Dear Tyler

 

Dear Tyler,                                                                                        September 21, 2013

I smile even thinking of the time we drove out to the reservoir and got into a fight over if it was safe to run around it in a thunderstorm. I thought it was fine and got impatient when you didn’t and when you said you’d rather walk home in your underwear than have me mad. I said you were as likely to get hit by lightning walking home in your underwear as you were running around the reservoir so don’t do it. Then we laughed, drove home, and made pancakes.

Of course I smile remembering when we first met and went to the teahouse, where you ordered the smoky Lapsang Souchong because I said it was good. You were always willing to try what I said was good and to quit what I said wasn’t. And also to not quit what I said was, like making popcorn. When you’re a famous professional popcorn maker, don’t forget it was me who convinced you it was possible. All those expensive spices and powders from wattleseed to celery will have paid off along with the hours of distress over making the perfect recipe. You were so passionate and, once, so frustrated that, for a week, even the mention of popcorn set you off.

And remember when we kissed and couldn’t focus because my flannel shirt smelled like pulled barbecue pork even though we’re both vegetarians? Also because I was obsessing over whether I’d get a ticket in the mail for driving through one of those photo red lights. You massaged my feet to help, but I dislike people getting involved with my feet as much as you do with your fingernails.

Then we decided to be just friends and move in together, which made a lot of sense only to us. Like it made sense to keep our plant in a frying pan because a pot would have been luxurious and to see how many pancake meals in a row it took us to finish a bottle of maple syrup. Spending forty five minutes in the supermarket only to come out with one thing like a mango because grocery shopping is overwhelming . . . how does everybody do it? And why isn’t everybody willing to invest the time to properly flush an untrustworthy toilet? And once you baked banana bread that we ate on a cutting board in one sitting. Most people would have felt sick, but we waited an hour and went running.

I’m sorry again for always chopping onions and garlic on the wrong side of that cutting board. I’m sorry for using more of your laundry money than you might know and for peeing in the shower that one time and confessing. For doing nothing to decorate the apartment except buy that creepy Indian wall tapestry sprinkled with images of elephants. It looked like a child’s bed sheets, which you were kind enough not to tell me. You said it had character but acted relieved when it made me dizzy enough to return it. Sorry that the new one I bought with the brown dragons was equally unpleasant (but thanks for not shunning that one because the idea of trying to find a decent tapestry a third time was also unpleasant).

But I know you forgave me for my nonsense, which included using the bananas you were ripening to bake bread and breaking the blender. Also sneaking your leftover popcorn hoping it wasn’t enough for you to notice, but then making crumbs and later confessing. Out of principle, you’d refuse compensation. No milk, eggs, or quarters. You’d repeat this quotation: “Even after all this time, the sun never looks to the earth and says you owe me.” And for you, the way I could arrange words and ideas was far more compelling than the way I never closed the cupboards. If I'd ever apologized, you'd have said it was cool and made for easier access. You wanted to become better with language and grammar, so you read Elements of Style, Fourth Edition.  You dumpstered a blackboard and wrote poetry on it. But I am certain you never tried to lose your backwoods Maine accent, since you always knew what wasn't that important.

Thank you for the bananas, popcorn, and laundry money, Tyler. But, above all else, thank you for illuminating what it means to be a beautiful human. From you, I learned that being generous, sincere, and appreciative –– investing heart –– is more productive than anything else we can do. More productive, for example, than waking early, making money, and becoming a better athlete or writer or whatever. And I’m sure that, in the end, there's only a handful of people in our lives who will have sat with us on kitchen floors while we cry.  For me, you will have been one of them.

You told me not to tell anybody about the bed bugs you thought you had in June and that I still don’t think you did. Well I let it slip once or twice . . . Sorry! But, at the very least, when we learned while eating pancakes that our lease ended a day earlier than we’d thought, I hurried with you to carry your lousy mattress on our heads to the dumpster. We sang made–up songs on our way and even that was fun. Like when we arranged the bouquets of flowers some guy gave me from the dumpster. And when we danced around with a sign trying to hitch a ride to the appropriate trailhead after getting lost at the end of a twenty mile hike.

Sorry for the run–on sentences . . .

Later, after moving to Montana for some reason, I sent you a message saying I couldn’t stop revising a letter to you; I wanted it to be perfect. You responded: “Listen, I miss you. Once in awhile we stumble upon truly special people who can effortlessly give us exactly what we need in a comfortable way. I want to write too, but I’m super intimidated by your writing prowess, and for good reason. I hope I’ll do it anyway though. Do what you have to with your letter, but I would love to read it and imperfect is sometimes perfect.” 

In the end, including your own words, this is the letter I send you.    

With love,

Simone