I woke up in the hotel from a leg cramp and a dream about my best friend, who is an ex. Long ago when we were teenagers, yes. We were girlfriends.
In the dream, she needed to do a stressful thing, and it would help if I left. But we didn’t actually want to be parted. I didn’t know how to say goodbye and leave, wanted to kiss her. Stuff was in the way.
Our love song is a naive early Beatles song with a gorgeous melody and idealistic sentiment, And I Love Her.
She immersed herself in the Beatles so much, when we were kids. I did too. We both could have master’s degrees in the Beatles for sure.
My thesis would be called Strawberry Fields for Quite a While: How Religious Tourism and LSD Transformed a Pop Band Into of Force of Culture. Or maybe Superior Johns: How John Lennon and John Linnell Wrote Lyrics that Made Modernity Possible. Or maybe Fell Into a Dream: How Paul’s Reckless Mediocrity Pushed John to Accept his Scepter as Sun King.
irony
I was telling my spouse my dream. There was a whole other part I was a teacher again. Part of my class was in this other place. They hadn’t received the activity handout.
As I sang my spouse the love song, I realized with my throat, lungs, and mind how pretty the melody is. The ironic part is that the song says “a love like ours will never die, as long as I have her near me.” And that’s how it really went. We were teenagers–she lived with her family, and I lived with mine. I couldn’t be near her all the time.
I wasn’t there. But then she fell in love with her brother’s best friend and decided I was chopped liver. Oops.
A lot of early relationships, we lose contact with the person. So the relationship can be frozenly finite, behind glass. Idealized, vilified, half-forgotten.
But this best friend I love in an epic, multilayered way. It’s a treat that being her girlfriend is part of a huge, changing adventure. I feel extremely lucky. She is the real deal. My insight can develop over the decades.
So in that sense, the song is accurate. A love like ours actually didn’t die.
security
Then I am double lucky that my spouse gives me space to love my bestie exactly how it happens. It’s uncomplicated deep pleasure, to live with the ease he extends to me. Thank you, lover. Some people would be jealous and grabby. He doesn’t do that.
My spouse came to bed. I’d googled the lyrics to the song–I remembered the first half. I was reading the stars part.
He cuddled to me, sleepy, and held my right breast. “Is that your comfort? Is that your security breast?” I asked him. I imagined little kids who have a security blanket to help them feel safe and sleep.
“Yeah,” he said.
“My breast could definitely do security!” I said. “Security here. Yes, I’m keeping abreast of the situation.”
He giggled, half asleep. “You’re funny,” he said.
“That’s one of the things I can be counted on to be,” I said. People don’t know I’m funny because I never relax enough around them to be funny.
maybe
Hmm, maybe I was mistaken. Maybe our song was actually Something In the Way She Moves. Jeeze. I’ll ask her.
Part of the multilayered thing is how I dip into a dream to visit. Covid means it’s been a year since I actually saw her and touched her in a beautiful hug.