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Inspired by the fact that A Wildness of the Heart wound up with a segment in a video essay on xenofiction (starting at about 1:01:00, but do watch the rest), I figured I would post all of the included novella Limerent Object here.

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21

Boise is much as I remember it. Sprawling, flat. The trip up I-84 is familiar enough to tug loose memories from when my parents would take me up every few months to see a specialist, ¹ only now there are far more billboards and what used to be strip malls have turned into tumbled collections of big-box stories, imposing, half-rendered amongst the landscape of scrub and crumbling roads.

I did not miss it, and it seems indifferent to my return.

Kay is still at work for a while yet ² and I cannot check into my rented room for another few hours, so I have camped out in a café in the neighborhood where I will be staying.

I cannot put my finger on what exactly feels so different about this place from Sawtooth. There is a different tension in those around me. The landscape is similar enough, but there are more buildings, and they are situated just a little too close together, compared to what I'm used to. There is more exhaust in the air.

But it's still Idaho. We're only a hundred and change miles up the road from Sawtooth. The water tastes the same. The temperature is the same. It's all more of the same. Not just in the sense of the ongoing homogenization that is part of living in the west, but it really is no different than Sawtooth, other than it's bigger and more expensive.

It was the bus ride, perhaps. It was that liminal seat, half-reclined. It was the window with scrub grass and cows and small farms blurring past. It was those two hours and the knowledge that I would be elsewhere that put me in the mind of differences.

I suspect that I will feel out of sorts for a little bit, yet, at least until I meet up with Kay.

After all, it could also just be lingering expectation.

_____

¹ I don't remember what it was for, in particular, and my parents never talked about it once I got older. I think they may have been concerned about a learning disability. I only remember heading up to a house on the outskirts of town, talking for an hour or so while I played with toys on the floor, and then we would go get food and head home. It was a two hour drive, and I would usually sleep on the trip back. I wish I could remember more of it.

² The library, natch.

22

I met up with Kay an hour or so after I checked in to my room — enough time for me to shower and change clothes. The sent of the bus still lingered in my nose, but that may have just been my imagination.

I wish I could say that it was some joyous reunion, but instead, it was just as though we had picked off from where we had been after our chat the night before. We said hi to each other without fanfare and simply walked to dinner. She had picked out some sandwich place that she said she frequented for lunch ¹ which was perfectly acceptable fare.

Afterwards, we walked around a nearby park. Perhaps by virtue of how well-tended it was, it was something of a shock to be dropped into green after all the drabness of the city and the brown of the landscape before that. I will not deny my pleasure briefly cutting through grass to walk beneath trees rather than just padding always along sidewalks.

We walked and we talked.

At first, it was awkward and somewhat stilted as we subconsciously renegotiated our interactions with each other in the embodied world. It is easy enough to chat or not when one is bound to a screen. Even voice-only communication is different when one can mute oneself, or only be heard when hitting a key on the keyboard.

The immediacy of interacting in person, however, brought with it all those scattered silences, filled pauses, and other dysfluencies. It also brought the universal problem of where to look. Do I look at my interlocutor? Do I look at the ground, the sky, the trees? Do I acknowledge those others we come across?

I am so terrible at this.

Eventually, though, we fell back into old patterns. Despite our daily conversations over text or voice, there was a surprising amount to catch up on once we both opened up again. Kay spoke about her time in her masters program, how it differed in structure from her undergrad, the ongoing struggles of finding others to perform her works. I talked about settling into my practice and how I was able to get my full license, about my patients (anonymously, of course), and about my own therapy.

Despite this catching-up, the conversation was all so quotidian. I can't think of any other way to put it, but we just talked about “normal" things. What else could we talk about with each other?

I suppose we could talk about feelings, but walking through the park on the very first evening that I was there, looking forward to a week of time in close proximity, such as it were…well, it did not feel like the right time to bring any of that up.

I am unsure of how to process this first night just yet. The anxiety that I was feeling beforehand, as well as the slowly unwinding tension as we began to speak more freely seems to have taken much of the worries about my feelings for her off my mind, and I was simply focused at first on recalculating what level of masking ² was required around her, and later on the sheer mundanity of our catching up. I am left wondering what that means, if it means anything. Perhaps it is a habit thing — we fell back into our usual patterns — but more likely it means nothing. We're friends, we talked like friends, and that's it.

I did at least learn that she's single, so there is that.

_____

¹ The part of me which has been so focused on memories writing this journal teamed up with that part always on the lookout for hidden meaning to make me wonder if this was an intentional callback to our shared lunches back in Sawtooth.

² The hypervigilant psychologist part of me cannot stop thinking in these terms, and the part of me striving for emotional connection loathes that.

23

Kay has taken a few days off of work while I am out here, but we wound up intentionally leaving plans fairly loose.

I do not know her reason for doing so, but if I am honest, I left plans open ended because I was not sure what we are, or what our dynamic would look like until I arrived here. Are we just friends? Are we on to something more? Is it weird for friends to go out to a nice dinner? A movie ought to be fine, but should that influence the genre?

I wrote yesterday that we were friends, that we talked like friends, and that that was it because that might indeed be the dynamic of our relationship, I still must contend with these strange and awkwardly shaped feelings for her. I cannot say whether or not it would be weird for me to suggest a nice dinner for the both of us ¹ or going to see a romantic film because I cannot say whether or not this unavoidable set of emotions will make it so.

Either way, I have my list of suggestions and she has mentioned that she has a few ideas of her own, so I suspect that the open-ended nature of our plans won't lead to excruciating boredom or anything like that.

Today went well enough, on that note. I slept in, knowing that she would do the same, and stopped by that same café once more for a leisurely coffee and pastry while I waited for her to text me that she was up and about. She gave me the address of her building and the door code to get in, as well as a coffee order, so I topped up my drink and picked up hers in order to head over. It was a pleasant enough walk, as the day had yet to heat up.

She greeted me at the door in a wrinkled tee and pair of shorts, smiled sheepishly at her unready state, and gestured me into her apartment.

It was a single rectangular room: bed in one corner, desk against the wall next to it, breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the rest of the space, not so far removed from a dorm room, minus the fact that she had her own bathroom and closet rather than being forced to share with others.

A rumpled bed, a messy desk.

And the almost overwhelming scent of her. I made it two steps into the room and my mind ceased to function. I might as well have grown talons and wings, for all I know, for all I could do was stand there, coffees in hand, and try and blink away memories and too-strong emotions. I remembered her scent as though a lingering thing, faded touches cheek to cheek within my dreams. I remembered it, but I did not remember its strength, it's depth, it's overwhelming her-ness. It was inescapable, unavoidable, permeating and so much more than any lingering dream could ever hope to encompass.

It's a wonder I was able to hand her the correct coffee.

I must have had some strange look on my face, as part way through the sip of her mocha, she tilted her head and lowered her cup.

“Everything alright, Dee?"

I raced through the masking checklist, realized that my whiskers were bristled almost uncomfortably far, my ears were laid flat, I was blinking rapidly, and my tail was tip-tapping about anxiously. I immediately felt an overwhelming sense of guilt, which I did my best to hide behind what I hoped was a bashful expression. “Yeah, sorry," I managed.

She frowned all the same and put down her coffee, padding over to the window to wind it open a short ways. “Sorry, maybe should've sprayed some block. I bet it stinks in here."

“No!" I said, realized that sounded forceful, and added, “No, sorry. Just smells like you, is all, and I feel like I got punched in the face with memories from school."

At that, she laughed, though she did leave the window open, a trimmer chattering below marring her scent with traces of exhaust. “Well, good ones, I hope. Still, I'm sorry it's such a mess."

“It's fine, Kay, really. Just random memories–" Tell her, tell her, tell her, some part of my mind was urging. It had Jeremy's voice. “–like going to concerts, or your senior recital." Tell her! the voice shouted, pounded on the walls, clawed at my insides, all while half-truths spilled from my lips.

And then, the moment was past.

“Oh! Speaking of, there's two nights of that percussion festival, but I figured we'd just hit up the one tomorrow." She reacquired her coffee and crawled back onto the mussed-up covers of her bed, gesturing me toward her desk chair, the sole other piece of furniture in the studio. “The final night is always the best, because all the stressful master classes and such are over, and everyone is just playing like crazy and really feeling it. At least, that's how it always is with me and festivals. The days are all filled with classes and the evenings are concerts, and the last one, you're just riding on some weird music high. Uh…sorry."

I had leaned back into the computer chair, which had creaked under my weight, and peeked over at some of the papers on her desk — impenetrable sheet music, for the most part. “Sorry? For what?"

“Just rambling, I guess."

“Goodness, no, you're fun when you ramble," I laughed. “I guess I got kind of awkward there, sorry, didn't mean to pry through your papers."

She relaxed back against the wall and let her shoulders slump, holding the coffee in both hands now, tail relaxing from where it had curled around protectively. “Right, yeah. Sorry. I have some folks at work who very visibly lose interest."

“I'm still interested, promise." I smiled as disarmingly as I could and made an attempt to focus through the scent that still tickled its way through my mind.

“Well, thanks," she said, smiling lopsidedly. “I feel kind of weird because, like…um. I mean this in a good way, but I kinda forgot how awkward you are, and remember that I'm awkward as hell too, and that I can just be my awkward-ass self around you 'cause you're always listening at a hundred percent or whatever, and if you're uninterested you'll just change the subject and…"

She trailed off and averted her eyes over to the kitchen, focusing on a wayward glass. All the last had come out in a rush of justifications, half-apologies, and self-deprecation.

“You're fine, Kay. I've gotta be the world's most awkward coyote, and if you're the second most awkward, well, we just make a heck of a pair."

She puffed out a breath and then took a long sip of her coffee. “Mm, right. I'm out of practice in being around someone as…I don't know, genuine as you."

It all tugged at my heartstrings, and I prayed for the bravery to reassure her. “You seem kind of anxious. Everything alright?"

“Yeah, I'm just jittery, I guess. Nervous."

“Nervous about anything in particular?"

She squinted over at me. “You've gotten good at your therapist voice."

I laughed.

“Nah, I don't think so," she continued. Another sip, and then, “I'm realizing how boring I am, and I'm anxious that I'll bore the shit out of you while you're here."

“There's no pressure on my end. We could watch videos online for a few days like we would do anyway and it'd still be a vacation for me."

“I mean, I wouldn't turn that down either." She grinned. “I just don't have anyone around here like you, so I just kind of do my own thing which is not much."

The rest of the day went smoothly. I remember fairly little of it. We got food. We walked to the library and she showed me around. We walked around the campus. We picked up dinner and brought it back to her place where we watched videos as we might have done on any other night.

I remember very little of the specifics, other than the feelings of the day. The feeling of glowing over her words, someone as genuine as you and anyone around here like you sticking with me as thoroughly as her scent.

_____

¹ The fact that I am working full time in a reasonably well-paying position while Kay works in a library to fund her living expenses while taking out further student loans means that I fully intend on paying for most everything while I am out here. I really hope that doesn't make her feel awkward, or, heaven forbid, like I am trying to buy her attention. This is all so difficult.

24

I am struggling to internalize just what went wrong tonight.

Today was fine. We spent it mostly just dealing with lunch and then poking around for food at a supermarket in case we wanted to cook later. Snacks were also lacking at Kay's so we grabbed a few.

From there, we headed to the percussion festival, which was a short bus trip away. The auditorium was a work of wood fabric panels set into a horn shape, panels all angled in slightly different directions for some acoustic reason that I could not figure out. A pretty, if chaotic structure.

Kay, as I remember from our time in school, brought along earplugs which she put in shortly before the concert started.

I think I struggled with that the most, in some way. I know that she did so to keep from getting overwhelmed, and I know that she did it with every concert, but with all of our conversations leading up to the night along with the fact that she did so well before the music started, it felt as thought I was being shut out. She put in her earplugs and focused on the music all night long, and it was as if, for her, only the music existed.

I am sure that it was some form of active listening on her part, if there is such a thing with music. Analytic listening? Something along those lines.

And yet it was so strange to go from making each other laugh to absolutely no contact with each other, other than the fact that we were sitting next to each other. I should be respectful of her style of engaging with music. I know that, of course. Just as I should be respectful of the concert and the performers there.

It was just so sudden. I ceased to exist, for her. I became a non-entity stuck in a place entirely out of my element.

The music appeared to be perfectly competent. There were rhythms that I could pick up on in the majority of the works, and occasionally a melody that I picked out that fit with my expectations for music.

This should not bother me. It shouldn't bother me at all. She has shown me countless recordings of pieces as strange as the ones I heard tonight, and back when we were in school, I attended several concerts with her of varying quality. Even when my feelings about her began to build, I never really had a problem with our shared silences during performances (such as they are, during a shared video stream).

It never has bothered me, and so why did it tonight? Was it something we did before the concert started? Grocery shopping and lunch? What about that could lead to such a reaction? Was it the reminders of lunches from the past? I'm not sure of that, as we had lunch yesterday and there was no such attachment. Was it the domesticity of going to a grocery store together? Am I attaching meaning to something so mundane?

And even now, it's not as though it was so sudden and surprising as I make it sound. Before the concert, we had to show our tickets, we had to file into the concert hall and find our seats. It was all so hushed, and slow. It was all as I remember it, really. And we did talk, too. She explained some of the pieces she recognized from the program, one of which she promises she had shown me before (though I didn't remember it from the name and composer alone). Afterward, she talked plenty on the way home, and I listened to her gush about the music she enjoyed and complain about the music that she didn't, and while I listened, some part of me was growing more and more frustrated, almost resentful.

Why am I like this?

I don't know what to do with this information, and I think it bothers me most at one level of remove. I felt shut out, and that is irksome on its own, but what really bothers me is that I felt bothered in the first place. I felt so bothered that I bent memories when writing this, and only on rereading them did I realize that I was doing so. I'm bothered that I am apparently so fragile as to be set on edge by perfectly normal actions.

It's things like this that set limerence in an egodystonic light. I hate it. I hate that I like her and then get envious of the fact that she is enjoying something without me, something that we don't share.

Resentment! Envy! Over what? What do I not possess that I wish that I did but her? And how idiotic is that?

I hate that I feel this way, and then I hate myself for building up so much resentment at myself. No matter the layer of remove, I feel like I fucked up.

I almost wrote “I think I might go home early" but I really don't think that I will. I am confronted with the fact that things will never live up to the ideal that limerence demands, and it has me frustrated, but not so much that I'm going to pull some overly dramatic nonsense like that.

I'm just glad that there are no more concerts while I'm here.

25

I am up early again, and while I do feel better, I am also still feeling tender, and feeling cautious of that tenderness. I want to poke and prod at it. I want to explore its boundaries as one might find the limits of a bruise.

I know better.

At least, that's what I tell myself. I know better than to keep poking at a sore spot, so to that end, I'm digging into the other topic that Jeremy has been nudging me to explore, that of my discernment and sudden veering off the pastoral track and over to wherever it is that I am now. It's been years now, since I left, and although I may just be poking at a different sore spot, it is at least one that I know I have work to do around. There are memories there, might as well do the CBT thing and think back to what happened, and then back before that.

It's weird the things that you remember, though. Just little things.

I remember blinking my eyes rapidly in the middle of that meeting, for some reason. It's a habit I now know that I have, and once I learned of it, I noticed just how often I do it. I found myself thinking back to all of the times that I had done in it in the past, and there are a few stand out examples that stick in the mind as particularly embarrassing. ¹

I remember blinking rapidly there, in the middle of that meeting, yes, and I remember Rev. Dr. Borenson leaning forward, rested his arms on his desk, and fiddling with a pencil. “Mr. Kimana?"

“Sorry, Father." I frowned down at my paws. Paws grown soft, that far away from home. Some part of my mind, the part always focused on making comparisons, realized how slender and small they were compared to my advisor's big canine mitts, soft from a life of academia and ministry. “I think I was expecting a different reaction."

The Saint Bernard shrugged. It was an informal, almost bashful gesture coming from him. “I'm just not surprised. This doesn't feel like it's coming out of nowhere."

“I have no plans of leaving the Church."

“Of course, Dee. I have no doubts as to your faith."

“But…?"

Borenson sighed, set the pencil down. “Your studies are fine. Better than fine, I'm told. Your teachers speak highly of your writing. That's only half of the program, though. You came here for an masters of divinity, and the end goal of that program is ministry. Your skills in scripture and apologetics, in books, are admirable, but would make for an incomplete priest. We've talked before about you heading for a masters of theology instead, but you balked at that."

I canted my ears back, gritted my teeth, and masked his frustration as best I could. “With all due respect, Father, my concerns about a Th.M stand. Yes, I'm sure I'd be helping the world with research and writing, but I need something more immediate. I need to help people. I don't think I can not do that. And there's just too much…I don't know, remove, I suppose, if all I'm doing is writing."

There was a pause as Borenson seemed to manage some equal frustration before he spoke. “Mr. Kimana, an education such as this requires both flexibility and devotion. Both a Th.M and MDiv would require that. Now–" He held up his paws as if to forestall a rebuttal. “I am not accusing you of lacking in either department at least not to a level where I feel you are not a good degree candidate, but if the doubts in your head are strong enough that you feel you need to leave, I would only be doing your future vocation a disservice by trying to make you stay."

I dropped my gaze once more. I spread my fingers, tracing with my eyes the subtle grain on the pads of my paws, the long-healed callouses.

This remains a constant in my life, this sort of discussion. I will research and research and research, come to a conclusion, and when I state what I have learned, the conversation would go sideways. Both me and my interlocutor will wind up frustrated and stressed with no discernable reason why.

But this hadn't been a researched thing, had it? I remember it being something like three in the afternoon, and I'd started this train of thought the night before at, what, eleven? Sixteen hours was hardly the amount of time required to come to a conclusion about leaving behind a year and a half of study and however many thousands of dollars of scholarships that had involved.

No, this idea had leaped, fully formed, into my head.

I focused on ensuring that my mien expressed the sincerity I felt within. I was frustrated, yes, but also confused and more than a little disappointed in myself. “I'm sorry, Father Borenson. I understand. You're right, too, I suppose, that I don't quite have the amount of conviction I'd need for this." The word 'conviction' stuck in my craw, I remember that. ² “Not conviction, I guess. Something to do with ministry. I don't do groups."

“I mean it when I say I'm speaking from a place of kindness here, Mr. Kimana, but this doubt is mutual. You have a brilliant mind and faith enough, but by virtue of you doubting your vocation, we are all but obligated to doubt you in turn."

I sighed and slouched in my chair.

“If you're not comfortable switching to a Th.M, perhaps it's time to consider switching focuses," the dog said gently. “Perhaps Saint John's just isn't the best fit for you."

“I get it," I mumbled.

The Saint Bernard looked cautious, waited for me to continue.

“I mean, I get what you're saying. I think…" I swallowed drily, straightened up in my chair. “I think I agree, too."

There it was. There was the admission. I'd said it at last.

My advisor visibly relaxed.

“I know I said so before, but I just want to make sure; you know that this is about my vocation, not my faith, right?"

Borenson barked a laugh, before his expression softened. “I'm sorry, Dee, I shouldn't have laughed. I believe you. You are one of the most devout students I have. Your decision about your degree may not have been a total surprise to me, but if you had said you were leaving the church, I think I would have called for a doctor."

I smiled, I remember. I smiled through my shame.

_____

¹ I suspect there is some reason that such embarrassing things stick in one's own mind while slipping so easily from others'. Perhaps it is a symptom of culture, or perhaps it is simply part and parcel of existing in the world.

² I write these memories like a story. It is an occasional dalliance, and I do not quite know where it formed, but it has been with me since youth, to the point where teachers often suggested I major in creative writing. I did consider it, I will admit, though I know it isn't something my parents would necessarily have condoned. Whether or not the words I write here are an exact replication of the conversation that took place is neither here nor there; whether or not I am accurately remembering the emotions that took place is unimportant. I am writing for me now.