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| Chez Evan. I'm sure there's some fancy name for the colourful wall collection but it's lost on me. |
On a Friday night in late August, I am sitting in my boyfriend’s Seattle living room. Alone. He won’t be back until tomorrow evening. I’ll pick him up at the airport in his car which was left stranded in visitor parking at my place in Vancouver two and a half weeks ago. It’s a convoluted story, arising from a two-day flight delay in Ottawa which radically changed Evan’s itinerary.
Pre-Evan, I came to Seattle several times a year. Alone. Seattle was one of my weekend escape spots, a break from where I lived in Vancouver. Alone there, too. Somehow being alone somewhere else made my relentlessly coveted time to myself more special. Exciting even.
Now, instead of racing around, trying to snap as many evening shots of whichever area of Seattle I might be in, I’m chilling at Evan’s. Technically, not chilling. Evan lives in a heavily shaded, first-floor apartment where it’s always chilly, even in late August. But here I am, alone, and I don’t have socks on, I don’t have a blanket draped over me and I’m not checking my earlobes for icicles. When he left for his trip, he closed up all the windows. It’s never been like this. Room temperature actually feels like room temperature. Evan always says he needs fresh air when he’s here. He keeps the windows open through every season and walks around with four layers of clothes, dressed for arctic conditions.
I’m a one-layer guy. Layers add what I view as heft, not on Evan, but definitely on me. Sane or otherwise, the perception is intertwined with my eating disorder. Heft = Heavy. I haven’t opened any windows since I arrived an hour ago. There is no window battle—the overt kind which is futile or the covert kind where I sneakily—desperately!—close panes a smidgen and then another smidgen. One of my smidgen maneuvers resulted in an irreplaceable glass vase crashing to the floor, scattering in hundreds of pieces. Evan still mourns. I’d have broken it eventually. I’m highly accident-prone.
BONUS: With the windows shut, I can’t hear dog walkers passing by. Can’t even hear the dogs. This is heaven!
Adding to the quiet is the fact the speakers in every room are silent. Normally, it’s NPR or jazz during every waking hour, even when Evan’s gone to work or the yoga studio. I like his station choices, but I can only the same three-minute newscast every half hour once. I welcome silence. Especially when I want to write.
Evan had me download an app to control the speakers, adjusting the one volume in one room while keeping status quo in another. Most of the time, all I want is “Off.” I press a button on an actual speaker and my wish is granted. All the speakers shut down. Somehow that kind of simplicity messes up the app and the timing of the speakers next time Evan turns the system back on, aka, when the moment he returns home. He asks if I used the app for the speakers. I smile what he says is my fake smile. I suppose it’s a slightly evolved version of my eleven-year-old smile I’d offer whenever coerced to participate in a family photo. My grins remain a work in progress. My generation was not taught The 6 Essential Poses for Social Media as a prerequisite to kindergarten.
Without distractions, I read a chapter of a novel, not once losing my place. I’m confident I haven’t added wrinkles to my forehead or made my crow’s feet more pronounced because I haven’t been squinting while reading. That’s because I’ve just discovered that Evan’s shaded abode actually has great lighting. Without clarification, Evan would be offended that my discovery comes a year and a half into our relationship. He’s a designer with consummate style. Lighting is an area he’s especially passionate about. His vintage lamps and art deco light fixtures are prized finds he’s been collecting for three decades. So, yes, I know he has great lighting. What I’ve just learned is they can project a functional level of brightness. For me, bright lights mean easy reading; for Evan, they render everything overexposed. Ambience is lost. Blemishes are exposed. The coffee stain on my sleeve garners too much attention. Reading alone at Evan’s with full-capacity lighting, the pages of my book look white instead of dark gray. Sentences don’t play hide-and-seek.
It's nice to stretch out on the sofa as I read. My shoes are off, as they always are when I step into my place or Evan’s. This mystifies Evan. Drives him crazy. A man of style, he views my shoelessness as offering an incomplete look. I remind him I’m Canadian. It’s what we do. I’ve googled it to show him shoes off is the norm in many countries. I feel weird being shoed in someone’s home. I like this Canadian gesture. Quirk, if you will. With no shoes, I can stretch out, feet up on the furniture as I read. Without having to go another round in the shoe debate, I manage to read a second chapter.
Pillows are nice but sometimes they
make me feel I should sit on the floor.
(NOTE: Not Evan's home. Too much light.)
Before fully settling in, I had to rearrange a few things on the sofa. Evan loves pillows almost as much as lamps. I stack them just right so I’m sitting straight, not swallowed up. My back has been giving me a hard time lately. There’s sorting to do as well. I move the meat pillows to an empty chair.
That’s right, Evan has meat pillows. Meat pants, too. It’s not stunt fashion like when Lady Gaga wore a meat dress, slabs of bacon stitched together with a keyhole neckline for peekaboo cleavage. That’s over-the-top offensive, one of those desperate fashion stunts to out-Insta the Kardashians. As a vegetarian of nearly four decades, I stopped wearing leather shoes and belts long ago. I got tired of my meat-loving friends poking holes in my principles. Without leather, my fashion options are fewer—pleather rarely wows. I now have three dozen pairs of Converse to contrast with Evan’s extensive cowboy boot collection. We’re the same shoe size but we don’t play tradesy.
The leather pillows get cast aside. I’m thankful the whole dang sofa isn’t leather.
So here I am. Friday night. Alone in Seattle. Kinda like the good ol’ days. Bright lights, comfy temperature, a peaceful aura, kicking back, shoes off, a safe distance from cow coverings. It’s bliss as a throwback of sorts. Life before Evan.
But it’s tainted. This is life without Evan.
Despite the objective perks, I don’t like it.
I miss the man. We’re different in so many ways. Sometimes there’s a lot of negotiation. Sometimes we just accept that we’re two different guys who, on the important things, aren’t too different. Our habits and tastes may vary but our values are in sync.
I’m enjoying the moment, but I look forward to driving his car to Seatac, hopping out of the car with flowers in my hand, giving him a kiss and a hug and returning to Home Base Washington. I’ll be closing the windows, a smidgen, then a smidgen more, but I’ll be smiling—genuinely—through my shivers. I’ll continue to deal with his way as he continues to adjust to my way.
In time, we’ll have “our way” fully figured out.
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