.  It is nothing at all, really.  I think I diverted from where I intended to go, warned, perhaps, by some inner voice.  This was not suppose to be about crowds but about people sharing intimate things.  It happened last night once again, and it was thrilling to be told and disturbing, too, for what people tell are not the happy nothings but moments of consequence, the things that the Dr. Phils of the world prey upon to make their living.  Emotions become messy residues that are hard to wash away.  They always leave a stain.

Too vague, too vague.  This is not what I tried to say at all.  Not in the least.