{"id":4220,"date":"2015-11-06T08:35:53","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T15:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annleemiller.com\/?p=4220"},"modified":"2015-11-06T08:53:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T15:53:25","slug":"an-incandescent-ribbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annleemiller.com\/2015\/11\/an-incandescent-ribbon\/","title":{"rendered":"An Incandescent Ribbon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Eli DeFaria<\/p><\/div>\n

I marched, oblivious, through my first date with Jim as though it were no big deal\u2014gritting my Florida-grown teeth against the frigid February First Ohio night. My fists jammed into the pockets of my coat. I trudged the ribbon of shoveled cement, snow glittering at the edges, toward my dorm.<\/p>\n

I peeked at Jim, tall\u2014I\u2019ve always liked tall\u2014sharp-elbow thin, and hat-less. \u201cYou make nine degrees look like a minor inconvenience.\u201d<\/p>\n

His chuckle whited the air and dissipated. \u201cThanks to all those Pennsylvania mornings when my hair froze on the way to school.\u201d<\/p>\n

I eyed him, marking off another who-knew?<\/em> like discovering Christmas card snow turned your fingers to stiff, white corpses.<\/p>\n

Beneath our conversation, Jim worried about whether he\u2019d somehow blown it. Was I having a good time? Was there any hope of winning my affections? Regardless, he had to give it his best shot. He sucked in a breath for courage. \u201cHey, I heard about a new coffeehouse in Mansfield, The Yellow Deli. They have live music on weekends. Do you want to check it out on Friday?\u201d<\/p>\n

A voice in my head said, that sounds like a real date<\/em>, but he hadn\u2019t tried to touch me tonight, and though he didn\u2019t talk about her, I\u2019d seen his girlfriend. It would be another friends-hanging-out thing like tonight.<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/a>

Jim when I fell in love with him<\/p><\/div>\n

Really?<\/em> said the voice in my head.<\/p>\n

I ignored it. \u201cYou bet! That sounds like fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wind pistol-whipped my cheeks and I yanked my hood tighter, waved good-bye to Jim and darted through the glass doors into Amstutz Hall. Heat, light, nirvana.<\/p>\n

I jogged up nine flights of stairs\u2014because I disliked elevators and liked exercise\u2014thinking, not about Jim, but about the guy I\u2019d go out with the following night.<\/p>\n

Jim walked to his car, hands buried in his coat pockets, whistling, thanking God I\u2019d agreed to a second date.<\/p>\n

The me I wore on the outside was a carefree coed, committed to the God I\u2019d spent my later teens looking for. Content, happy, fun to be around my friends told me. I\u2019d done what I could to dispose of my childhood\u2014scribbling my broken heart and bitterness toward Dad onto a steno pad during my sophomore year at Southern. I balled it up, banked it into the trash basket, and labeled myself all-better. But my internal landscape remained a dystopian wasteland. More than anything I wanted to fall in love, but the deep-down me was stuck in survival mode, self-protection my gut response to any guy.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A picture Jim took of me when we started dating<\/p><\/div>\n

On Wednesday during Alpha Theta I bottled up bad news from home, waiting to process alone. After our usual trek across campus to my dorm, instead of leaving, Jim followed me inside and plunked down in an orange vinyl chair in the lobby.<\/p>\n

I slipped off my gloves. I could work through the family drama later.<\/p>\n

Jim centered his blue denim gaze on me. \u201cTell me about your family.\u201d<\/p>\n

My eyes widened. The guy had read my mail.<\/p>\n

Every last detail of the hot water my brother had landed in spilled out.<\/p>\n

Jim soothed my pain with comfort and compassion and forty-five minutes later I felt\u2026 better.<\/p>\n

Jim stood, shrugged into his coat. He smiled at me, the kind of smile that made me hope he\u2019d read my mail again\u2014soon. Because I\u2019m a sucker for brainy guys, natural leaders, ones with integrity; because his timing was perfect; because my subconscious sensed I\u2019d be safe with Jim\u2014my heart slipped open. Silent. Cataclysmic.<\/p>\n

Other than Dad, I\u2019d only bonded on this level with a boy from high school, one who\u2019s bigger-than-life personality and the hot and cold gusts of our relationship, terrified me. I\u2019d dodged nearly all of his romantic advances. My heart hadn\u2019t felt safe.<\/p>\n

Even without Jim touching me, he crowded my heart. And it scared me. But he\u2019d already read my mail, and there was no undoing that. So, on Friday I climbed into his car\u00a0as he held the door for me.<\/p>\n

It felt like a date. Excitement knotted in my stomach. I\u2019d just go with it, analyze later.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Pawe\u0142 Wojciechowski<\/p><\/div>\n

We sat across from each other in the glow of the restaurant lighting. The clink of dishes and murmur of voices floated around us.<\/p>\n

Jim said he and his girlfriend had broken up over the holidays.<\/p>\n

I blinked, a geyser of joy springing up in my chest.<\/p>\n

The conversation moved to the brand new church he hoped to plant someday, a dream of teaching college when he was old. I told him how much his emotional support on Wednesday night had helped. I wanted to have a family full of kids, write fiction. And, under our words ran the bright ribbon of the brand new \u201cus\u201d we were beginning.<\/p>\n

We listened to a guy play guitar and sing God songs in the center of the room, then wandered through the gift shop, neither of us in a hurry to leave.<\/p>\n

Jim didn\u2019t try to hold my hand. Despite the ten-degree temperature I smashed up against the passenger door in his heater-less 1974 Dodge Dart. But I couldn\u2019t deny that I felt completely different about him than I had a week earlier.<\/p>\n

Thirty minutes later, we pulled into my dorm parking lot. I didn\u2019t want the evening to end. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come up?\u201d<\/p>\n

We sat in straight-backed desk chairs in my room, a stubby college-issue dresser between us.<\/p>\n

Jim\u2019s gaze centered on me. \u201cWould you like to pray together?\u201d<\/p>\n

Praying had been the favorite part of my last relationship, something I\u2019d mentioned at The Yellow Deli. Though praying would become foundational in our relationship, it didn\u2019t crest my list of fun things I\u2019d do with Jim. That night, however, prayer became a benediction on what was happening between us.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Austin Ban<\/p><\/div>\n

Jim leaned forward and closed his fingers around my hands.<\/p>\n

Warmth skittered across my knuckles.<\/p>\n

He bent his head.<\/p>\n

My eyes drifted shut. I heard his voice praying for my brother, my dreams. I floated to a place where I wanted to curl up and stay forever.<\/p>\n

He thanked God for our burgeoning friendship and whatever the future might hold.<\/p>\n

My prayers echoed his, my hands\u2014like my heart\u2014warm, safe, right where I wanted them to be. I felt God in the room\u2014the One who thought up me and Jim and the two of us finding each other.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by by Christopher Campbell<\/p><\/div>\n

Later, good friend and floor-mate, Jeanne Gottschalk, asked me if things felt different with Jim, more comfortable.<\/p>\n

Comfortable, yes, but incandescent\u2014a word my daughter Annie would one day champion after countless viewings of Pride and Prejudice<\/em>.\u00a0My fear of getting hurt had killed so many relationships in the past, but tonight I worried that the feelings would prove ephemeral and fade. I wanted to cling to the euphoria. I had woken that morning looking forward to a trip to Mansfield. I\u00a0went to sleep teetering\u2014incandescent\u2014on a ribbon tightroped\u00a0over love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t
If you enjoyed this post, please click on the Facebook share button or leave a comment.<\/div><\/div>\n

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Just launched:<\/h1>\n

\"ChasingHappyFinal\"<\/a>BACK COVER: After an epic fail in the hetero world, Ash Jackson heads cross country to Arizona to figure out his bisexuality and make peace with himself and God.<\/p>\n

Nashville Star Samma Templeton\u2019s music career bankrolls her future husband\u2019s political campaigns. But she throws up before every concert and feels relegated to an item on the senator\u2019s calendar.<\/p>\n

When Ash moves into Samma\u2019s apartment building their childhood friendship resurrects, and Samma must choose between promoting a political agenda that will benefit millions or following her heart. Ash must face his inner demons for the girl who was his past and feels like his future.<\/p>\nChasing Happy Chapter 1<\/a>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I marched, oblivious, through my first date with Jim as though it were no big deal\u2014gritting my Florida-grown teeth against the frigid February First Ohio night. My fists jammed into the pockets of my coat. I trudged the ribbon of shoveled cement, snow glittering at the edges, toward my dorm. I peeked at Jim, tall\u2014I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[338,2,66],"tags":[469,80,467,468,466,462],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn Incandescent Ribbon - Ann Lee Miller<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/annleemiller.com\/2015\/11\/an-incandescent-ribbon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Incandescent Ribbon - Ann Lee Miller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I marched, oblivious, through my first date with Jim as though it were no big deal\u2014gritting my Florida-grown teeth against the frigid February First Ohio night. 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