Hart: A Brief First Love Story - Journal Entry #1

September 9, 2007

First Meeting “Hart” @ Humboldt Park Chicago, IL

My Age: 28; birthday February 15th; 1st relationship. Ever.

Hart’s Age: 24; birthday August 23rd. Experienced in relationships prior.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Butterflies in stomach All morning.

Reminding myself don’t expect anything.

Don’t overthink this. Don’t oversex this.

He’s a guy who messaged you out of the blue and whom you’ve Connected with, but it just needs to start out friends.

I feel so boring, so unsure of myself. I feel torn - especially after befriending “Tigger” (back in NYC) and developing Major Attraction to him over the course of our well-established friendship and wondering what if we had become more than friends?

I’m shaking when I walk to the corner of Humboldt and North. I almost anticipate him already waiting there, but he is running late. I’m Thankful. Gives me time to sit down at the bus stop and prepare myself. I expect him to be seen getting off the bus in my view. But, surprisingly, he has walked down to meet me and appears instantly in front of me.

Brown Pink Floyd shirt on.

It’s not long into our conversation that I learn that his favorite color is brown. He puts away his IPod. He is Exactly as he presents himself on MySpace.

I get up and hug him and instantly feel certain that I am going to come across as a bumbling idiot.

(One of Us says; failed to indicate whom) “I’ve never really been to this area.”

(The other responds; failed to indicate whom) “Really?”

We walk east on North Ave a short distance and turn south on a path that will take us to the Heart of the park.

Highlights/moments that stick out:

Baby turtle at the park’s Boat House.

Hart wonders where the ducks are and moments later they Burst Out from under the platform we are standing on as I’m trying to form sentences to explain my recent past (in response to inquiries) and all I’m dealing with emotionally.

(Sidenote: prior journal entries indicate major panic attacks and unusual body ailments that have been freaking me out since recently moving to Chicago; lots of amped up stress and anxiety).

Hart laughs at a guy attempting to cast a fishing rod and cheers him on as he attempts to cast again.

I remember being mid-sentence and watching a bird glide over the water so gracefully.

We talk of his move from roommate to living by himself.

I am carrying Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin all around the park during this first meet in my hands as a crutch. The book that holds so many fears of my own within its pages.

I notice we look away from each other a lot at first, but as the day goes on that barrier drops a bit.

I remember a dog plopping in the pond, nearby.

I ask if he wants to walk more. We walk through a weed infested landscape and Hart speaks of work (as a gardener at the Japanese Gardens in Chicago Botanical Gardens) and points out the crabapple tree. “The earliest trees that evolved into apples we now eat.”

He points out various plants.

He calls them by their Latin name.

He points out one plant that will establish (its: interestingly I wrote his) roots as deep as 30 feet into the ground.

I learn about the honey locust tree. He tests me on its name later as we walk by the Leif Erickson statue in Humboldt Park. (The statue that took us forever to discern its engraving of: Leif Erickson Discoverer of America).

I learn his two favorite fruits:

blackberries & pineapples.

He has a Tremendous Memory.

We sit on a hill and I talk. I fear I am telling too much too soon. Of Mom & Dad and where I stand with them. (Unhealthy and closed off back then).

He is the only (I.e. first?) person who has Ever responded with “Wow, you’ve dealt with a lot.”

Somehow they are the Most Comforting Words anyone has followed that storytelling info with.

While we sit on the hill conversing a girl is having a party and the group have moved up the hill to a tree to tie up a piñata of a Blue Dinosaur. Kids attempt to hit it.

At my request and Delight, we swing on playground swings back nearer to the park side facing my apartment across the street.

He wounds me twice today by saying I have pale skin as we walk down the hill and later by comparing his 142 pound weight with my weight.

We are swinging when he says, “You look pretty scrawny.”

It was the worst thing he could’ve said, but I can tell he didn’t mean to hurt me by it.

We end up at a kickball tournament.

The whole day I feel like I’m really restrained with Hart. Scared to open up myself too much.

I find Peace & Comfort with him as the day progresses.

I do get nervous at the kickball tournament though. It sparks bad memories of gym when I was younger.

We leave the game. I show him our apartment (housemate & I).

I find myself nervous again and when he finally leaves I feel like a dork.

But I feel like this is the first day of a new friendship.

Our second meeting will be a movie on Tuesday.

At the park Hart also taught me that cashews are in the same family as poison ivy before they are peeled down to the nut.

He is a wealth of “useless information” as he says, but I might learn a lot from him.

I think I will learn a lot.

He is more mature and seems more content than most people our age.

I am glad that we met.

#######