Z.

"What's so great about birds?"  "They can fly."  "They can fly. Sure. But they always have to land."  I like it when memories lapse into a state where you're suddenly OK with exhuming them and giving them proper thought, honestly and impartially. It's a sliding scale, that. Some memories, no matter how distant, remain too tender to touch. Other memories, recent by comparison, can be dragged out into the light almost immediately.  But sometimes you realize, like lightning out of a clear sky, that some memories you thought you'd never really be able to face can suddenly come to mind with the realization that—at last—something has changed. Now you can revisit them with some clarity. Maybe you can finally pick something up about them that you were just incapable of even a day earlier. I like it when that happens. Lately, I've wondered if memories are better than stories. Or maybe we go about it all wrong, writing stories in hopes they'l...

There's a moment that happens-- subtle and special and somehow magical in a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of way-- the moment when you both know, before even a word is spoken about it, what you both want. When he knows that she knows that he knows that she knows. At that moment, everything changes. Every interaction, no matter how subtle, is weighed with a gravity of intention. Every word, no matter how minute-- every glance, regardless how fleeting-- is laden with meaning. Innuendo dripping from every gesture. You notice it. She notices it. But, for now— (for how long?)— it remains in stasis. Unspoken. In thought only.  "Schrödinger's courtship." A kind of dance plays out as you both not-so-secretly maneuver to put intention into action. This is "the moment." It's delicate— and can even disappear if one or both participants lose interest before the moment is ever acknowledged out loud. In fact, speaking it turns "the moment" into something else— no...