Holey. Moley.

Remember when this term had nothing to do with social media?

I love the idea that spring time is when everyone starts to tingle again. That there is something in the air that makes us want to shave our legs on a regular basis “just in case”.

I spontaneously got a manicure and pedicure tonight after work. I feel pretty, and girly, and like I have a bit more bounce than usual. I feel like sweeping off the patio, and buying tulips for my living room. I feel like I’m done with the snow, the gray, the cold, and the feeling like I don’t want to leave my house.

Bring on the sturdy rubber boots, beautiful ivory trench coat, delicate vintage umbrella and a fresh new hair cut.

I saw green mossy things poking up out of the ground this morning, and I feel like the world is filled with possibilities.

What have we become when we must take the time to draw little faces using punctuation marks instead of searching for the correct words to convey our meaning and intent? What does it say about us when we must use abbreviations to describe a response, instead of telling someone that we are delighted or amused by what they have just said to us?

I am thinking about the way we communicate today.

This weekend, I was reminded of how lovely it is to just discover someone while looking into their eyes, watching how the planes of their face change as they smile, and hearing their intonations and inflections as they reveal themselves through anecdotes and factual information. People only truly reveal themselves when they are face-to-face.

Email has replaced putting our hands to paper, and has replaced receiving actual letters that we can hold on to and cherish, or reflect upon later. Text messages have replaced phone calls. Facebook allows us to post as much or as little about ourselves as we like in the public domain. This blog has mostly replaced my journal, which I write in much less frequently.

Where is the romance in communication in our modern age?

You can flirt with email. You can send songs, and lyrics, and poetry. It is a new serenade I suppose. You can take photos of the world as you see it with your iphone, and instantly email these to whomever you are trying to woo. You can lay your heart out in Yahoo, and click send, offering up slices of your soul that may just find their way into someone’s junk mail. You can create a profile of yourself on internet dating sites with carefully selected words, and photos, hoping that someone might fall just a little bit in love with you this way. Text messaging can become the new love note in your lunch box, or a prelude to a romantic liason.

Since just before December, I had been emailing someone I have never met in real life. He discovered me on an online dating site. (I have since deleted my profile, but that’s another story for another time.) Our exchange has been fascinating, as we are both writers, and are both very comfortable expressing ourselves through our words. I’m now fairly certain that we will never meet in person, and part of me is very sad about that. Rather than dwell on the negative, I’m choosing to be grateful for what I consider to be an incredible kick-start to my writing. My letters were a direct link from my heart to paper, which brought my writing to a deeper level than what exists even here, in Schnooville. Because of this, I think I had developed some unrealistic expectations, but I’m mostly at peace with this now. Sometimes people just want to dip their toes into your soul. Getting their heads wet is not for everyone.

What is important here is the knowledge that real, true connection must happen in the physical world to be complete. This is what I need. My world has changed in this last year. I used to be able to speak about feelings and ideas. Now I am more comfortable to write about them. This is mostly true in a romantic context. Fortunately, I am still able to verbally communicate with my friends.

What would be wonderful, I think, would be to be able to look into a new set of eyes and say out loud some of the things in my heart. What would be wonderful, I think, would be for them to continue to look at me as they ask me to elabourate, and then tell me what is in their own heart. What would be wonderful, most wonderful, would be understanding and appreciation.

This stopped me in my tracks today, and I had to share it. It was posted on a hydro pole outside of my office. Here’s a close up, which I hope you can read:

Imagine being so frustrated with the opposite sex, you had to post a public notice? If you had to write a PSA about your dating frustrations, what would that look like? I’m sure anyone who is reading this blog regularly would be able to draft mine, but here it is, just for the record.

Here is what I am learning about myself; my intuition is never, ever wrong.

If there is something about a person that is making me uneasy, all I need to do is close my eyes and I can hear things. I can hear little snippets of the truth, their truth. Their emotional truth. It’s hard to describe, because it comes in impressions. They are quick flashes. Thoughts that occur to me suddenly, but on a deep resonant level I know they are truth.

So how do I get into trouble?

Reflecting on the last eleven months of my life, I can see how my eyes and ears and gut have guided me away from bad situations over, and over. After that last one, that really bad one, we’ll never be asleep that way again. The challenge remains the same, however.

Sometimes we just can’t believe it is true.

It’s common to ask questions when a deep, secret voice in your heart says things like:

“He feels like this was a big mistake, and now he’s trapped and will resent you for this if you stay.”

“She has kissed him and is currently trying to sleep with him behind your back. This will happen, and you will never really know.”

“She is intimidated by you, and afraid of your vibrancy, so she needs you to be out of her environment.”

“He will always love her, and will forever keep her in the picture, as well as try to keep you under his thumb because he likes this feeling of power.”

“He was lying, and this lie has resulted in the same tragedy before.”

“You are one of many who he has played this game with, and it’s most certainly a game to him.”

“He genuinely likes you, but will always be looking at the greener grass, and will never be content.”

“He believes he could love you, but he knows that most of the appeal is in the distance and the mystery.”

“He knows you’re not really his type, but he still really wants to sleep with you, so he can speak of you as a novelty to friends and future lovers.”

Of course, this intuition is a two-way street. Fortunately I can feel all of the love and good intention too. I’m very grateful for this, and perhaps I need to tune my ear to listen more carefully for these signals.

Right now, with no filter, it can be overwhelming.

What has happened? I’d like to offer an opinion or two:

a.) I behaved exactly as I was supposed to. I was like a ball of loosely wound yarn in the paws of a tired and battle-scarred alley cat. I unraveled fairly easily, (because that is the nature of yarn) and when the unavoidable knots occurred, the cat got bored; yawned and stretched, pawed again once or twice to test for signs of life, and then found a sweet, plump bird with a fractured wing. (likely on the other side of a chain-link fence with a perfectly cat-shaped hole.)

b.) I fell into my familiar guilty pattern of romanticizing situations and individuals. I attached feelings to surfaces with no adhesive, that really did not want any adornment, so fueled was I by my own agenda, overflowing with expectation. I completely and totally misinterpreted the context, and came away utterly dissatisfied with the ending of the story.

c.) All of thee above.

In other news, I have a friend who lives far away. This friend visits every now and again. We laugh a lot and it is lovely. Each visit makes me wonder why we are friends. There must be some explanation, right?