i remember when i was 18 and i was dating a girl and i was in love with the way that she stood. really that’s another way of saying that i was in so in love with her that i loved the way she stood. it was usually when she was standing toward a table or a desk and looking at a phone or sorting through mail. something small, something mundane, always facing away. she did this thing where she would put all of her weight on one leg and then put the foot that wasn’t supporting her frame on the foot that was and…that’s it. that's all it was. it was lovely. simple. and not anything anyone else would ever notice (or maybe they would, i don't know) but it was beautiful to me and it what she was doing was her and i was in love with her so i was in love with that portrait she would paint just by standing a particular way.

i remember when i was 24 and i was married to a girl and i forgot to fall in love with the way that she stood. i was working a lot. we both were. i loved her very much, but in a different way than the girl from when i was 18. i’d even say it was a better way. it was definitely a more committed way and more calculated way. a more intentional way. but i think what i just...forgot? was that i was allowed to fall in love with how she stood. or wrote. or talked.

the thing i’m trying to say is that i will never type something like this again because i won’t be able to because it won’t happen because i will be holding out for the type of woman who inspires me to be both intentional about the context of a relationship and at the same time allowing myself get lost in the concept of her as a living, breathing, emotional, spiritual, physical being. and appreciating that in the ways that only i will be able to.

odd, but only one of those two relationships feels as though it happened. it's the first one. i think i might know why.

i took me the better part of a decade but i've finally gotten rid of some seriously atrocious thinking that i picked up when i was a kid. it was the way i was raised; a way that i never *really* connected with. the conservative evangelical midwest has an interesting approach to anything moral or ethical. anything philosophical, really. if you were to boil it down to its least common denominator, it would sound a lot like this: "we know what we are against more than we know what we are for". so, naturally, i learned way too much about what not to do and not nearly enough about what i should. i learned about the things i shouldn’t see and about the ways that i shouldn’t think and was given a list of things that i shouldn’t do and, my favorite, a relentless list of everything that could maybe happen if i were to consider doing any of the things that were not mentioned but could lead to them. possibly. i mean, slippery slope. #gatewaydrugz

here's are some of the things that i did not learn: i didn't learn anything about art in the context of a figure. i didn't learn anything about pleasure as a fluid part of ourselves. i didn't learn anything about the unending beauty that exists in the mind and body of a woman, or how it radiates from her because it is her. i didn't learn about the allure of the female form or how it is within me to get lost within that, or how a radius and an angle can be common to one but perceived by someone else as something to be appreciated and then responded to with admiration.

not one person in my life between the ages of 12 and 26 could articulate to me the tension that is desire and wonderment even within a framework that allowed for it. i don't think they even knew that their framework allowed for it. my parents definitely didn't know.

fear says “that could dangerous” but love says “that’s a work of art” and somehow i figured it out at 18 and then forgot it when i was 24. i’m not bitter, but i am resentful. i resent that i had to learn on my own what the people whom i (somewhat naively) trusted to teach me, were afraid to. i resent that but i don't blame them. they learned what they learned from someone. and so did they. and so did they.

today i know the truth. the truth is that women are unthinkably magnificent. they are intricate and delicate and provocative and dreadful and sexual and mystifying and charming and stunning and terrifying.

they’re staggering in how they stand.

i’m 32. i hope soon to leave a note on a car on a curb before a woman gets in to drive to work that says “i was watching you write this morning and your wrist made me shake. have a good day. i’ll see you at 5:30.”

one last thing: somehow being aware of this intricacy and then sharing it is, when things are good, one of the most intimate and powerful ways to connect. but when things are not good, it can somehow become too much. it becomes trite. it becomes something to roll eyes at. that's a narrative that i'm not ok with. it doesn’t have to be too much. it doesn’t have to be dramatic. it doesn’t have to be over the top. and if you aren’t being any of those things when you deliver them, then it isn't. how it's received is what you need to pay attention to. you can tell a lot about a person by how they process you processing them. you can tell a lot by how they resolve.

i know with certainty that when i see something beautiful, it will always be my intention that you hear about it. it may be right when i see it or i may write it down in my phone so that i can write it down on a note and i can leave it on your car on your curb before you get in to drive to work.

i'm not going to be ashamed of beautiful things ever again.