Intro: The problem with trying to describe events that are outside of normal human experience is the fact that human language cannot describe them accurately. The following "autobiographical sketch" is an attempt to describe such an event. It is entirely true. It contains no exaggerations. In fact, it is severely understated.
The original draft of this section of my diary (old-fashioned off-line diary) contains many chapters. I have included small parts of only four chapters here.
Setting: I was in college at the time. The story takes place in the college's library, where I studied on a daily basis. I was 24 years old and just beginning my second year at this particular institution, after having transferred from another college (and after skipping a couple of years). My best friend (who was also my roommate) and I were trying to study and visit at the same time (never an easy task). We had long since given up on hoping to meet any attractive women in the library. Very few of them ever set foot in there.
One day, though, a woman did set foot in the library...
September 10, 1985:
I first saw her out of the corner of my eye and looked up just as she was approaching our table. The transition from mundane to mystical was immediate. The instant my eyes focused on her, my heart pounded a single giant beat. Not two giant beats, not ten, nor twenty, but just one giant beat. It was such a strange physical reaction that I immediately knew it signified that something incredibly important had just happened. My recognition of her was instantaneous and intense. It was as if I was seeing someone again that I thought I had lost for all eternity, only I didn’t remember her until I saw her again. Never before or since has a woman caused such a reaction in me.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
I stared at her. I very plainly and blatantly stared at her as she approached, and I wanted her to see me staring. Not three seconds had passed since I first saw her, yet I was caught by an emotion unlike any I had ever felt before.
She was with another girl. They passed within inches of our table, directly in front of me, and sat down facing me at a table about twelve feet to my right. For every second that I stared at her, the intensity of my feelings increased. I was so completely happy to see her “again” (for it truly did feel like “again”) that I had the wildest urge to run over and hug her. I was convinced that she would feel the same way about me, too, if only she would look at me.
Both girls appeared to be foreigners. I theorized that they might be from India; although with my luck (I have always given due deference to my bad luck), they could just as easily be from Iran, the land of religious fanatics. That might prove to be a cultural obstacle. When I explained this theory to my roommate later, I added that I didn't care where she came from nor how fanatical she might be. She could have been carrying a grenade launcher on her shoulder, and I would still have been in love with her. My feelings were completely out of my hands in this matter.
Shortly after she arrived, my roommate left to read a magazine. I do not remember his leaving, nor do I remember having said anything to him about her (although my not saying something would have been completely out of character). He simply disappeared from my consciousness like smoke in the wind.
I unconsciously examined "my foreign lover" from head to toe, as she approached and walked past. She was just slightly overweight (mostly around her bottom side), maybe twelve pounds or so. This fact would have been a significant negative in my usual shallow calculations of what constituted beauty. But this time, for the first time in my young life, I did not care. She was beautiful. Her flaws, if she had any, were beautiful too. A very soft face, a beautiful face, but not spectacularly so. This abandonment of my usual shallow standards was another fact that convinced me I was feeling that one and only legitimate emotion that heaven calls love.
She was wearing a very simple, yet attractive, cotton, one-piece summer dress. She was very skilled at converting simplicity into elegance. Her jet black, nearly shoulder-length hair was combed straight, and she appeared to be wearing no makeup. She definitely did not need any.
Her companion was quite a bit younger than she, but was just as pretty. She was either a sister or a daughter. I didn't have time to care which one she was. If she happened to be a daughter, then it only made me love her mother more. I don't know why it did, but it did. The potentially negative consequences of her being a daughter -- that she might have a father out there somewhere -- really didn't bother me at first, because my brain didn't have time to grasp such a possibility, and, second, because I soon noticed that her mother, my soul mate, was not wearing a wedding ring. This was too good to be true, yet it appeared that it was, indeed, true. My lifelong journey through the parched desert was about to come to an end. I saw paradise ahead.
I continued to give my full attention to her. Whatever work I had been doing (or trying to do) was completely forgotten. I smiled happily at her every time she looked up (which was not often). I knew that my incessant staring must eventually have become obvious to her, but I could not make myself stop, nor did I want to. In fact, I desperately wanted her to see me staring so that she would become "infected" by the same emotions I felt. I was sure that she would be, once she had "recognized" me the way I had "recognized" her.
Such "forward" behavior normally went completely against my personality. In fact, until she walked into my life, I had seldom ever had the courage to try to get an attractive girl’s attention, unless there was a legitimate reason to do so. I could not have stood the rejection. Yet, now, it didn’t even enter my mind that she might not feel the same way about me as I felt about her.
The constant and overt displays of affection that passed between these two beautiful women throughout the evening only served to make me fall even more in love than I already was (I had never seen such unabashed love exhibited by anyone else in my entire life). The younger girl did much less studying. Instead, she was more interested in hugging the one that I wanted to hug. The younger one often stood behind her companion and put her arms around her neck in the most loving manner. The one who was being hugged smiled beautifully, happily and reciprocated as best she could. At other times the "hugged one" eagerly helped the hugger with her school work. I was deeply moved by the beautiful displays of love I saw that evening.
How I longed to be a part of their lives.
It was for this reason that I finally started staring beyond the limits of propriety. It took a while, but she finally noticed my excessive attention, and she unexpectedly broke out in a humored, flattered, confused laugh and actually shaded her eyes in embarrassment and lowered her head back toward the book she was reading. I smiled with absolute abandon and happiness. I was not at all embarrassed by my actions, even though I should have been. For the rest of the evening, I was unable and unwilling to wipe that smile off of my face. But my reactions didn't stop at a smile.
As soon as she realized that I was interested in her, my body began shaking and wouldn't stop. It wasn’t a nervous shaking. Instead, it was something completely different, as if my body were suddenly producing five times more adrenaline than usual, and I was overdosing. I had no control over it. My roommate returned to the table a minute or two after she had caught me staring, and I showed him, with what little control I had, what my condition was. I held one of my hands in front of me, and it was shaking visibly. I told him why it was happening. Even as I talked, I couldn't quit smiling. I would have exploded if I could have.
As I continued to watch her, I soon realized that my efforts had not been entirely in vain, for an interest of some sort seemed to take hold of her. After she caught me staring at her, she began watching me too, whenever she thought she could get away with it.
Try as I might, I cannot now recall how long she remained in the library. The events have blurred. It seems that it all happened in less than fifteen minutes, but it must have been at least an hour or two. I cannot even remember going home. I'm sure my roommate didn't hear the end of it until I passed out from exhaustion that night.
As I drifted off to sleep that night, I could not get one thought out of my head:
"That heartbeat... That one giant heartbeat... Wow."
