Fitting in on summer nights

It was an idyllic summer night.  Sunset in the avenues, a semi-famous musician making a backyard of  people exclusively of my demographic sway.  Wafts of expensive cologne graced the air around the most common type of young man there who seem to spend a lot of time at the gym after work.  Their job descriptions sometimes are so foreign to me that I get a little bored before they finish saying them.  In their free time they like to water ski.

Almost without exception the girls were wearing some variation on the theme of skinny jeans, flowy tops, long beach-curly hair, big jewelry, and strappy sandals...myself included.  I didn't mean to fit in that well and I felt a little ill at ease about it.

I sat alone in the back so I could watch for my friends who were coming.  A girl who also fit the mold for the party and was in the same boat as me sat in the chair next to me.  It wasn't long before a very handsome man taller than anyone has any business being asked if he could sit with us.  The girl turned her practiced art of flirt on, adjusting her tone of voice, posture, and I swear her eye size.  She managed to get him to sit between us instead of by me where he was originally.  His expensive cologne, gym attendance, and long job title were quite lost on me but I had nothing else to do.  He bounced between us, leaning over to talk to one or the other throughout the concert.  

#charmer

The other girl was also tall, pretty, and obviously interested.   His attention settled on her and I deliberately got lost in my own thoughts to avoid the awkwardness of being left out of the trio we formed only minutes ago.  

I started thinking about how much I looked like most of the girls there but how different I felt.  I guess I don't know, maybe they all feel like me.  Certainly we can't all feel the same, though we dress the same.  

I feel like when I dress like that I'm wearing a costume.  Even though I was dressed like all the girls there who seemed to be into the good smelling guys who like the gym, I really prefer men to smell like themselves, and have features that reflect their passions.  They can look like a biker, a climber, a runner, I don't care, as long the look isn't an end in itself.

I wasn't dressed like how I felt, but I'm not sure how to dress like how I feel anyway.  Is it even important to do that?  I don't know.

My heart and desires stretched out to the mountains.  I drifted off to my places of exquisite wonder. Summiting a peak, a little dizzy with the effort and altitude.  Starting to feel chilled as my body adjusts from the exertion and shelter of the climb to resting on an exposed mountaintop.  The way an apple seems extra juicy and sweet afterwards.  The rush of power and light that starts in my heart and shoots out my toes in the last few miles of a long run.  Finishing a climb that scared me to death, one I couldn't have done two weeks ago.  Sharing those experiences with people who appreciate their beauty.  People with whom I have relationships built on what we have learned about each other through those experiences.  

I was a little annoyed when I was summoned from my reverie by the tall nice-smelling man offering me a piece of gum, and wanting to talk about how the Beatles are over-rated, and the doctrine of why marijuana will always be inherently bad even if it's legal.  He leaned forward, never blinked and stated his thoughts as if only an idiot could think differently.  He responded to my to my questioning of his opinions with things like, "Now don't say something ignorant like that."  I kind of wished he had continued his conversation with the tall girl.  

I keep trying to fit into scenes like that.  And I keep coming away feeling like I have just escaped.

I keep trying to find a way to end this meaningfully but I think it's time to call it done.

Sunrise from inside the tent on my last camping trip.

I have to say that I DO certainly appreciate some things about this night.  I think there are a lot of people who found exactly what they were looking for there, and I like to see that.  And there was even a little bit of what I'm looking for.  I loved the free-spirited music, I loved that people were laughing at his Alaska jokes, I loved that the backyard was awash with my friends' talent of creating a magical concert venue, and the grace they showed as hostesses.