Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" is one of my favorite songs. I know a lot of people despise it, and honestly, I can't really blame them. I had heard the song before, and thought it was rather repetitive and annoying.
But I fell in love with the song, almost a year ago.
It happened on the cruise that John and I took to the Eastern Caribbean, as we were leaving the port of Miami. We'd taken a redeye flight out of Phoenix the night before, and basically been stuck on planes all night long, where we couldn't sleep. We were so excited to be going on vacation that we were restless with energy, while at the same time being drained. When we finally boarded the ship the next day, we fell asleep in our room until dinner time, at which point we dragged ourselves to the dining room, ate, and promptly went back to bed.
I woke up some time at night, itching for a cigarette. John woke up too, and we threw on our clothes and walked to the top deck, noticing how dark the world around us was. We'd left Miami behind us, and because most passengers had already fallen asleep, the lights on the deck were low. We walked around the swimming pools and the hot tubs, not even talking, as some music pulsed out around us, a techno/dance beat that no one was using. We were just looking at the sea and finally breathing it all in. I think we still couldn't believe where we were, what we were doing. Finally, we stopped so I could smoke, and we leaned against the rail, John upwind of myself so the smoke wouldn't blow at him.
I lit my cigarette and stood there, staring out at this black void. And it should have been lonely, except for this - my arm was on the rail, and so was John's, and the outside of our arms were touching. Just the slightest pressure, that bit of contact. And everything felt right. I was happy and content and quiet and for once, the constant stream of worry and panic that I felt had stilled within me.
Poker Face came on the speakers, a remix meant for dancing, and John and I swayed against each other. Our feet tapped, and it became a little game, the both of us gently tapping each other's foot with our own in time with the music. We stood for forever and never and a heartbreaking beautiful instant that lasted a lifetime, listening to the music and simply ... being.
Whenever I hear the song now, my mind flashes back to that night, the first night of the cruise. We'd both been through a lot in the past few years, and even months. Had our hearts broken and mended, our lives turned upside down. We had fallen into each other one lonely night and then realized that we were the compliment. Yin to yang, I was the bright energy that pulled him forward, and he was the stabilizing force that kept me from being carried off too far. Neither of us had had a real vacation in a long time, too caught up with life and worries and relationships that would pull us apart and rebuild us into something we likely didn't know we could be.
I think that that moment, when we stood swaying and tapping our feet to Poker Face, was the moment when I realized I loved this man who was beside me. Whether I would love him for a month or a year or a lifetime or all of eternity, I couldn't say. But my heart was so full, my soul so pressed and open and pained and ecstatic, that I felt as if I didn't hang to that railing, I would fly away forever. And just when that feeling was almost too much to bear, he moved his arm - and took my hand.
And he stood with me, and he rooted me, and he held me just enough to make me safe and comforted, and I pulled him just enough to make him adventurous and eager, and we were made whole there, listening to some pop song that in a few years will no doubt pass into oblivion.
We've never said I love you to one another, not in words. But everything we do, we think of each other. I learned to make the foods he likes, to tell him the jokes he never thinks of, to be the nonsensical moment he needs in his day. He gives me what I never thought I'd have for myself - something stable and concrete - a beautiful home with a kitchen where I can cook to my heart's delight, and plenty of room to have friends over. He loves me, and I love him, and we know whether we love for this moment, this week, this month, this year, we have loved.
Maybe some day I should tell him this, but I think he already knows. He sees me, he rescues me from me, and he has never denied me. And every time Poker Face plays, I remember that moment when we first stood and were as one, on a sea as black as ink, a dot of light in a dark dark world. And we are each other's salvation and rest and comfort and adventure, and we are whole.
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