the airport

I was scared out of my mind in the ten minutes before I met you in that airport. I paced in and out of one of those news stands that sells magazines I know I shouldn't buy but almost always do when I'm in airports on my way somewhere, that sells packages of peanut M&Ms and gum. Once I bought a pair of headphones for way too much money because I couldn't imagine flying all the way to Baltimore and then taking the train to DC without a soundtrack (I almost always imagine my life to a soundtrack, as if somewhere someone wants to capture scenes of me with my head against a train window listening to The Civil Wars). I paced in and out of it, over and over, running one hand over my shoulders in that gesture of comfort you've now seen a half dozen times and through my hair, which wouldn't be tamed no matter what I did, thinking about what I would do? The possibility of you, walking toward me in that airport terminal, the possibility of really seeing you...  I was so scared and so excited, and I paced in between packages of peanut M&Ms and People hoping that I'd figure out how to hide from you that my heart was beating a thousand times a minute, because I'd been waiting. And if I had known it, I'd have played "Dust to Dust" on repeat as I waited.Sometimes I think we're afraid of the beautiful.The airport is this place I'd always imagined I'd meet you. In between a few of the times I imagined flying to Scotland in March or driving to Texas (I imagined sitting in my car outside your driveway and just hoping you'd be curious who I was, that you'd walk outside barefoot or your garage door would be open and I would walk in, halfway, and you'd be there painting) - I've always kind of hoped it would be the airport. It carries the ache of leaving and the joy of arriving, the familiar and the new. Somehow, in the long hallways and the too-bright lights, in the incessant announcements of delays and baggage claim carousel numbers, that's where I always find myself again. It is the place where I cried about my sister getting married while eating a bagel from Dunkin' Donuts. It is where I first left home - flying on Air France as an awkward and gangly 9th grader. It is where I first came home - England and Boston, oh, how I remember sobbing my way home from DC in the Baltimore airport at 6am realizing that I left, no certainty, no promise of return to that place.The airport is where I meet that beautiful I am afraid of.That beautiful is living in the carry-on bags courtesy of Virgin Atlantic they used to make for us with crayons and coloring books of airplanes who had friendly faces, in eating too many Twizzlers looking at a bridal magazine in a Houston terminal. The beautiful is in how I pace waiting for you in the basement baggage claim, how I check my phone so often, how I played Horse Feathers in July and country in August, how I used to fly to DC on a whim because something in me was aching for friends and cupcakes and the memory of me, there, and how I would come home, confused and remade.The beautiful is here. Isn't that the point of this long winding post? That the beautiful is arriving, is closer than we think?That first time I found you running with my phone half out of my hand and losing track of the people I ran into on the way, searching for you in the crowds of late afternoon tourists and umbrellas, that was the beautiful.And now, I anchor myself to it again - the beautiful is close to us. Love,hilary

love moves freely

Another airport this morning. I sit in an anonymous wooden chair, the girl in grey with the cinnamon raisin bagel and the pile of hair escaping in all directions from its elastic. The sun rises slowly this morning, pausing as clouds sweep over the tips of the plane tails, and Eric Church sings into my ear as flipflops clack against the floor. Next to me, a woman checks her iPhone. Something in her face looks worried, and she checks her watch every minute. I am suddenly desperate to know - what is your story? Who are you waiting for?But I just nudge my suitcase closer to my feet and turn away. When I look up again, she's walking towards her gate, and her seat is taken by an officer with a wrist brace drinking a diet Pepsi.My mind wanders to fearlessness, the strange dream I had last night, and then I remember what Dear Sugar wrote about love to her twenty-something self:Real love moves freely in both directions. 

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

When I first read this I was sitting in my single room in the middle of February. I was in the gap between exhilarated and exhausted. The joy of school, of learning history and tracing stories through time was also the aching, tired eyes of being up too late and doing too much. I was blogging without really knowing why. And I read Sugar's words as dazzlingly true. You can't convince people to love you. There isn't an argument in the world that will coax love from one person's heart into another's.This was protection for my weary heart when I read it more than a year ago. It was relief, courage to walk away, courage to tell the truth about what was unrequited, what should be let go. Then, real love moving freely in both directions meant keeping my heart a bit more guarded. I didn't give as much away.I read it again in this early morning, watching the officer and the woman with her worried face, watch the people sip their coffee and polish their glasses. And I think about how we only have a little bit of time to be with each other. And I think about how I named this blog The Wild Love, because I wanted to remind myself that we should give more than we think we can, and we should love wild.Sugar's right: you can't make someone love you. You can send your love towards them and they may not be there. You can sit at the table, ready to offer your extraordinary self, and they may not come to the other side of the table.But if I have any encouragement, from the very beginning: unrequited love is not wasted. The learning to care for someone, the hope, the teaching yourself to pay attention to how your heart works, the glimpse you get of their glorious self (even in the most agonizing moment when you realize that it will never be more than a glimpse) is not wasted.We should protect our hearts. But maybe some of what we call protection is a lack of trust. A lack of trust that love is good work, that in this divine economy, all things have purpose, all things work together for good. I built a fence, thinking that the most important thing was to be safe, at any cost.I see the woman sitting three tables away, her quiet elegance the kind that only comes with years. She crosses her ankles and chews on a blueberry muffin. Trusting begins here, smiling over at her, risking her early morning displeasure or her pointed ignoring. Wild love begins in the belief that love offered, even if not always taken, is not wasted.I smile at her as she gets up, and she frowns slightly and walks away. I smile at her retreating figure.Real love moves freely - and it trusts.Love,hilary