How We Met, Part 2

(Our story ended last time at the very moment in which the "famous" Kat Froese met the "famous" Jesse Butler. But this ain't Hollywood, and no honest story ends that way. Even as I write this, our story's still building, and I pray we never see a denouement.)

Kat and Jesse talked a bit over brunch. Through an obstacle course of mutual awkardness and side conversations and distractions they managed to form some genuine connections, particularly over shared experiences of the TransCanada Highway and Northern Ontario. They talked more over the rest of the day, as the busy schedule allowed. A recognizable pattern of shared values and parallel quirks was emerging, but time was limited, and Kat's first duty that day was to her family.

The next day, the day of the wedding, was even more frantic. They managed to speak a few times in passing, but their impressions of each other were mostly from a distance. Jesse was impressed by the honesty of Kat's speech and the hotness of her dress. Kat was embarassed by Jesse's dancing. When the day ended and they had one last chance to speak before Kat departed, Jesse told her he'd be visiting Ottawa in a few weeks, and asked if he could look her up. She said he could.

Jesse went to Ottawa a few weeks later feeling far more aloof. He'd had time to think it over. Kat was terrific, but he had his own life in Vancouver. He'd tell her that under the circustances it couldn't go anywhere. But still, he'd asked to take her on a date, and he would. He was a devout believer in the importance of futile gestures.

On Valentine's Day 2011 Jesse bought Kat supper at a local pub called the Rochester. In preparation, she had made a cranberry pie, just in case she liked him enough to invite him back for dessert. When he received this glorious invitation he felt ready to high-five the entire universe. Their date that night lasted five hours. They made tentative plans to meet up later in the week.

The next day, Kat felt strangely agitated. She was not at all convinced that she liked this weird guy she'd had the five hour date with, but she couldn't stop thinking about him. What if he left town at the end of the week and she still wasn't sure how she felt? She had to know. Finally she mustered her courage and sent him a text, asking if he wanted to go skating the next day. The response was an ecstatic, capitalized YES.

For the rest of that week, they were together as much as possible. On his last evening in town, at two in the morning, and much to Kat's impatient relief, Jesse finally spoke directly of their situation. "I don't know where we go from here," he said, "but I know I don't want to walk away from this." Kat agreed. "Well," she said, "I do have spring break in three weeks . . ."

And so, three weeks later, Kat flew back to Vancouver. They only had a week again, but they filled it as full as they could. Midway through, after a daylong hike in North Vancouver, and the crucial realization that they could comfortably be silent together, they officially declared themselves to be a couple. The next day, on Kitsilano Beach, Jesse told her his decision. All his plans in Vancouver --- work, school, house --- had systematically fallen through. But back in Ottawa he already had work and friends and a place to live. And now they both had the antidote to that cold city's chronic loneliness. It was time for him to return. And there on the beach, his heart feeling as big as the Pacific, he kissed her for the first time.

Six long weeks later, his business on the west coast indefinitely concluded, Jesse strode into the Vancouver Airport, his wherewithal reduced again to the same backpack of possessions with which he'd arrived from the prairies four months before. His life was cycling back on itself, as it always has. But he has learned by now to see these cycles as an M C Escher staircase, which brings you back where you started, but somehow also paradoxically a storey higher, and with a broader and truer perspective. The departure screen read Ottawa, but the very name of the city he had left eight months earlier was transformed by this new hope. An overeducated schmuck like him could hardly help but refer to the wisdom of Heraclitus: You can't step into the same river twice.

A continent away, Kat waited anxiously in a remarkably similar airport. A guy she'd known in person for only two weeks, and over the last month and a half only as a voice heard daily through the phonelines, was moving across the country to be with her. How could that possibly go well? And yet, she'd earned it. She'd stuck it out in Ottawa no matter how hard it got. She had chosen a church and chosen a job, and chosen to make it home. She had so much love to give, and now it would finally be received and returned. Outside, in th distance, Jesse's plane drew into sight, a glint of silver slicing through the city's dull bureaucratic skyline, like a burst of daylight through the joints of a government cubicle. It was coming at last, and it was coming to stay.

not even close to The End.
J.