brilliant trace #9

I'm not sure who you are, or if we've even met. All I know is I’ve reached the end of a year-and-a-half journey in learning from those who came before you.

I originally thought that revisiting the brilliant traces of my life was going to take 10 days. It turned out there were more bitter layers than sweet ones left behind in the healing of my heart over the years. However, I’ve come out on the other side as a better, stronger person. Not just for me, but for you.

Maybe it's just the onset of my 30s, but I'd like to think that the self-awareness and peace I’ve found in this process also comes from being greatly relieved in knowing what was inside of me for so long. I will most likely encounter more traces along the way to finding you, but this journey has prepared me for them.

I know Cindy Lou Johnson, the playwright who inspired this path of self reflection, intended brilliant traces to be the tragic marks different experiences leave on a person. However, after retracing the indelible marks left on me over the years, I realized one of the most amazing things about human beings is our resilience.

Every time our hearts stretch to the point where we actually feel them breaking, it’s an exercise in endurance. Because of these past experiences, my heart is in better shape than it has ever been and is ready to endure with you – my most brilliant trace of all. Wherever you are and whoever you may be.

brilliant trace #8 - Part II

You were holding a pine cone and a book, and asked through the screen door if you could come inside. I was so happy to see you I'd forgotten to open the door.

You handed me the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. You said my writing reminded you of hers, and you thought it only right that I should own your favorite book by her. Then you handed me the pine cone. You said there was a lack of flowers to pick from in neighboring yards, and that the pine cone would last longer because it was just a seed.

There was nothing I could do but let my heart melt.

We went up to my bedroom because it was the only private space we had. You were living with your aunt and I was living with two house mates. We lay on my bed and played some of our favorite music for each other. You had just discovered Billy Bragg, so that's who we mostly listened to while lying and talking for hours.

You eventually reached over and brushed a few strands of hair away from eyes and said, "I'm scared."

The comment took me off guard.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I like you. I mean, I feel myself really falling and I'm scared I'm going to hurt you, and me, in the process."

"Then don't hurt me," I said.

You held your gaze into my eyes, smiled, and then we kissed for the first time. The knot of butterflies in my stomach completely unfurled, and I could feel myself falling too.

The next weekend you invited me to the coast to visit your mom, sister, and nephew. We stayed in a cabin that your mom's friend owned, and when I left the room your nephew looked at you, gave the thumbs up, and said, "Dude, good job." We both had a good laugh about it later.

The next day you took me to the ocean because I had never seen it. I'll never forget driving around the corner into the reservation. The waves were breaking against the beach with jagged rocks coming up from the water. I gasped and reached over to your arm. You just smiled and chuckled. We spent the next hour or so walking on the beach and hunting for stones.

On the way back to Seattle you surprised me with a visit to a waterfall and we walked on the bridges overlooking it while holding hands. All the fresh mountain air made me tired, so you let me rest my head on your shoulder while you drove us home. When I opened my eyes about 20 minutes later I was surprised I didn't wake up from all the hills and curves in the road. You smiled and said you'd driven slower than normal so you wouldn't wake me.

The next three weeks flew by with late night chats, drinks at our favorite bar downtown, and just feeling at home with each other while reading books, watching C-Span, or listening to music in my bedroom.

About a week before you were supposed to leave for law school to finish your last year, you found out you weren't getting a job offer from the firm you'd been working at all summer. The bad news combined with having to finish a term paper started to wear you down. You eventually got sick during our last week together, so I started picking you up after your 10-hour days at the office. When we got back to my place, I'd make hot toddies for you and rub your back while you focused on finishing your term paper.

During your last night in Seattle, I helped you edit the final draft of your paper before heading to dinner with you and your aunt. I was completely impressed with your writing and depth of knowledge, and felt so incredibly lucky to have found you.

At dinner, your aunt took our picture and despite the heaviness I felt in my heart and the stress you were under, we both looked incredibly happy sitting side-by-side holding each others' hands.

After dinner I helped you pack, and then we cuddled face-to-face on the futon in your aunt's living room. You were stroking my hair and I yours. You asked me if I was going to cry in the morning, and I told you I couldn't make any promises. You said it was going to be even harder to leave if I did. We held each other for a little while, and I went home so you could get some rest for the long day of driving ahead.

I showed up early with breakfast and helped pack the last of your things into your little red VW Golf. Your aunt said goodbye and went inside. You kissed me and I instantly started crying. We eventually ended our embrace and walked to our cars. We waved goodbye with you driving one direction and me the other. I wanted to believe it wasn't the last time I would ever see you, but it was.

******

By mid October your phone calls and emails had grown fewer. You kept telling me it was just because you were busy between finishing your last year of law school and searching for a job. I was hoping you would come home for Thanksgiving, but you said you were too busy with course work. I ended up celebrating the holiday with your family, and when I called that night to wish you a happy holiday you couldn't talk because you were at a party.

The next morning I finally saw the ocean at Shi Shi Beach and from the cliffs of Cape Flattery, the two places where you said you wanted to take me. While watching the waves crash against the rocks, I could feel you drifting away and knew I needed to have the talk with you I was dreading.

I called you a few days after Thanksgiving and asked if it was over. You said you still felt the same for me, and that you were just busy with coursework. I asked if you were coming home for Christmas, and you said you were planning on it. I told you I would ask for some time off and drive you from Seattle to your mom's, and hoped we could spend a few days together. You said that sounded nice, but weren't completely sure of your holiday plans because you also had to visit your dad in California. Then your voice turned forlorn telling me you wished you didn't feel pulled in so many different emotional directions by your family.

I waited for word about your Christmas plans, but none came. Only a picture of you and a beard you had grown over the last four months.

Then Christmas Day came and went, and still no word. I tried calling, but you didn't pick up the phone. Then two days after Christmas I woke up to an email saying you had met someone, that it was only two weeks new, but it was serious and you wouldn't be coming home over your holiday break. You said you drove around all night trying to call but couldn't because you couldn't bear to hear me cry. Then you quoted a line from Billy Bragg's Must I Paint You a Picture and said, "It's bad timing and me."

I wish I could say all I felt was a broken heart, but having you write off everything we'd shared with nothing more than an email shattered me.

The day I got your email all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and cry myself to sleep, even though it was still morning. My publisher was unrelenting though, and despite trying to call in sick I was required to go out on assignment and write a feel-good story about a woman who walked her duck on a leash. As the eccentric lady babbled on about her duck, all I could do was feel like the crazy one for having fallen head-over-heels for someone who was able to cast me aside so easily.

12/30/05

I saw a woman in the park yesterday,
walking a duck on a leash.

She turned to me and said,
"Ducks never leave.

"A morsel here, and a morsel there,
and ducks are as loyal as can be."

With a quack and a pluck,
the woman and duck were on their way.

I sat to myself thinking,
such a strange thing to see.

A woman with her duck.

Then I thought of you,
and a little bit of me.

A morsel here, and a morsel there,
as loyal as can be.

Then I thought of you,
and a little bit of her.

I cried to myself thinking, such a strange thing indeed.

Your aunt called the next day to say how horrible she felt, and asked me not to hold against her what you had done. She said our friendship meant the world to her. It's strange how your aunt ended up being a person of great comfort to me during the next several months, but all of that ended when rumors started spreading like wild fire about me.

In the months after you broke things off, my world grew very dark. In addition to losing you, I also lost one of my closet childhood friends to cancer. He was someone who had been checking in on me regularly when my heart was in shambles over you, providing much needed solace. That winter and spring were some of the hardest and loneliest chapters of my life. I felt completely adrift without an anchor.

I buried myself in a job I hated and then went drinking with coworkers almost every night just so I wouldn’t have to sit alone in my sadness.

One of those nights, after far too many drinks, a person within your family circle took advantage of my incapacitated and unconsious state. When I came to, I was paralyzed with shock and shame for weeks afterwards. Before I was able to gather the wherewithal to even process being sexually assualted, the rumors started spreading. I was painted as a "home wrecker" with those actual words uttered to me. The hushed whispers and looks of hate cast my way were unbearable. Even your little cousin I'd grown so close to was told she could no longer speak with me.

It didn't take long for what felt like your entire family to turn against me, with the exception of your cousin's husband. He told me he knew the truth of what happened and was incredibly sorry. He told me to be strong, to hold my head high, and that the rumors would soon pass.

I often think back to the day when we first kissed, and you said with such tenderness that you were scared of hurting me. Those words and everything that happened in the year to follow still haunt me. My memories of you became the collateral damage of that trauma, and an inescapable feeling your memories of me were now forever wrapped in tarnish. If wishes were things that could be granted, I'd go back to that moment of innocence and change the outcome of all that happened.

Sunday, July 23, 2006 - The Box

It was a pine cone. A perfectly round pine cone plucked from the ground and kept in a box for almost a year. It never had a chance to grow while resting alongside several rocks, an address, and fleeting memories of a summer when I first saw the ocean. Tonight I opened that box. I said goodbye to the pine cone and the rocks with a whisper and a kiss, then tossed them into the night sky. I took the box and address and threw them in the trash, but the memories - those I'll keep. They may be bittersweet, but they're mine.

From you I learned that letting go is an impossible task when feelings are left unfinished and goodbyes are left unsaid.

brilliant trace #8 - Part I

It was almost pitch black and I could barely see your face. I was helping your aunt breakdown the t-shirt booth after a long opening day of a powwow.

All I could make out was your tall figure, curly hair, and dark glasses as I watched you silently stand there while your aunt excitedly fussed over the arrival of you and your little cousin.

It wasn't until we were inside your aunt's office with the smell of cedar filling the air and the moonlight bouncing off of Puget Sound that I clearly saw your face. We caught each others' eyes for a moment while you chatted with your aunt and I helped my friend pack away the t-shirts for the night. When we were done, your aunt suggested you join my friend and I for drinks because it was my first weekend in Seattle.

The three of us laughed for hours sharing our most humiliating stories while drinking pints. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time, and when my friend drove me home I couldn't help but ask about you. She told me your summer associateship with a law firm was ending in a month, and you'd be headed back to law school soon on the other side of the country. I cursed my luck, and then tried to bury my attraction to you in the knotted lump of butterflies in my stomach.

My attraction didn't stay buried for long when you came up to me the next day with a big smile outside of your aunt's t-shirt booth. You told me you were so amazed at how much you shared the night before, and that you were very impressed by me. I looked down at my feet and tried not to blush. The moment was broken a second later when your aunt came from inside the booth and handed you a fanny pack.

"Put this on. I need you to be in charge of the money today," she said.

You looked at me a bit embarrassed, and then put the fanny pack over your shoulder.

"No, no," your aunt said. "You need to put it on. We can't lose any of the money."

This time you tried not to blush while fastening the fanny pack around your waist. I giggled and told you it was OK because I already knew much more embarrassing things about you. Then, for the first time, you looked into my eyes and smiled.

At the end of a long day in the July sun, you drove me home and we ended up talking until 4 a.m. We both came from a place of feeling like outsiders in the Native community because of our pale skin and light eyes. After talking for hours about our fears of never fully being accepted, I shared a poem with you I had written for my college's literary journal.

I stood in the doorway of my bedroom watching the reactions on your face as you read the poem, nodding and smiling at parts you identified with.

And That's the Way the Story Goes

1

I used to stare at this funny looking monkey head made out of a coconut that hung in the window of my Grandma's sewing room. In the winter at sunset, the window looked like it was tinted blue. One time I wiped the frost off the window, and when I looked outside I could see the stillness of sub-zero weather sitting in the air and the Turtle Mountains standing silent behind my Grandpa's fields.

2

My Grandma makes the best bread. We always joke that our Grandma has the best set of buns a Grandma could have. But better than her buns is the fry bread she would make for us every year at Christmas. We were silly and called it Indian Bread.

3

When I was in the fourth grade, we learned about the first "Indians" and how they were very brave hunters. I could feel the pride growing inside of me, and I knew I would burst if I didn't say something. So I raised my hand and started waving it around in the air.

"Yes?" my teacher asked.

"I'm part Native American," I said.

"You don't look Indian, you're a liar," someone shouted.

I turned red and wished I hadn't raised my hand.

4

My mom's sister married my dad's brother and they had some kids. My sister and brother look like them. They all have dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. I look like my father's uncle Lucien. He had light hair and blue-green eyes. But my brother and sister always teased me and said that I was adopted.

5

When pictures were taken of the grandchildren at family reunions, I always sat next to my blond cousins, the four kids of my uncle who married a woman with Norwegian blood. I didn't look as white sitting next to them.

6

When one of my blond cousins was in the fourth grade, they sat at the kitchen table on Grandma's lap.

"What are you learning in school?" Grandma asked.

"About the Indians," my cousin said.

"You're part Indian you know," Grandma said.

"No I'm not, I'm blond," my cousin said.

"You're my grandchild and that makes you part Indian," my Grandmother insisted with a smile.

"No I'm not!" my cousin shouted. "Those are dirty people and I'll never be one of them."

My cousin jumped off my Grandma's lap and ran away.

My Grandma tried to laugh, but a tear came out instead.

7

In my Grandma's memoirs, she wrote that one of her proudest moments was when a white man wasn't ashamed to ask for her hand in marriage. That was my grandpa.

8

"Do we call ourselves Native American, American Indian, or French Indian?" I asked my sister.

"None of them. I'm just American," she said.

9

Driving down the gravel road with my mom behind the wheel, I could hear the rocks popping like ice beneath the tires. Leaving my grandparents' farm I could always see the road ahead disappear up a hill.

"Can we see the reservation today?" I asked.

"No. You don't want to." That's all she ever said while turning onto the paved highway leading into town.

10

There's a bar along the railroad tracks in the town where I grew up called the Trading Post. It used to have a figurine of an "Indian" wearing a headdress standing out front.

11

The neighbor boys who moved in from Montana always wanted to play cowboys and Indians.

"Bang bang, you're dead," one said as he shot me with his finger made gun.

"How come I have to die?" I asked.

"Because you're they Indian, and the Indian always dies," he said.

"I'm not just any Indian, I'm a warrior princess and I refuse to die," I replied.

We kept playing cowboys and Indians and no one ever died.

12

Across the street from our house used to be a bunch of Lakota burial mounds. We liked to play king of the hill on them. Now those Lakota are buried under fancy new houses with even fancier cars parked out front.

13

I was talking to my best friend on the telephone one time when she was still going to the University of North Dakota and I was living in New York. She kept complaining about how annoying her Native American professor was in her Indian Studies class because she kept talking about how hard it is to be Native American today.

"Well, that's just crazy. I mean, they even created fifteen extra slots just for Indians in the premed program here. How hard can it be to get drunk all the time and still get into a great program? Not to mention the government pays for their tuition," she said.

A lot of my cousins go to UND, and the government pays for their tuition.

"Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I keep forgetting you have some of that blood in you," she said.

I didn't say anything, because she was my best friend.

14

If a person is lucky they'll get to see the Northern Lights at least once in their life. I'm especially lucky because I grew up seeing them twice a year. 

One year a friend of mine who had moved to Turtle Mountain to live with her mom came back to visit. As we stood catching up on old times, the lights came alive in the sky. So we lay on our backs in the snow looking at how beautiful they were. 

She started singing in an even more beautiful language, one that I had never heard. She was singing in Ojibwe, and at that moment we felt closer and further apart than before she had moved back to the reservation.

15

Last summer I carried myself packed with a broken spirit and a broken heart on a plane back to North Dakota. Later I brought myself back to New York carrying a letter from my father promising me everything would be all right because the stars told him it would be.

16

I lost the turquoise ring my Grandmother gave me as a little girl when I was working at a restaurant in New York. I told my boss about the ring hoping someone had found it.

"What? Are you Indian or something?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Well, what tribe are you from then?"

"Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa," I said.

It felt strange to be asked what tribe I was from, but it felt empowering to answer.

"Huh. And I thought you were Jewish," was all she said.

I never did find the ring.

When you were done reading the poem, you looked up and asked if you could keep it. I, of course, said yes.

The next day at the powwow you informed me that our late night talk had caused quite the stir of discussion with your family that morning, and your mom was asking your aunt all kinds of questions about me. I was completely nervous the whole day until I overheard your aunt say to my friend, "I really like that Vanessa. She's so sweet."

My friend looked at me and burst into laughter, "It's a good thing you didn't say she was a complete bitch."

Your aunt had no idea I was sitting within earshot, and then we all had a good laugh.

After packing up the t-shirt booth for the last time, we all took a celebratory picture and then went out for beers and food. At the end of the night, you drove me to my car. We sat in the dark and exchanged phone numbers. I didn't think you would actually call because you were leaving in four weeks.

Imagine my surprise when you showed up on my doorstep the next evening.

brilliant trace #8 - Part II >

brilliant trace #7

My memory of you starts with an order of nachos and soda we shared several Friday nights in a row at Skateland.

You were tall and lanky, I was short with frizzy hair, and both of us wore huge glasses that consumed our faces.

We were in fifth or sixth grade, and I can't exactly remember how we met because we went to different schools. Somehow though, we ended up talking and sharing nachos while everyone else couple skated under the dark disco lights to Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime."

I would always ask you why you came to Skateland and never skated. You would always answer by saying you didn't know. The rest of the details about our conversations are long since forgotten, and so were you until a couple of years ago.

I was home from New York for Christmas and had just finished celebrating the holidays at my brother's house in St. Paul. During the car ride to Jamestown from the Twin Cities, Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime" came on the radio. I sighed to myself, "Ah, Skateland. When everything was simple when it came to girls and boys."

My nephew, who was in the backseat, overheard me and asked," What's Skateland?"

I felt sad that the tin shed with the uneven blue cement floor had closed its doors for good, and that my nephew would never get to experience the excitement of Friday nights skating in circles to music. So, I told him about Skateland and about you.

My nephew continued playing his video game while I told the story, and without looking up he said, "Sounds lame."

I laughed and spent the rest of the car ride home wondering what happened to you. Somewhere between childhood and our teenage years we lost touch. I fell into the drama crowd and you the party crowd.

Later that evening after my family got into town I made my annual rounds to the local bars on Main Street. My friend and I were about to call it a night when I heard from behind me, "Vanessa? Vanessa Casavant?"

I turned around and about dropped my beer when I saw you sitting at the bar. The tall and lanky kid I remembered had grown even taller, but was now a very good looking man sporting a well-trimmed beard.

We chatted a bit, and I found out you had just returned from spending the past several years since high school in Europe working in the Air Force. You were living with your old man and working odd jobs figuring out what you wanted to do with the rest of your life. We exchanged phone numbers saying we should hang out sometime before I had to leave for New York.

I never did plan on calling you. Partly because I didn't want to mess with what was an already splendid chance meeting, but mostly because of the last experience I had with running into brilliant trace #5 the year prior while home for Christmas. I figured I had reached my limit of holiday flings with guys from my hometown who left me brokenhearted.

Then you called me a few days later, and I figured it couldn't hurt to have a beer and catch up. We ended up hanging out until 4 a.m. talking about politics, life, and our plans for the future. I was amazed at how much in common we had, and how our views of the world were so similar. I had also forgotten how funny you were, and how nice it was to laugh with you.

When we finally said goodnight I didn't know what to think, other than it was completely amazing running into you. I forgot how good of friends we had been before high school, and it didn't surprise me to find this note from you in my eighth-grade yearbook: Thanks for being my friend this year, even if we don't talk to each other very much I'm still your friend. Have a nice summer.

While it's not exactly the kind of prose that gets a girl misty-eyed in eighth grade, it is a note that touches an adult woman's heart when she realizes how incredibly mature an eighth grade boy had to be to write it.

I was happy that we got to talk a few more times before I had to fly back to New York, and that you invited me to ring in New Years 2005 with you and your buddies at the Old Broadway in Fargo.

I was going to go to bed early on New Year's Eve because I had to catch a plane to Albany the next morning where I was going to start my journalism internship. I ignored practicality because really wanted to see you one more time. Little did I know almost everyone we graduated with would be at the bar, so we didn't get too much time to talk. Instead, we danced and I counted down the hours until midnight.

I was hoping against all hope that the shy side of you would disappear and kiss me. When the time finally came and we were both counting down, I was kissed unexpectedly by a very drunk old friend. I was so shocked that I pushed him off me, and feeling like a complete jerk I looked at you - who barely seemed to notice.

My heart sank a little bit, but then you asked, "Who was that?" I couldn't explain very well, because all I really wanted to do was kiss you, but I knew the moment had passed.

Later in the night I finally got the courage to tell you I had enjoyed the time we got to spend together, and that it would be awesome if you could come to Albany and visit for a while.

That's when you told me you were offered a lucrative job in the Middle East and that you'd have to start within the next few weeks if you took it.

After an uncomfortable pause, I asked, "So are you going to take it?"

You said you didn't know, but that it was a lot of money you'd never have a chance to make again.

I wanted to say, "Money is just money. You've spent so much time overseas putting off your life. You should come live it and be with me in Albany." Instead, as best as I could, I helped you sort through the details of how much you would make, why you should go, and why you shouldn't.

After all was said, you looked straight into my eyes and asked, "Should I take it?"

I looked at you, and pushing back all of my selfish thoughts, all I could say was, "I'm too drunk to know what to say."

Then my cousin pulled up outside to take me home, and we were left with only an awkward goodbye.

A few days later you called to say you were taking the job.

Despite being halfway across the world from each other, you kept in better contact with me than any other guy I'd met at a moment of inconvenient timing. We sent weekly emails, and I even got a satellite phone call from you once and awhile. I kept asking when you were going to come home, and you kept saying you didn't know.

After almost a year of waiting for you, I couldn't anymore. I needed to live my life in the present, and not on what I hoped the future would hold. Our emails became fewer and fewer, and so did your phone calls.

I moved on with a guy who would eventually become brilliant trace #8. When he left me brokenhearted you called from a satellite phone at a ridiculously early hour in your time zone to make sure I was all right - because that's the kind of guy you are.

I eventually picked up the pieces of my heart and met brilliant trace #9, who I was in a relationship with when you came to visit Seattle last year. You called me, and I wanted to see you, but I was afraid. So I never called, and pretended I was sick. I've felt guilty about that ever since, and still think about you all the time - wondering what could be if you ever decided to come back home.

What I've learned from you is that genuine, mature men do exist, and I should never lose hope when I think otherwise.

brilliant trace #8 - Part I >

"Past in Present"

Before I share my next three and most recent brilliant traces, I would like to share the lyrics of a song that hit me like a burst of cold water this morning as my train was pulling into Seattle.

The song is "Past in Present" by Feist. It struck me so hard because while my present is the happiest I have been in many years, I still have portions of my past that creep up on me when I'm not looking.

Even though I have moved forward from the heart break, portions of the last three brilliant traces are still present in my life - one who is still a friend, one who I can't escape the memory of, and one who still makes my heart sink to the bottom of my stomach when I think about him.

"Past in Present"
by Feist

The scarlet letter isn't black
Gotta know who's got your back
Because they're right in front of you
Because they're telling you the truth

So much present inside my present
Inside my present so...so much past
Inside my present inside my past
Inside my present
So, so

Feeling it from dark to bright
When a wrong becomes a right
When a mountain fills with light
It's a volcano, it's a volcano
It's a volcano, it's a volcano

So much present, inside my present
Inside my present
So, so much past

Inside my present, inside my present
Inside my present
So, so much past

Inside my present
Inside my present...
So, so much past

brilliant trace #6

You were a friend of my best friend, and the instant I met you I knew you were going to steal my heart.

I was sitting on a couch in the basement of CBGB’s on the Lower East Side, and in one smooth motion you sat down next to me and with a gentle nod cleared the long, dark silky hair from your face.

You turned to me and asked, “Who might you be?”

We had barely introduced ourselves before you were called up to the stage with your band.

I remained on the couch captivated by the emotion in your voice and the humor in your performance. I realized at that moment there was no probably in the matter of you stealing my heart.

After your show, you and couple of other people talked about getting a bite to eat. You turned to me and asked if I was going to join all of you because we barely even had the chance to say hello. I of course said yes.

At the end of the night, which included trekking several blocks to a bizarre costume party in the Lower East Village, you gave me a copy of your band’s demo album. You apologized for the amateur quality of the CD. At the time, I didn’t know how modest you were being, which is something I can attest to after endlessly listening to your album during my long subway commutes between work, school, and home.

Our brief encounter that September evening soon led to numerous late night phone calls, and hours upon hours of instant messaging during our droning workdays. In between all of our silly banter and play-on-words, we talked about our dreams, life, love, and losing love.

After two months of long-distance dating, so to speak, I made a venture west to Philadelphia to spend Halloween with my best friend, you, and your circle of friends.

After a roaring good time of board games, I laid my head in your lap and we all watched a countdown of Hollywood’s scariest movie moments. While everyone was fixated on the television, I was fixated on you gently running your fingers through my hair while I rubbed the small of your back. It was tender, safe, and warm.

Over the next month, we exchanged a number of mixed CDs. When done right, we both understood the brilliance, sentiment, humor, and power behind mixing a compilation of music for someone.

In December, you came to visit me in New York and taught me how to make your grandma’s secret marinara sauce. You told me I had to learn it out of pure necessity because the eating habits I'd developed over the years while dashing from work to class to the acting studio were atrocious. You said just because I was busy and broke didn’t mean I should sacrifice my health.

While our pot of marinara boiled on the stove, we curled up in my over-sized chair to watch a Bobby Darin special I'd recorded from PBS. I told you your charisma reminded me of him. You didn't believe me, but I still think I’m right.

We spent the rest of the weekend with your friends attending a book reading and art show. We all wanted you stay in New York a little longer, but you insisted on returning to Philadelphia to help your ex-girlfriend, who you'd been with for five years, move out of the apartment the two of you shared.

I feel like a fool now believing I was something more than a rebound for you, but I guess we all need to face the truth sometimes so we can see where we stand in the grand scheme of things.

I asked you after that weekend what you were feeling given the recent breakup, and all you could tell me was that you were emotionally unavailable. You said you decided right after your break up that you were going to be single for a while and get your head on straight. Then, meeting a “wonderful little creature named Vanessa” had complicated all of that.

You remained loyal to your convictions of being being single and I respected your reasoning. We remained friends, but somewhat estranged. I was holding out hope you might come to your senses and realize what we could be.

Then, a few months after our conversation, my best friend informed me you were in a new relationship with someone. I asked you about your new girlfriend, and you told me it was serious.

I felt a jolt of blood and disbelief rush to my face while my heart sank, and all I could think was that I'd known from the beginning you’d steal my heart. I just didn't realize you would break it.

I learned from you not to wait on anyone to figure things out, because if someone really wants to be with me they’ll make it happen. No matter how confusing it might be.

brilliant trace #7 >

"Take the things you love . . ."

In following along with my flow of brilliant traces, here are some lyrics I think encapsulate what it means to love, lose love, and love again - hopefully without losing faith.

This is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
You try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

From: "On the Radio" by Regina Spektor

brilliant trace #5

Running into you can only be described as magnetic.

It was the day after Christmas and we were both celebrating the holidays at a bar in our hometown. I didn't know you personally because you had graduated a year before me, but I knew of you.

You saw me drinking a pint of beer and said, "Casavant's Creative Corner," citing the title of the column I used to write for our high school newspaper.

You said you had always read my column and were now going to graduate school in Alaska for creative writing. I blushed thinking about the naivety and simplicity of my writing back then. But you assured me you had enjoyed it.

We instantly bonded over our Mason jar pints talking about the novel you were in the process of writing, and the acting career I was pursuing in New York. I ended up driving you home later that night and you politely asked if it was OK to kiss me.

I answered by saying, "I thought you were never going to ask."

We then made plans to hang out the following night, which led to a full-fledged romantic holiday affair. We were completely inseparable, and at one point you went up to my friend who worked at the bar and thanked her for pointing me out to you.

She later told me you said that I was "the most amazing girl you had ever met."

Three days later as our holiday romance grew toward a close we were both at a loss for how to end things. Luckily a blizzard blew into town and you were forced to delay your traveling plans of heading to Grand Forks and then Alaska.

Thinking you had already left town, I got an unexpected call from you late in the evening. You said you would have called sooner but had to spend the majority of the day tracking down my parents' unpublished phone number. I was flattered.

We played with my new puppy Izzy B until everyone in my parents' house had gone to bed. Then we lay on the floor of my parents' living room face-to-face with our bodies facing opposite directions. We talked about our goals in life, and then had the most amazing kiss I'd ever had at that point in my life. We continued laying there staring into each others' eyes until I looked down to giggle in embarrassment.

You asked me what I was laughing about, and I told you it was too embarrassing to tell.

Then I looked up into your adoring eyes and told you I finally understood the pain in Bob Seger's voice when he sang the song "We've Got Tonight."

You looked back into my eyes amazed and said you were thinking about the exact same thing.

After a brief moment of giggling between the two of us you started singing in a cheesy rocker voice:

I know it’s late.
I know you're weary.
I know your plans don't include me.
Still here we are, both of us lonely.
Longing for shelter from all that we see.

Then you grabbed my hand tighter, and in laughter and a few tears I joined you:

We've got tonight.
Who needs tomorrow?
Lets make it last, lets find a way.
Turn off the light.
Come take my hand now.
We've got tonight babe,
Why don't we stay?

We secretly spent the night together spooning on the cot in my mom's sewing room. We woke up in the morning hearing your mom's voice on my parents' answering machine asking where you were. We hadn't even realized that in the moments of our singing and sleeping the blizzard had cleared.

I did my best not to cry all day after dropping you off at your mom's house. However, the damn broke free when I heard you voice on the phone that evening. You said you were standing in the entryway of a K-Mart in Grand Forks. You'd just hiked about a mile in a blizzard trying to find a pay phone so you could hear my voice before going to sleep.

We continued our romance as I returned to New York and you started your long journey back to Alaska. One of our last dates was on the phone while you were waiting in the Seattle airport for your plane to Alaska.

We laughed at the fact that we were both making mixed CDs for each other. You also told me you were looking at graduate schools in New York, and I said that it would be nice to spend my spring vacation visiting you in Alaska.

Unfortunately none of what we'd talked about came true. Instead, I received an email from you on the same day I received your mixed CD package in the snail mail. The email read that things were moving too fast and you just "couldn't."

That was our last communication about us, and as I tried to reach you over the next few months I was left with nothing. No response, no explanation. Just nothing.

For months I spent my nights falling asleep to U2's "With or Without You" and waking up to Bob Seger's "You'll Accompany Me." I was searching for answers of what happened, and finally had to reside myself to the fact that I would never find them.

From you I learned to beware the fool-hearted romantic.

brilliant trace #6

brilliant trace #4

It's strange that it took so long for us to find each other.

Not only had our families been friends for generations, but we were also the same age and had grown up in small towns where our love for music and art helped us escape the suffocating stillness of country life.

We were 23 and bright-eyed about what our futures could hold. I was living in New York and chasing my dreams of acting. You were in Omaha discovering your love for photography. We still had no idea the other existed.

Then one day, family members who thought we'd have a lot to talk about gave our email addresses to each other. It turns out they were right.

At first our conversations were short, mainly you asking me questions about New York. After awhile we started to share more with each other, especially after we were both dumped by our current mates.

After about a year of talking online, our emails had grown into two- to three- page letters that we would send once or twice a day. We finally decided it was time to meet and for you to explore New York.

I remember waiting for you to knock on my door. I was pacing back-and-forth in my apartment wondering if you'd look like the person I had imagined who was somewhat short and perhaps a bit scruffy. Later you told me that you were imagining me as a tall and lanky girl with red hair.

It makes me laugh to think how wrong both us were.

You were tall, clean-cut, and very dashing. I was short with dark brown hair. The only feature we both had right were our striking blue eyes.

It didn't even take a full hour for us connect in person. Before we knew it we were exploring Manhattan, laughing, talking, and staying up all night sharing our dreams with each other. It felt as if we'd known each other our whole lives.

You were the man who helped me put the pieces of my heart back together and restored my passion for life after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had claimed it.

You finally decided to move to New York after spending another week with me and I with you in Omaha. In between those visits were weekly phone conversations lasting between three and five hours. We joked that our phone companies would call to see if we were still alive after you moved in and our phone bills significantly decreased.

There are parts of me that wish I could go back to the first year of our relationship. It was so magical that I was too scared to ruin it by asking where we stood with each other. In hindsight, I should have faced my fears and asked the question because the ambiguity of it all is what ultimately destroyed us.

May 11, 2003 - Lost My Breath

I can't and I won't pretend, love
comes slowly and patiently, painfully
walking on eggshells.

A whisper carries truth, tight
lips speak louder, hearts
break silently.

I hate you, I love, I hate you, I love you.

I wrote this poem in the leather-bound journal you gave me with the inscription, "For stories & poems, plays & rhymes. May your thoughts find a home between these lines."

I can still recall the exact conversation that put an end to us.

I had finally gotten the courage to ask where we stood, and I was smacked with the words that I'm "a little psycho" and "emotionally high maintenance" just like every other girl who had come into your life.

You later apologized for what you said, and admitted it was something you convinced yourself of so you could push me away because you were incapable of loving.

It was too late though to salvage anything, even a friendship, because I had seen the real side of you in those hurtful words. Not the ideal I had built in my head of a dashing blue-eyed artist who left his favorite CD on my pillow to keep me company while we were apart.

You set the stage for my pattern of falling for guys who become instantly enamored with me and then turn on me just as fast.

However, I did manage to learn from you to never be afraid to ask where I stand with someone. Despite how much it may hurt, it's better to know than live in ambiguity.

brilliant trace #5 >

brilliant trace #3

We met while waiting tables together at a New York City restaurant. We were both 19, but from two completely different backgrounds.

I was a small-town girl chasing after her dreams in the big city, and you were an inner-city boy born in Ecuador and living in a small one-bedroom apartment in Queens with your padre, hermano, and little hermana.

We would spend afternoons talking about our future goals, for me it was acting and you it was taking care of your family and gaining citizenship. Then at night you'd teach me how to Salsa and Merengue in my dorm room so I could impress your padre at a summer barbecue where you were going to introduce me to your familia.

However, I never got to meet your padre because he died of cancer a few days before the barbecue. Instead of dancing, we spent that weekend at your father's funeral.

You tried to remain strong for your family, especially your little hermana, but you were only a kid. You would come to me at night and cry while I held you. Then one night you returned the favor when I received news from home that one of my best friends had died unexpectedly.

Over the next few months we tried to hold each other together, but it wasn't working. We started spending fewer and fewer nights together. You said it was because your abuela was moving in to take care of you and your siblings, but I knew the truth. Our sadness together was too much for a pair of kids to handle.

I decided to move to Queens so we could be closer to each other, and you could have more time with your familia. Your abuela made me laugh, instructing you to help me find a safe apartment because I was too innocent and pretty to find one myself. Your little hermana was also sweet, trying to teach me Spanish with homemade lessons scribbled in her school notebook.

I'm not sure when it was you started cheating on me with the hostess where we worked, but I'll always remember the day you left me for her. You were my first serious boyfriend who eventually crushed my heart to pieces and took away my innocence when it came to matters of love.

After more than a year of being forced to watch you and her carry on in front of me, I finally had enough experience as a waitress to get a new job. I was moving forward and moving on, putting the pieces of my heart back together. So when you called me out of the blue a year later I wasn't sure what to think.

We decided to meet at our coffee shop. I was expecting some sort of apology, and instead you offered me a small sum of money to marry you for a green card. You told me you had a whole plan worked out; that we would get divorced after four years so you could marry the girl you left me for and she could get her own green card.

You told me that you were asking me for this favor because you knew I was a good person who always wanted the best for everyone.

I was lucky you waited so long to propose, albeit not in the most romantic way, because it was long enough for me to see you for the selfish and despicable person you were. Instead of saying yes, I calmly told you to go to hell and left you sitting in our coffee shop.

From you I learned that there are people in this world who don't deserve my compassion, tears, or forgiveness. I also learned to never date a co-worker.

brilliant trace #4 >

brilliant trace #2

It was chemistry when we met, quite literally. We were paired together as lab partners, and a very unlikely friendship unfolded before our eyes.

You were on the fringe of the popular crowd, and I was on the fringe of the not-so-popular crowd.

We'd spend hours talking online before instant messaging was a common form of communication. It was the medium where we could tell each other anything except that we liked each other.

Our relationship and chemistry was this intangible thing that neither of us could explain nor understand. About a year out of high school we finally had the courage to tell each other how we felt, but it was too late.

We were living a thousand miles apart - literally and figuratively.

From you I learned that people should never be afraid to utter the words, "I like you," because if we wait too long the moment might pass us by.

brilliant trace #3 >

brilliant trace #1

We met during drama club in high school. You were a senior and I was a freshman. Your cologne was subtle and would linger in a room for several seconds after you'd leave. Your laughter and smile would do the same.

You were my first crush to turn into a boyfriend. We'd spend hours sitting in your car in the dead of winter talking because it was the only place we could be alone.

You were there for me when no one else could be. You'd let me pour my heart out to you, whether it was about my grades in school or my mom lying in a hospital fighting for her life. You would listen, you would console, and then you'd do everything in your power to make me laugh.

The first time you broke up with me was the hardest. The second was also painful, and so was the third. I shouldn't have taken you back after that, but you had been my shoulder to cry on and my joker to laugh with for more than a year. I didn't know how to let that go.

Then after you broke my heart a fourth time I realized it was harder to be with you than without you.

From you I learned there are guys in this world who will be forever lost in trying to find themselves, and there isn't room for anyone in a heart that can't be found.

brilliant trace #2 >

It's complicated

I succumbed to joining Facebook last week, and I have to say I'm very pleased with my lack of will power.

The social-networking website is far superior to its competitors when it comes to being in tune with my generation. I could list a plethora of its features as proof of this, but my favorite is under the category of "relationship status" where there is an option to choose "it's complicated."

I don't think there's any word or phrase that could better describe my generation's experience when it comes to navigating all the variables that exist in today's relationships, causing many of us to become paralyzed with indecision.

We can travel faster and stay connected in ways no other generation has experienced. We can study, live, and work in three different places at the same time. We can instantly see captured memories with the click of a digital camera, and just as easily delete the ones we don't want to keep.

The world and all its infinitesimal opportunities continue to whirl around us faster and faster, and in all the chaos we seem to lose our ability, and sometimes common decency, in tending to matters of the heart.

When I started this blog I didn't intend to write anything too deeply personal about my romantic life, fearing that I would undo the stitches I've so delicately sewn my heart back together with over the years.

Then I remembered a monologue from the play Brilliant Traces by Cindy Lou Johnson that I had performed nearly a decade ago at the J. Beckson Studios.

Did you ever think that one time, a long time ago, when you were a little child, you were visited by extraterrestrials? They say that when you are visited by an extraterrestrial - after the visit, the extraterrestrial puts this spell on you so you cannot remember the encounter at all, and you wake up only with this sad kind of longing for something, but you don't know what. And you carry that sad longing with you all the rest of your life. And they say that if, by chance, you get hypnotized, then you reveal the encounter, under hypnosis and when you wake up, you remember it, and then, it is no longer a sad longing, but a real thing, which you know about, and even if people think you're crazy, talking all the time about your extraterrestrial encounter, that's OK, because in your heart you know what it was that had been locked up for so long and you are greatly relieved.

In Johnson's own words from a 1989 New York Times article, the play is about "people who were scarred but were trying to make something of value out of their pain."

So, even if you think I'm crazy, over the next 10 days I'll list the top 10 indelible and complicated "brilliant traces" left on my heart, and what I've learned from each boy who put them there.

No names will be mentioned, only experiences - and perhaps through this process I will finally find my own relief.

brilliant trace #1