There You Are

“There you are.” My soul sung out when I saw you the first time

Like it had been looking for you for a lifetime.

And it had been for so long

At a funky little Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1987

Smack dab in the middle of Porter Square

You were there with your band, and it

It felt like a Keith Whitley song

Ten feet away

"Lord, Why is this good old boy looking at me like that?"

Like I was “his.”

And I thought, "Julie, that ain’t no boy. That’s a man.”

“Oh shit.”

“I married the wrong one.”

I never ever thought of you in any terms but we were meant to be married.

And I knew somewhere in some dimension in some other lifetime

We would be, because we always had been

I had been yours for eternity.

A big old working man from Tennessee ten years and a generation older than me.

I could smell whiskey and cigarettes coming off you from ten feet away

And you thought I was a child, yet so grateful I was a woman

Long scruffy blond hair combed back like some kind of bad boy Conway Twitty,

Trying so hard to look like an outlaw

Rough, scratchy sideburns snaking down your jawline,

You were almost like a caricature,

Because that just was not you at all

And i wanted to kiss those sideburns.

And breathe in that whiskey cigarette male scent of you

Eventually I did

You had a black sleeveless t-shirt stretched tightly across your chest

A massive broad chest chiseled from years of high school and college football and competitive swimming

A chunky turquoise bolo tie casually draped around your neck

Don’t you know, you do not wear a bolo tie with a t-shirt?

But the look worked on you.

Only you could pull that off

Baggy white running pants and tan work boats

Oh, I thought you were so not my type.

Even though my soul and DNA thought otherwise

I was used to bloodless, passionless Harvard boys.

But heat rolled off you like waves of volcanic lava

Promising a love that would be impossible to describe

Or resist (how could I resist?)

And I sat there like a snotty little waspy

Boston girl who thought she was too good for you

Like I had done so many lifetimes before...

I was in so much trouble

But this was fate, this was a gift from the Divine

It would not and could not be stopped.

The Universe set this in motion

Millions of years ago

I was yours and you were mine,

We were “us.” and we have always been “us.”

I refused to look back at you, but could feel

Your fiery blue eyes bore into me

Flaring and burning like the center of a flame

Not cool, aloof and calm, like you would think the color blue would be

But with such intense heat I could feel it on my skin ten feet away

Your eyes implored me as if to say, “yes, here I am and there you are.”

“Now, what are we going to do?”

And with all the arrogance I could muster,

I finally stared back at you, and flashed my sad little wedding rings at you

And grasped my husband’s arm possessively

Like he was all I ever would need and

As if to say, “I am with him!”

A boy who would never grow up to be a man or a good Daddy

Something you just instinctively knew

How to be and deep in your soul wanted to be.

Your eyes got big and a bit angry as you rolled them at me

"You’re a silly little girl. See if I care.”

“Do you really think those cheap little gold rings you are shoving in my face

Could ever deter me? would ever even deter me?"

HA! you mocked me

But you did care, didn’t you?

You cared so much and never stopped

You cared and loved like a man, not a boy.

It was something I had never experienced before.

But you were more than I could handle at that time.

A young mother of two baby girls, barely 27 years old

And even though I ran like a scared bunny then,

When I should have stayed and faced my fate

Forcing the Universe to take us by the hand

In a most unexpected way

Four years later to make things right.

I didn't run then.

Couldn't run then.

And you always knew,

You never gave up.

You never gave up.

You never gave up.

There you are. My soul sung out.

That’s the one.

- Julie O'Hara

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