A Midsummer Night's Awakening

I was curled up in bed, watching tv and assuming I'd go to sleep fairly soon. 

But then my phone beckoned.

It was my Puppet, the Hermia to my Helena, inviting me to join her and another friend for drinks. 

It was already almost tomorrow and the practical thing would have been to stay in. But she told me our friend was bugging her to ask me to join. 

And there's something irresistible about a cute friend anxious to see me. 

Of course it was probably partly the juxtaposition of drunkenly reaching out to The Phantom of the Opera the night prior and though remembering little of the actual conversation, definitely feeling there was no desperation from him to see me. 

I will also confess that the adorable friend I was to join could have been the little brother of The Phantom. 

Same style. 

Same artistic sweetness. 

How could I not want to be around that?

I hadn't seen Hermia in ages either. 

And there are several girlfriends in my life who I need to see with consistency because when I don't I feel out of balance. 

So of course I had to join them. 

Even if it would be tomorrow by the time I got there. 

We drank and we talked and we pondered on all things artistic. 

There's something magnetic when artists are together. 

I don't even realize how much I crave that until I'm around it. 

The three of us having too much fun decided to carry on at The Phantom Jr.'s place.

More wine & more conversations. 

Love, life and the universe. 

And then Hermia fell asleep and The Phantom Jr. and I snuck out to adventure around. 

The old building he lives in felt like the set for some old movie.

Antique vases decorate a table in the hall. 

The doors to each room looked like some bed and breakfast that would be run by an elderly couple who called everyone "Dear."

There was a short bookshelf in one corner overflowing with books for borrowing.

And then he took me to a room with shelves of all random delights and told me that it was all free for the taking. 

The shelves were lined with perfectly placed trinkets and tokens like some sort of garage sale. 

Jars and a ghost figurine. 

A hat and a pair of earrings. 

A deck of tarot cards. 

A jewelry box. 

I laughed because for someone like me it was extra special. 

I'm terribly sentimental and love keepsakes, memories from a time or place or some dear person. 

And it's something I can actually see and hold onto, even if the moment's long gone. 

I reached for a small cordial glass with tiny white flowers and smiled at it. 

"I want this," I said. 

And I held onto it with the kind of tender care a small child holds their first stuffed animal. 

We made our way outside and to our surprise it was already morning. 

The sun had danced pink and orange across the sky and the moon still hung beside it, waving adieu.

The night lamps were still lit in the street but the birds flying tree to tree painted morning over the night. 

The Phantom Jr. looked at me with a sleepy grin on his lips, 'Thank you for sharing this with me,' he said. 

I drove my tipsy, tired self home as the clock reminded me it was nearly 6am, and thought what a lovely evening that had been. 

My heart felt full. 

And my soul was smiling. 

When we'd hugged each other goodbye I'd wanted to lean in and kiss him. 

But not in a romantic way, simply because a hug didn't feel meaningful enough to communicate my appreciation. 

I had looked at that smiling face, his eyes nearly closed in a drunken sleep, and I thought how for weeks, and then months, I'd longed for a night like this with The Phantom of the Opera, the simplicity of doing nothing together but just being together, the delight in who one another was, as we are, the spontaneity of the unexpected duration of our night. 

Here was someone I barely knew who preferred time with me over sleep and solace. 

That was something the Phantom had never given me. 

And my dear friend had reminded me that it did exist. 

And I was eternally grateful. 

So I kissed him on the cheek with all the ardor of a woman with a recently stitched up heart.

I don't know if he even realized how much love I poured into that goodbye.

But he'd made me feel seen when I'd spent the last three months trying to make a broken man see me. 

He had when he first met me. 

And I thought buried somewhere inside the shadows was the flame he felt for me, blindingly bright if he'd merely let it resurface. 

I still don't know the details of what I want or what it would even look like. 

But I do know that I want to find a man who would stay up all night just to hear me talk and thank me for sharing in a beautiful sunrise. 

My phone stared blankly at me as I realized the drunken conversation the Phantom and I shared would be a hazy moment stuck in the past. 

My night had been spent in intimacy. 

Pure, platonic intimacy that I hadn't felt since I was 17 whiling away the summer hours with the boy I met in Midsummer. 

That play holds in it a bit of magic. 

And I hoped somewhere a Puck would be casting a spell over my future lover so he could at last find his way to my eager arms.