A Sidewalk Kiss in the Rain:
My Story of Love at First Sight
Imagine yourself wedged into an economy-class airplane seat, knees grazing the unforgiving seat ahead, adductors trembling to keeps those knees from touching your neighbors. Obliged in that unspoked battle of “who gets the armrest” with you neighbor. You’ve gone through every micro-adjustment known to the modern traveler, hoodie balled up for a makeshift pillow (one sleeve always slipping out, exposing the harsh plastic molding to the side of your head). One of the stewardesses looks like a man and everytime she comes by she reiterates her name is Lousie with a wink and remarks how cute the old lady sitting next to you is.
You’ve already read enough of your book that you’ve bored of it and put it down, picked it up, read until you were again sick of reading, scrolled through the in-flight movies. Looked through all the photos on your phone, tried to listen to the spotify playlist that did not download or WAS downloaded and now its NOT for some god forsaken reason. Scrolled again through the movies, decided on some Marvel movie where people in spandex punch each other instead of developing a plot, where explosions replace dialogue and now you’ve had to pee for about an hour.
The old lady separating you from the isle, the gateway to sweet yellow salvation, the “cute” one”, as Louise calls her, had proudly informed you when you when she sat down that she wears diapers now. Said the arthritis in her hips makes the walk to the bathroom, the sitting on the toilet, too painful and so shits herself. Hence that sweet and sour organic musk, a mix of poo and floral, old lady perfume thats been hovering in the air for the last 2 hours, that you’ve tried not to breathe too deeply.
She also shared her sad sob story about how the kitten she adopted last week has been playing with her hair all night, keeping her from getting a good night's rest because she lives in a studio apartment. However, now the old hag is snoring like a bulldog and in her soiled diaper and you don't dare to wake her up. So you sit, sweater pressed to your nose instead of cradling your head, trying to think of anything other than how bad you have to pee.
Eventually, you finally decide it’s her fault for getting a cat and that the urge to pee justifies waking this stinking old lady up. You gently push your elbow into her elbow that has hogged all of the armrest since liftoff. Nothing. You let the knee you’ve been holding back for the entire ride fall into hers. Nothing. You reach over and tap her arm and clear your throat. Nothing.
You mumble under your breath “bullshit her cat keeps her awake, she sleeps as if she's dead. Just hold it, its only 30 more minutes” then immediately after, “fuck this”. You undo your seatbelt and, with all the grace you can muster, begin to crawl over her old, frail frame. You see the guy next to you try not to look at you as you maneuver your body, stradling this old grandma. Then turbulence strikes, jostling the plane so that you fall onto her, giving her an accidental lap dance as if it was her 101st birthday. She wakes with a shriek.
“Aah! He’s on me! Get him off me! He’s hurting meeeee” in.
Panic fills through your chest with hot venom. Every head in front of you swivels in unison, necks craned like nosey pigeons. Women with too much perfume gasp and scoff with theatrical flair. Some guy named Randy, who has never thrown a punch in his life, unbuckles his seatbelt. A four-year-old who's been whining since takeoff stops mid-sniffle, starts recording you with his phone.
And here you are, thirty minutes from landing and all you wanted… was to pee.
So close.
And now you're a viral clip, an FBI case file, a Reddit thread called “This guy deserved it.”
You’re still half-straddling the frail old woman who's now writhing beneath you, crying out for justice, for security, for Louise. Louise, the maybe-man stewardess, is bounding down the aisle like a linebacker in heels. Her voice comes out calm but forceful, definitely not her first time demanding people what to do.
"Sir, I’m going to need you to return to your seat."
You try to explain. Pleading about her “diaper” and “arthritis” and “didn’t want to wake her” and “I just really have to pee,” but it all comes out wrong. All they hear is a grown man hovering over someone’s grandma, pleading nonsense as a toddler live-streams your descent into airborne infamy. Your foot is somehow stuck and every time you yank at it to try and return to your seat, it holds you back, making it look like you are humping ole granny.
The stewardess that looks like a man professionally removes you from the old lady and drops you to the ground like a Jiu-Jitsu black belt, her voice lowers 5 octaves as she reprimands you, informing you she is actually an undercover air marshall. She pulls both of your arms behind your back, pinning you against the ground, handcuffing your wrists and unnecessarily thrusting her pelvis against your backside and you feel something firm press against your now clenched butt cheeks.
“Louise, I think that's enough,” one of her coworkers says.
“Right, right. Can never be too sure with these perverts” says Louise as she gets up.
You lay there, handcuffed yet happy to be freed of Louise’s aggressive tactical maneuvers for a few moments as it is discussed what will be done with you. You overhear them agree that you will be taken to the back of the plane where Louise will watch over you until the plane lands.
“No, please! Anybody but..” you manage to squeak out before you see the feet of Louise straddle your head.
Louise lifts you up to standing and along the way the back of your head brushes against her crotch and you feel a firm male genitalia brush firmly against the back of your skull. Louise whips you around so that you are facing the back of the plane and prods you towards the last row of seats where three empty chairs await. You feel the eyes of everyone walking past, gawking at who the perpetrator is, into the face of the evil creature that abused an innocent old lady. Finally at the back of the plane, Louise bearhugs you, gives you a thorough hump towards the window seat.
Now restrained in handcuffs, you're ordered to remain seated for the remainder of the flight. You’re told that upon landing you’ll be escorted directly to airport security where you will be questioned at length. Everyone you look at quickly looks away and you now, with your adrenaline fading, you remember how bad you need to urinate. You turn and plead to Louise.
“I really just need to pee”
But she doesn't even look at you, “You can hold it,” she replies flatly. “It’s only twenty minutes.”
Then, a few moments later, “You deserve to hold it after what you just tried to pull.”
After the plane lands, you and the air marshal are the last to disembark and all the stewards give you a “go to hell you rotten bastard” look on your way out. A fresh line of people waiting to board the plane all stare at the handcuffed man being marched in the opposite direction as well as everyone else’s throughout the terminal until you finally arrive at an unmarked door beside a blinking red panel. The air marshal flashes his badge. The red light turns green, followed by the metallic clunk of a heavy lock disengaging.
You’re led into a sterile, windowless corridor painted industrial gray and lined with even grayer doors with numbers on them. The corridor is like a capital T and you take a left when the letter gets horizontal, down another soul-crushing corridor until you’re finally guided into a square room with a square table and chair. The air marshall demands you take a seat and closes the door, assuming a standing position across from you with professional austerity. The hum of the long fluorescent light buzzes above you.
Now that you are seated, the full weight of your discomfort returns, your bladder is stinging hot and you’re clenching all the muscles to keep from peeing.
“Please, i really need to go to the bathroom” you beg.
“Then go”
And so you go.
Right there, in the stiff plastic chair. The searing ache in your groin melts into a spreading warmth and you release an audible “ahhhhh” moaning like a pregnant lioness giving birth. A hot sensation from your inner thighs, blue jeans a shade darker, spreading down your left thigh, eventually creeping down your left calf and finally pooling inside f your red converse high top sneaker.
So, my goal in sharing the story above was to spare you the to burden of my personal sob story. Hopefully, evoking the same visceral sense of relief and liberation i felt when I first saw Nicole. It was in passing, lasting just a fraction of a second, yet that fraction of a second seared itself indelibly into my awareness, reminding me that every shitty moment is bundled with a tower of toilet paper.
It was in Autumn, the time of the year when the leaves on the trees revealed their deepest colors that we first crossed paths. But it wasn't until they lay in rotting heaps, choking the gutters and infusing the air with decay before we crossed paths again. She was already peacefully seated on her mat when I entered the studio. Unable to deliver any of the phrases my mind had prepared for this moment, I choked out a shy hello and unrolled my mat next to her.
She moved through each pose as a tree branch sways in the wind. I felt like I was watching a doe meander through the woods. Her hair, a rich mahogany mane, perfused with velvety iridescence, shimmered under the soft overhead lighting. She wore it gathered and secured at the crown, while the rest fell freely to her shoulders, a half ponytail. She wore a tucked-in white shirt beneath a looser tee, modestly concealing what otherwise would have revealed the skin of her belly.
After class, we lingered on our mats chatting, I found myself wanting to talk with her forever. We rolled up our mats and made for the coat room, I side eyed the shit out of her while I put on my shoes and jacket amidst the subtle frenzy that is a cluster of people trying to depart from a tight space. Throughout that mild chaos, we exchanged glances, subtlety trying to match each other's cadence so that our exits might sync without seeming intentional, until one of us could “jingle our keys” no longer and depart with a nonverbal “sorry but i must go”.
Off the mat, i found myself swept up in daydreams, a steady gale of imagination and wonder. Who the Hell was she? I took more classes, hoping to intersect paths with her and as “luck” would have it, began seeing her more often at the Yoga Space. The energetic tension between us remained subtle, like a soft breeze on a warm summer night, an invisible thread of curiosity and connection. Yet after each class, during that minor frenzy of people gathering their belongings in a small space, our eyes would meet and say, “shucks, I am leaving now. Perhaps next time we will leave at the same time”.
Until one Thursday after class. I exited the building just close enough behind her that she could naturally linger, holding the door open for me without it being obvious. We accompanied one another to the street corner nearest to her building and stood talking. I kept thinking, wow, holy shit, here she fucking is! She shared that she had two weeks left in Portland before her sublease ended and she’d be returning to Los Angeles. And that Sunday, I was going to show her the magnificent Oregon coast.
Later that night, I felt a prickle in my throat. By Saturday evening, I felt like I had wrestled a gang of midgets for 7 hours where they beat the shit out of me, farted in my face and rolled me like a french croissant. Every joint ached, my chest felt like it was on fire and my head felt like it was caught beneath John Henry's hammer. I wrangled with the moral decision to inform her that I felt like diarrhea underwear, but with only two weeks before she was to leave, I chose to selfishly take her to the beach, despite feeling like a fermenting sack of potatoes.
Despite this, I picked her up around 8:30 Sunday morning and drove the winding highway toward Pacific Beach, each heartbeat squeezing my skull like it was between Hercule’s hands. After 8 hours of slowly making our way north along the majestic oregon coast, wrestling between physical misery and the urge to kiss her silly, we eventually arrived in Astoria, Oregon’s oldest American settlement, where Lewis and Clark ended their famous 1805 expedition. Towering nearly 200 feet above the mouth of the Columbia River, we crossed the mighty Astoria-Megler bridge into Washington. The four-mile bridge begins low and flat from the Washington side, for three miles gliding just above the water with the seagulls, before climbing gradually to its apex of nearly 200 feet.
During that flat, three miles, we witnessed the sun disappear outside the passenger side window while a full moon rise outside the driver window. Then, during our ascent, something extraordinary happened, we rose faster than the sun setted. So that by the time we reached the bridge's highest point, the sun was back to a full circle, only to slip into the horizon once again. Never in my life had i watched the sun set twice in the same day.
So here i am, eight hours in. Aching, feverish on the verge of sweating and still taming the desire to reach across the console and kiss her I found myself caught between awe and restraint. Out one window, a sun that had set, risen, and set again; out the other, the cool glow of a full moon. How could a moment be this perfect and yet I cannot brush my fingers through her hair and kiss her neck? I felt like a well-trained dog, salivating over a bone inches from its nose, obediently waiting for permission.
After parking, we strolled along the riverfront as she pointed out constellations in the sky, reciting their mythologies and astrological meanings. I couldn’t tell whether she was giving me subliminal messages or simply talking zodiac. We wandered the charming streets of downtown Astoria, a town with an uncanny way of blending maritime grit with Victorian elegance. Its foggy charm feeling like you’re on the set of a new Hallmark film. We debated which title this hallmark film would have amidst twinkling holiday decor: Christmas by the Coast, Love in the Fog, or Moonlight Over Megler. We ended the night at the Astoria Brewery, where we enjoyed fish and chips beside a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Columbia River, our conversation floating seamlessly between Yoga and life.
From that day on, we spent nearly every evening together, trying new restaurants, walking endlessly through Portland's damp, shifting streets as autumn quietly surrendered to winter. When we weren’t together, I was haunted by a ticking clock: two short weeks to make an impression deep enough that she she might humor the idea of exploring a relationship. Yet each night, as I dropped her off, I scanned her eyes for a sign, a hint, an invitation. I always found warmth, kindness... but never permission. I would return home and literally pace around my house, picking apart the “she loves me, she loves me not” flower one pedal at a time. Eventually, trying to convince myself, wrestling into the wee hours of the morning before finally letting her go. Then wake up to a text from her the next morning, thanking me, saying what an amazing time she had, encouraging and confusing me with a “let's keep exploring” or a, “thanks for grabbing dinner last night. I can't get out of bed it's freezing” paired with a photo of herself, half concealing her face. half-hidden beneath a blanket. Reigniting the fire I had managed to put out the night before.
I had kept it cool until one drizzly night, after sharing an umbrella long enough for my shoes to have soaked through leaving my socks feeling like a gooey, extra layer of skin when a car nearly smacked us as we were crossing an intersection. I felt Nicole’s hand grab mine and yank it backward, leaving me thinking “here is the cherry on top, a natural instinct to react when the moment calls for it”. It was my breaking point, I knew right then and there that it was she who I wanted to have children with and so I deliberately squeezed her hand, gently but firmly, my first unmistakable signal informing her how I felt. As we neared midnight and her apartment, I thought “ there was no way this girl would walk shoulder to shoulder with me for three hours in shit weather while holding an umbrella just because she’s nice”.
Yet, as I dropped her off in front of 1811 NW Couch Street, she once again gave not the slightest indication of a smoocherooski, sending me home spiraling. I envisioned myself on my deathbed. Wondering. Forever restless, unable to fully die because I am stuck pondering the “what ifs” of my life. I couldn't take it anymore.
I texted her the next morning, telling her I had something to give her. She said she was home. Outside she met me on the sidewalk.
“What do you have to give me? She asked, knowing damn well what i wanted.
“A kiss”
she gave me a hug and started tearing up and then lead me up to her apartment where she brought me in for a long hug. I unabashedly nestled my cheek into her wool shrouded shoulder, smelling what I imagined she would smell like, without any preconceived idea of what that smell would smell like. I felt lighter, I did everything that I could. I had freed myself. The ball was now in her court. I put everything I had on the table, it was up to her.
And so it went for four days, until finally, during one of our goodbye hugs, she raised her lips to mine and snuck in a kiss. Just a quick peck like a fish surfacing for a nibble, then quickly retreating back to the safety of my shoulder. Again, she would come up for a kissie, a nibble, and return to my shoulder. Until we stood there in the rain, kissing unapologetically on the sidewalk as people squeezed past. I mean were talking a picturesque Hollywood scene here, think, The Notebook, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Four Weddings and a Funeral, frickin Spiderman for christs sake, it was electric. The forecast had only called for rain yet we were bringing the lightning, after she invited me up to her apartment, came the thunder… ; )
