A Summer of Art

Our story started on the docks.  I had set up my easel on the end of the landing, trying desperately to hone the skills my art teacher was insisting I could do.  I thought that the fishing boats moored in the harbor would be good practice.  I was the aspiring artist hoping to better myself.  He was the clumsy fool who tripped over me.  

He told me later that he had been trying to walk off the end of the dock into the water.  Having grown up in a small harbor fishing town, that seemed like one of the most ridiculous things a person could do.  But to him, a rich city kid, it was a taste of the real world.  It was doing something that would provide a profound shock to his system, something that would make him feel like he was really living, that he was having a true and real experience.  

But alas for his “real experiences”, I was busy trying to steady my hand enough to run a thin stripe of gray paint around one of the cable spools resting on the deck of the foremost vessel.  I had gotten halfway done with my line and was starting to have a modicum of confidence in my artistic abilities, when all of a sudden my painting was ripped away from my brush.  It all happened in slow motion: my easel tipped back away from me and the motion sent my canvas sliding, falling… and then there came a watery slap.  Both the canvas and the easel landed with a splash in the ocean.  The man who had walked into the leg of my easel was grabbing at the back of my chair to steady himself, but as I launched myself after my artwork, the sudden loss of weight in the chair sent him falling backwards onto the hard wooden boards of the dock.

I was on my stomach in a flash, grabbing at the cold metal tripod from the edge of the dock before it sank beneath the surface.  The canvas was already gone, floating away on its face, the stiff summer breeze carrying it offshore as quick as a wink.  A passerby helped me fish my art teacher’s property out of the sea before helping me to my feet.  I turned to look at the sheepish man standing by my chair that he had so kindly righted after first righting himself.  Only then did I get a real look at his face.  He had a strong jawline that accentuated his bright green eyes.  Dark hair framed his face.  His was a face that would not easily be forgotten.

Two days after our first encounter I had an upset art teacher, but a rather pleasant date to lunch.  He took me to a little cafe not far from the docks.  It was a nice place overlooking the water.  He said it was his favorite place to come when he was in town.  We exchanged numbers and walked around the town that I knew by heart until it grew dark.  We parted ways at his hotel and I went back to my apartment.  He was the kind of person that people automatically had faith in.  The eyes said it all.  They were the eyes of everyone’s favorite movie hero when he rescues the rather clueless woman and says the classic ‘I will never let you fall’ line that makes every girl in the movie theater swoon.  But I didn’t want to be swayed by his face, or by his personality, or by anything about him for that matter.  I wanted to stay focused solely on my art.

That night I dreamt about his eyes.  That deep green that captivated me even in my sleep.  They showed up in my dreams over and over in odd ways, like the eyes of the fisherman standing on the pier, or the eyes of the fish he was preying on.  I awoke to my phone ringing.  He said he couldn't stop thinking about me.  We spent the entire next day together; I was lucky it was my day off.  That night he stayed over with me, but, like the gentleman he was, he slept on my couch. Not that there was much time for sleeping after we had talked through till dawn.  I found myself falling in love with the almost perfect, perfect stranger in my living room.  He told me he was from Texas originally, but never liked it there.  His father worked as a journalist for one of the big city publications and was never home.  He said that he had written a few articles himself, but never took too much to the art of expository writing.  Thus he was traveling.  To me it seemed very idealistic to be on some kind of permanent vacation. I yearned for it, yet simultaneously knew I would hate the feeling of not being anchored.

We spent the next two months together this way; talking and laughing late into the evening became my new normal.  Three days after our first date he checked out of his hotel in favor of my apartment, and a week or two after that he no longer slept on my couch.  I enjoyed his company, his constant witty banter, and his drop dead gorgeous looks.  My friends reminded me that I barely knew him, that maybe I was getting too involved too fast.  But it was comforting to wake up at night to feel warmth from the other side of the bed instead of the usual chill.  Okay, maybe that night I wasn't only seeking warmth.  It wasn’t a cold night.  We had been talking, and the touch of his hand on my arm, and his face next to mine, and one thing led to another and- no.  I don’t need to relieve the past.

During this time my art got better and better- my teacher said I must have gained an inspiration, a muse.  I now had two small paintings of mine hanging on my wall; both of them had that same bright green color that I had come to love from his eyes.  No longer was I ashamed of my art.  He thought they were beautiful pieces and I found myself believing him.  I told him I was falling for him and he said he felt the same.  Life was taking shape, or so I thought.  

Two weeks later he was gone.  It was too sudden, the way a punch feels unforeseen and jarring.  The night before he left he told me that he had to go back to school, that he had one more year of college, and he was going to finish this time.  I told him I would drive him to the airport, that we would keep in touch, that I could fly out to see him.  But when my alarm went off the next morning at five and I reached for him, he was gone.  The other side of my bed was cold.  I sat up and called out for him, but the apartment was silent.  His clothes were no longer in my closet.  I called him, but the call wouldn't go through; my number had been blocked from his phone.  I had to accept that he was gone and there was nothing I could do about it.

He was my first taste of summer love but he would not be my last.  He probably moved on to some other town, some other girl. Maybe there was no college.  Maybe that was just me being cynical.  Maybe people come into your life just when you need them most and then vanish when they know you have been made whole again.  I still go to paint on that same dock.  I have finally become proficient at painting fishing boats.