cracks and lines

“I fell in love.”
“You’re wasting your time with that stuff.” I knew it but then again I wasn’t sure. That’s the worst part about it, not being sure. I was sure about love, I just wasn’t sure about the waste of time.
“Maybe.” I said audibly and thought about it for a minute.
“You know Z, the day I get it right is the day I die.”
“I know.”
My mind was flooded with something. It was flooded with possibility. I felt stupid and alone and good. I was happy.
“I’m totally smitten. And the best part is I’m never going to meet her. We agreed to that. We will never meet.”
“You are hopeless. It will find you Daniel, you don’t have to do a thing but it may take a while. It may take three years.” He was talking about love. I knew it would. I wondered what he saw that I didn’t.
“Maybe so but I’m enjoying myself, I’m living.” And then there was a hollow spot like the blind spot where the optic nerve hits the eye. The small doubt, the belief that I couldn’t trust my judgment. I knew two things, that I felt love and that I had no clue how to proceed. I looked up from my meal, he looked down into his intent and undistracted. I thought for a brief moment of the day he or I would leave. I knew that day would come, it necessarily had to.
I looked to the boy who was sort of playing with his beans. “What’s the deal? I thought you wanted beans.” He had a plate full of food, quickly chilling. He shrugged. And this is the process almost every time, delayed eating until dessert is on the line then frantic shoveling to beat the clock. I looked back to his papa who by now had finished his last bite and turned to get up. The boy looked toward the fridge then back to his papa then to his spoon which he used to shovel the food in before the window of opportunity closed. Ultimately he would get his sweets in time because he knew the finality of the decision and he was learning all the ways he could to manipulate it.
Then I broke away and walked back home after cleaning up. When I got there I made note of what I saw. The studio was filled with pieces of things - pieces of televisions, pieces of prints, pieces of ideas. The monitor was bright with further pieces scattering its surface – pieces of video, pieces of images to print, pieces of projects in pieces for manipulation. I stood among it for a minute, made a few choices and then sat to write and tend to love in all its distant cracks.