The Sweetest Thing

Lately I have been extremely homesick. This is also the happiest I have ever been in New York City. Brooklyn is home and beautiful and life is good. Last night a best friend and I cooked pasta, sauteed spinach and mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, and dined on my fire escape, watching the sun set over the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn backyards. So why the hollowness in my stomach at random intervals throughout the day? Why the yearning for where I am not--for Oakland?

Last night, in addition to the almost-Autumn breeze and avoidance of school work, I realized what I am missing so ferociously. It is my Oakland men. Now, before I go into my full-on appreciation, I will say that this is not to ignore, negate, or pretend away the far-too-frequent wrist-grabs, cars that hover behind you down a block, honks and whistles and hands that should not be in action. The elements of pimp culture that imprint and blueprint our male-to-female relations in the Town are real and must be addressed. This post is not about them.

Freshman year of college, Year 1 in NYC, I sat in the freshman dorm of another college, reflecting on relationships with a girlfriend who also hailed from O-town. Though I have no clue what I was saying, I remember how she looked as I said it. Increasing perplexity clouded her face, until she cut me off. "But Lillz, you have to recognize that not everyone has a Roy*. A lot of women don't have friendships with men who tell them they love them every day." My non-romantic relationships with males in Oakland have nurtured me in ways I am just now beginning to understand the impact of. Though we no longer talk every day, Roy still tells me he loves me. He still tells me I am the most beautiful woman in his life, after his mother and sister. And we never, ever have considered dating. We probably never will. The compliments are not motivated by sexual tension. The fact of the matter is quite simple: we love one another, deeply and fully, and we verbally share this. And he is not the only one I share this dynamic with.

I miss the multiple directions that a, "Good morning, gorgeous!" and a, "You're hella pretty" come from, and the multiple places they lift us to. The little blushes when we tell them how handsome they are, too. The way their heads raise up a little higher, shoulders straighten out and smiles broaden. The arms that curl around us, the way we walk, understanding that we are joined by an endless and limitless beauty that we both understand. I tell these men how attractive they are without desiring them, and the same goes for them with me. The only desire we operate with is the itching to be linked with another bright spirit. The closer the bond, the brighter our inner lights shine, and the more radiant our outer shells become. I am (and, for as far back as I can remember, always was) able to tell many, many men that they are the epitome of handsome and mean it with all my soul.

I am convinced that there is something special in the water in Oakland, California. I miss this sweetest thing.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those who don't know they're in my blog. ;)