Let it breathe.

Sight

"You waited?"

"Of course," he said sweeping the door to the cottage open "I said I would."

"But still... " I replied with scepticism.

“It’s good to see you.” he waved me inside.

I doubted it was good to see me. I was late and, as a side effect, ruffled. The culmination of my yes-no-yes-no mental dance left me feeling unprepared and clumsy and the wind outside brushed against any sense of togetherness I had managed to muster after I finally landed on yes. I was here though, albeit in a graceless and discombobulated state.

My date though, suffered no such affliction and if he was nervous or uncomfortable all traces of it were lost to the ambience of the room. He moved confidently but softly. Like he’d rehearsed this first moment a thousand times. Door closed. Take your coat. Hand to small of back guiding me in. Smooth as velvet.

The cottage was as welcoming as warm hug, as a murky dusk pressed down on the Winter's afternoon. A fire rumbled and pulsed in the century old hearth, casting its dance of light and dark on the surrounding earthen brickwork; a silent drama of light and dark, rise and fall, shadows and fiery terracotta glows cast out across the room.

The room was dark, alluring; chocolate leather lounges, grey textured throws, aged floorboards darkened with the passage of the years. A well-laden charcuterie board sat on the table before the sofa, and at the boards centre, Merlot - deep and plum - breathed in glass carafe.

Swirl

I nestled into the far end of the deep leather sofa and tucked my legs up beneath me. He sat beside, close, but not presumptuously so and poured us both a generous glass of wine. A familiar gesture, a not-new gaze and old emotions and thoughts swirled unbidden through me. I closed my eyes and willed myself to stop. This was a first date after all. I promised myself I would treat it as such. I took a lead from my composed host and let myself breathe. Slow down, head. Slow down, heart. Slow down and breathe.

In the stillness of the room, background music played while we sipped and took our time to settle in to the date, a deliberate and considered handful of moments swirled by, while we settle. And in the quiet, my old world feelings eventually quelled. I noticed something new swelling, or at least something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Excitement!

Sitting close enough to touch, but not quite. Electric air between filled the precious few inches between us. The excruciating, but delectable tension of having him so close… so eminently close to touch, yet not touching. My chest buzzed with the infatuation I thought was long dead and dry. Urgency for his touch overwhelmed me. The background crooner (a beautifully tortured Tom Walker, perhaps?) was suddenly drowned out by my panicked heartbeat and my screaming mind: “Move your damn hand. Touch him! You've done it a thousand times before. Two seconds of courage. Reach out! Reach out!” my desperate heart implores me. Move. Your. Damn hand.

But I sit stone-still, paralysed by the heavy quicksand space between us. The canyon of air I just can’t seem to traverse.

I breathe deep. Sip my wine. I wonder why I came here, why I was even trying. Coward, I tell myself.

And then it happens. That perfect moment that every girl with a crush, every lover forced to be apart from their beloved, everybody who’s ever sung a love song in the shower dreams about. It’s the slow-motion moment, drawn out for savouring, lifted directly from a Valerie Parv page.

He smiles. All the way from his eyes to his mouth. And it’s tender and genuine and open. That’s the look! The one glance a person could hang their faith on. And then… he navigates the three inch canyon of eternity between us and … touches my hand.

A feather light brush at first.

Skin hungry, touch starved, I register every millimetre of his fingertips on the back of my hand as they swirl and trace. A tiny hangnail, soft fingertips, a scratch - rough but comfortingly human - on the deep of his palm. Light and charged, he traces his fingers across the top of my hand. He teases the touch. Like there is nothing in the world but time, and there is no task more important than this lingering moment.

He swirls... his velvet touch, slow and deliberate, is fluid and smooth. I have nothing but my statue-self to offer. I dare not move, or exhale lest it breaks this spell and this touch that I've waited a year for, evaporates.

Smell

He rests his heavy hand fully on mine now, and still smooth, still self-assured, he reaches forward to recharge our glasses with his free hand. Cherry aromas drifts upward upon the pour and mingle in my memory with the fireplace smoke.

Picnics. Bushfires. The folk festival we’d missed. The old world rises in my mind again, determined to interlope as a third unbidden guest on this first date.

I taste the wine to swallow the thought down, and will myself to return to the moment. There is an elusive spice at the last. It bids me to sip again and chase it down, grasp its name… its nature. Familiar enough to bring comfort, but still beyond naming.

Lost in the smoke, chasing the spice…

Kygo and Sasha reach our ears from subdue surround sound somewhere deep in the room, and break the stillness of the moment.

“Let’s dance” he says, "I’ve missed events. I miss dancing” and he whisks me to the centre of the room. The song is full of optimism and so are we as we dance, but “I’d play my money just to hear you say you love me… again” in the lyrics hits me hard.

Sip

Arms to my waist embrace me warmer and closer than before. Familiar, but also new. I shake with school-girl nerves and am immediately embarrassed by the nerves and also by the cliché. Who even am I, right now?

He laughs and it’s pure joy, not a trace of condescension. My dates’ eyes dance with firelight and happiness.

And we dance on. The soundtrack is bittersweet. Hozier and Sheeran. Then The unmoveable Script screeching on the guitars to pluck at the heart strings. Rousing tracks engineered to hurt as much as they are to heal. They evoke; the good and bad, and the space in between.

And I love every terrible, predicable perfect moment of unnecessarily romantic soundtrack. I drink it in.

Uncharacteristically, I lean into the emotional in the room and my sense. I craned into his chest as we slow dance. I lean into the corny soundtrack, the grand gesture, the picture-perfect romance of the setting. Like a starving soul, I reach for every drop, every sip. I want it so desperately, validation that it was worth me being here. After this year. That it was – is - worth the risk. Something just like this, to confirm I can feel good again. Feel love again. It’s so close I can almost taste it as tangibly as the merlot we’ve been sipping.

"Yes! You should be here! This is worth it!"

Exhilaration swirls with apprehension, there is a moments doubt clinging to the sides.

I need to let it breathe, let us breathe. Take my time.

Ella Eyre calls the mood perfectly from the unseen speakers. Her voice cracks though to speak my long standing plea; "Just slow down if you want me". But her instruction is superfluous; he knows this already.

Soft, but not insipid. Confident, but not pushy. Warm but not overbearing. This first kiss is a glass I could sip from forever.

“The chance of this first date is all I ever wanted sweethear -sorry” he pulls himself up short at the errant pet name. But he can’t unspeak the tumbled-loose word, anymore the White Willow in the carafe can return to being a plum-black bunch of grapes in the Riverina.

He looks mortified, scared. A small human crack in the perfect, confident man I’ve been dancing with all night. I breathe in, and exhale deeply. I feel weight off my chest, like I’ve been holding every cell of my body taught for the last year. I know this was worth the wait.

I reached up and returned his kiss; unhurried, deliberate, seeking.

Ella in the distance once again reminds him “Just slow down if you want me”.

But again, her words are preaching to the choir. It was a moment that he too, wanted nothing more than to

Savour.