A Bermuda triangle of circumstances has lodged the song “Crazy Love” quite forcefully in my head, and I am not pleased. I am trying to engage in healthy thinking habits, and as I involuntarily lean into the lyrics—I need her in the day time (I need her)—with the accompanying hypnotic, unjustified romantic feeling, my thoughts cannot be qualified in the healthy category.
Because he doesn’t give me crazy love. He gives me books. And a scarf (which, admittedly, I love crazily). And pieces of songs. And a headache, if I think about him too long.
Months ago, in my kitchen, he replaced my iPod with his own and cued up a song while I was making us dinner. If I had waited a moment longer, I would have been able to identify the voice as Van Morrison—a miraculous shot in hell, because my musical vocabulary is not as large as his. But I was curious and checked, thereby deleting a little coolness I might have gained in that moment. I have absolutely no memory of what the song was—just that it was Van Morrison, and since I am in very real danger of falling in love with this person, “Crazy Love” often comes unbidden into my mind when I think of him.
And it’s such a damn fine song. When Van Morrison, an Irishman, sings and it makes me righteous, somehow you know he’s not talking about brimstone and scripture righteousness. He’s talking about reggae righteousness, Bob Marley righteousness—righteousness that is downright sexy.
I am entirely capable of writing fictions in my head and knowing they are fictions. The problem now is that I am writing only partly fiction, and the actual truth casts its credibility over the parts that are not truth. It doesn’t matter that the basis of a horror movie was a bump in the night a hundred years ago; it’s still BASED ON TRUE EVENTS. The whole feels truer because the part of it is. So the fiction of he gives me love, love, love, love, crazy love becomes a little more believable when he gives me true things that are pretty wonderful as well.
The true things are that he met me when I was wearing gold leggings and snow boots, and shortly thereafter witnessed me dancing in the way that I really dance—like a Muppet on speed in tune with early ‘80s dance music. In spite of these true things, he was still interested in kissing me. We sent each other haikus and limericks on email for months—he even referenced a sestina once and my heart skipped a beat. He addresses his packages to me with a royal title in front of my name. I received a box of books from him, completely unannounced, for the autumnal equinox. He sent me a vintage silk scarf from my college—a thing which I did not know existed, but had I known, I would have gone crazy for the idea of having it. He has admitted doubt and nausea to me, and I have loved him very intensely in those moments.
These true things are like a butterfly exhibit—all of them exist, they really do, and they are beautiful: fun and light and whimsical and totally unnecessary and wonderful for the sake of wonderful. Unfortunately, other, more cumbersome truths exist as well. Like the fact that he is in med school in another state. Like the fact that we have never actually dated or been near each other for longer than two days at a stretch. Like the fact that in an event of a water landing, the truth is that I have no claim on him, and technically, he owes me nothing. Those truths are like cinderblocks in the butterfly house: they are ugly and heavy and much more tangible than butterflies. But at the end of the day, you can grab onto a cinderblock and sit on it. The same does not work so successfully with butterflies. I’d rather chase after butterflies to a soundtrack of Van Morrison, but we—the butterflies and I—have nowhere real to land.
It is difficult to believe only in the true things when they seem to point towards something that is not, strictly speaking, true. The truth is that the rest of the story will be fiction as long as I’m writing it alone. It takes two to write a real relationship. And in this case, unfortunately, Van Morrison is not a legitimate co-author.
So in the mean time, I feel crazy. And in love.
