Nick
The sunrise alone made this expedition worth it.
I press the viewfinder to my right eye, closing the left so I can focus on the picture filling my nine-by-nine grid.
Then, I wait. That’s when you capture the magic.
Some may think photography is about being the fastest to capture the image, but the best work is born out of patience.
Time slows as I hone my attention on whatever fills the tiny square of my vision.
There it is.
Or rather, there she is.
As if God posed her Himself, she stands perfectly framed in the frosted glass.
The icy vignette splinters, then dissolves just as she enters the frame.
Her blonde hair is piled on the top of her head in a tousled bun.
Steam rises from the mug she cups with both hands, long, copper-toned fingers overlapping each other.
The best part? Everything about her is bare.
Bare nails, and not a stitch of makeup on her perfect, radiant skin.
As she closes her eyes, tilting her head back so the rays of morning light hit the high points of her chiseled face, I click the button on my shutter, feeling a bit of victory at the sound of the lens closing.
I hang out for a beat longer, until the chill in the air starts to win the war against my thermals and gloves.
I’d caught a glimpse of her last night. Every hair on my body stood at attention when my eyes found her.
After realizing that I’m the only one here without a partner, though, I pushed any ideas of pursuing her out of my mind.
I guessed others had enough self-preservation to take that ‘singles are still welcome’ note as a hint to stay away.
No one wants to be the third wheel, or in this case, the thirteenth wheel.
I’m used to it by now. We’re only here for twelve days anyway.
I nod a good morning to her as I enter the dining area, heading straight for the coffee bar to get some feeling back in my fingers.
“Good morning, what can I make for you?” The barista asks.
“Morning, uh,” I glance back at the woman behind me, lost in her thoughts, still looking out the window. “Whatever she got.”
“Coming right up.”
My eyes can’t help but seek her out every moment that my mind drifts. I try to recall all the faces I saw last night, try to guess which one of those guys is the lucky bastard who gets to know her. I can’t single out anyone whom I’d pin as her match.
Our first excursion begins soon. I can smell the preparations for breakfast just through the doors next to the bar.
Ceramic painting.
Juno would have loved that one.
I offer the barista a wistful smile as I take the mug and press it eagerly to my lips. The smell of the sugar hits me before the sickeningly sweet concoction assaults my tongue. “What the hell,” I choke. “What the hell is this?”
“You asked for what she’s having,” the barista shrugs. “Should have asked what she got before you ordered.”
Apparently.
Blondie turns her attention towards us, assessing the commotion.
“How many pounds of sugar do you consume in the morning?” I ask from across the room. Her brows shoot to her hairline, accosted by my inquiry.
“I’m sorry, why do you care?” She replies, one brow still raised while the other frowns with disapproval.
“I don’t, but maybe you should,” I huff, giving the barista the mug back. “Coffee, black.”
“Oh, well, as long as we agree that you shouldn’t care, I can go back to not being a psychopath that drinks black coffee, and you can go back to minding your business.” Her lips part in a smile so cold that the temperature in the room drops.
I take a grateful sip of my psychotic, black coffee to hide the grin it pulls from me.
My curiosity grows. The question of who she’s here with burns a hole in my brain.
“Good morning!” Gayle whizzes into the room, fully dressed, makeup done, hair slicked back into a tight bun. “Happy to have some more early risers around here for a change.” She takes a cup from the barista, two peppermint tea bag tags dangle over the side as she takes a healthy sip.
I was impressed with her already, but knowing she shows up like this every morning without an ounce of caffeine in her system makes me a little afraid of her.
“Are you a photographer?” She asks me, deep brown eyes sparkling with curiosity.
Frosty the Snow Queen returns to her musing, sipping her melted sugar and staring out the window again, a little less icy now that the sun is up.
“A filmmaker. The photography is just for fun,” I explain.
“Wow, that’s amazing. What kind of films do you make?” She follows.
“Documentaries,” I reply.
She blinks up at me, takes another sip of her tea, then blinks up at me again.
She actually wants to know about my job.
Most people are satisfied with the initial answer, then go on a tangent about that one darkroom class they took their junior year of high school, or worse, start showing me the Facebook profiles of their one aunt that does the maternity shoots for their small town.
“I mainly focus on grief. My first documentary followed me getting my life back together after losing my son to leukemia and then losing my wife in a divorce.” I expect her to blanch at this information, like most people do. I’m quickly learning that Gayle Emerson is not like most people.
“Wow, I’m sorry for your loss. That’s such a powerful way to use your art. When I was thirteen, I also lost my dad to cancer,” she says.
My head falls to the side as I regard her, suddenly understanding that the quiet strength rolling off of her was forged from necessity.
“I hear an accent. Where are you from?” I ask.
The tiny smirk that puckers her lips brims with all the pride in the world. “Jamaica.”
“Damn, that must have been tough. Not having your dad and living in Jamaica.” I empathize, thinking back to all those times I’d cried myself to sleep, wishing it was me instead of him.
“That it was, but it would have been difficult anywhere,” she hums. “Walk with me.”
I follow her instruction without question, heading back into the sitting area where the fireplace is already roaring. Jiraiya sits behind the computer, the seriousness of his brow lifting slightly as he nods his hello.
“‘Sup, man,” I say.
He doesn’t respond.
“Don’t mind him,” Gayle fans her hand in his direction, but her eyes are brighter than they were before. “Tell me about your film. Is there any way I can watch your documentary?”
I scratch the back of my neck, blood racing under the surface of my skin. Award-winning filmmaker, and I still get shy when someone I have an ounce of respect for asks to see my work. Sensing this, she adds that I don’t have to tell her if I don’t want to.
But I do. I want to know how it impacts her.
What scenes make her have to look away from the screen, and which ones make her have to blink away tears.
In fact, I want a scene-by-scene report of how my film makes her feel.
Yet, I still feel nervous when I tell her.
“It’s called Epitaph, and you can watch it on Curiosity, or maybe, if your local library uses Kanopy…
I’m pretty sure you can watch it for free through there. ”
“Epitaph, that’s….wow. I’m excited to watch, although I’m one hundred and ten percent sure it’s going to reduce me to a puddle of tears,” she says.
I bite back a laugh.
“When I was in high school, we had to study a poem by the same name. Are you familiar?” she asks.
I’m still stunned that this isn’t a surface-level conversation.
So stunned that I stand there talking with her for who knows how long.
We only break away from each other when one of the employees requests her presence in the kitchen.
By now, more guests are out and about, dressed for the day’s activity. I head to my room to do the same.
While I wait for the shower to heat up, I pull up the poem she mentioned before. Strangely, I hadn’t come across it in my research, but then again, I’d mostly sought after other documentaries and memoirs.
The first lines punch me right in the gut.
Pin-pricks in the backs of my eyes warn me to stop, but I have to keep going, have to keep reading this song, this love letter to grief, and it’s twisting, devastating beauty.
How it forces you to condense your love for someone else, someone not here anymore, into tears, prayers, and bitter regret.
Regret for never saying enough I love you’s or apologies. The worst kind of unrequited love.
What makes the poem beautiful is that the author requests none of these things upon his death, but that we take all that love with nowhere to put it and put it in each other, the ones still here instead.
I reread this one stanza over and over again. Each time, it takes the breath out of my lungs, even when there is no oxygen left to steal.
“You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.”
My hands shake while I undress, eager to get under the heat of the water.
As soon as that first droplet hits my skin, the dam bursts, and I shed tears like I haven’t in years.
I let them flow freely, aware that no matter how much time passes, I’ll always have moments like this where the grief feels as raw and as fresh as the day Juno slipped to the other side.
Maybe if I learned this sooner, if I allowed Marie to feel the entirety of it without — no.
I didn’t know better. I didn’t know how to give her what she needed, and she didn’t know how to ask.
I repeat the mantra my therapist gave me as I wipe my face one last time, stepping out of the shower and swiping the fog off the mirror.
We fell apart, but it wasn’t my fault, wasn’t hers either.
I close my eyes and wait for the guilt to fade away before re-opening them again.
As I stare at my reflection, my red-rimmed eyes stare back at me.
The awareness of where I am and why I’m here makes me feel less like I’m falling into a black hole and more like I’m at a Christmas retreat to celebrate my son’s favorite holiday.
Then, with the weight of the last half an hour lifted from my shoulders, I laugh.
Grief is funny like that.