Playing it Cool - Kate Bueler

Playing it cool. I am playing cool on a small tight compacted plane. Playing it cool by remembering to take the prescribed relaxation at the right time. About 20 minutes before the flight. Flying I used to do it all the time. Now yearly. Now every few months. Not every week. Every week being sent to a new place. A new place to try and connect a dc non profit to the state system. It never tied nicely into a bow.

Playing cool in the tightness of my seat- fake leather- seat change for someone else- but still the aisle. I am always in the aisle unless, unless no one sits next to me. I like the freedom to get out whenever I want without the excuse me. And the wait of the neighbor’s movement. The crampness of the tightness of the plane, I feel on my chest as I begin to heat up. Before the drips of cooling off happens, I find the artificial air knob to the lefty lossie. Air sprays on my face.

Playing it cool. I am on the first flight ever to last only 20 minutes. It is the first time I am going on a family vacation with an extended family derived from my mother. Playing it cool. It is the first time I am sitting next to a NJ firefight. He wears the appropriate uniform of muscles underneath his shirt and speaks in his accent. He has wrinkles of the shore on his face. His clothes prescribed for a firefighter just preppy enough but not too much.

Playing it cool. I like to talk to people. People all the time really but especially when I am nervous. I am nervous now. Now I am. Sometimes the fear of the confined space leaves but now, now it does not. I am playing it cool as I begin the back and forth teeter tooter of discussion of who are you, where are you going, where have you been. We only have 20 minutes. I am still hot. And uncomfortable. Let’s cover your bio quickly. As we talk, I can tell in the subtleness in between the chatter in the silences I can feel his glance my way. I can feel more words moving around his head brewing into audible noises. I know he is attracted to me. I am might be to him. I am not sure.

Playing cool. The more I talk I forget, forget about the uncomfortableness of this plane, of this aisle, of the air. I forget. When we get in the discussion of what do you do. Writing comes in. I learn something about him that given my own fear of anxiety of confined spaces I would have never learned. He too has an earring problem. He currently has a collection of women’s earrings at his house. He is a firefighter of course. I am sure he is popular with the ladies. Firefighters and professional athletes and any one with enough fame and power make women forget their first names and that they might have something to do other then open their legs. Some women chase power only in those that they bone. Others search for power on their own two feet.

He has an earring problem. He doesn’t collect those earrings on purpose- begging or ripping them off the ears of those he beds. No they leave them behind. They leave them behind as I do, as I have done. Done. But no one asks for them back he says. Why? Why don’t they ask. I always ask for them back. I say. Why do you leave them, why do they leave them. And never ask for them back. I don’t know. I always ask for mine back. I always do.

I am intrigued by this man with an earring collection of his own. His own personal history of women who he had conquered or vice versa but never came back for 2nds or thirds and never and never do they collect their leftovers of their earrings. They leave those behind. And just as I ask for the earring every time I leave them behind at a lovers. He never throws them away. Never does he throw them away. We all can’t let go. Let go for different reasons. But holding onto to what is ours and theirs so much that sometimes we forget why. Why we hold onto things, things that could be forgotten. Things that could have been. Different. In playing it cool you learn everyone has collections. Each one is different and unique but collections of our loves are just so hard to throw away. Away.