In the city that I live in there's a singular wind tunnel just a few blocks down from where I live. Straight down the street that ends in front of my house that forms part of the intersection. The wind tunnel is formed because of the sudden rise of tall buildings typically seen in the financial areas of American cities. It's a small city almost all buildings are small, but just a few blocks down my house are these tall buildings for banks and government buildings poke up like a little blip in the other wise humble cityscape. Normally there is no wind, but as soon as the weather changes and the winds from the sea start to pick up, this intersecting can push bicyclists off their two-wheels. And in the winter, like this day, the wind punishes any exposed skin with a wrath none of us deserves. The snow of last week is nearly gone and there's only remnants of the gray, yucky nuisance scene especially where winter's long shadows stand in perpetuity during the season. A homeless man, not sure how he survives, cling stubbornly to his turf in front of the Bruegger's Bagels that form one of the corners of the windy intersection.
It was from in front of this bagel store that I saw her directly across the diagonal of the windy intersection. She was coming out of the coffee shop. When I saw her I froze, as if the weather and the wind wasn't unbearable enough. I wasn't even looking in her direction. I was heading home so my field of vision was away from the coffee shop she was coming out from. But as it has been the case for most of the days since we had broken up more than a year ago, I get this urge to inspect this windy intersection, half fearing to see her and her new boyfriend, half hoping to see that face I once had gotten so used to and whose presence in my life I had taken for granted as a permanence. And all this time, my dread and hope had ended to nothing except an increasing sense of relief each time. But that day I followed my instinct and turned around after braving through the worst wind in memory while crossing the street. I turned around and saw her, and just a split second later, as if I had yelled out louder than the howling wind, she looked at me. I didn't know what to do. My face was frozen despite the scarf that attempted to cover as much as possible. She was wearing the familiar white winter jacket we had bought together sometime in the memory lane of ours that had ended a year ago. her blue eyes, piercing as ever, made themselves clear that she was looking at me. And rushing through our held gaze was the wind that seemed to have gotten more violent. My peripheral vision suggested that things started flying up and down. But my gaze was fixed on hers. I wanted to smile; there was a tremendous pressure inside me that needed relief, I was surprised to feel. But nothing. Maybe it was too cold.
And I saw nothing I can easily describe on her face. It wasn't a smile but she recognized me and she wanted, too, to hold the gaze. If one of us had run to the other, cutting through the strong current from the sea, or at least opened his or her gaze to welcome the other to do so, what would have happened?
But I was still too afraid. I was afraid that she was just waiting for someone to come out of the coffee shop to join her on their way somewhere that did not involve me. And with that thought my anger, which I thought was dead by now, closed my eyes and turned my head and then my body and moved my legs without waving to her and without waiting for her to gesture a greeting. The ensuing pain was complex, varied, unfathomable, dynamic, but not surprising because it was just as before, more than a year ago. And as I left the wind tunnel and headed home, I wonder how much longer the turmoil would continue.
