The Magic of Flaws

There is something heartbreaking about the squeak of a guitar string on a recorded piece of music. Likewise, the faintly discernible sound of someone breaking a glass in the background on the recording of Charlie Parker that Kitwich and I are listening to now.

As a New Year's present to her, I let her choose the First Music.

First Music of the day is always an important thing; it's how you enter (or, I guess, re-enter, though somehow it always feels new to me) the world. And by that logic, I suppose first music of the first day of the year might have added weight, though it honestly doesn't feel portentous - just nice.

This particular album starts out vibrant and jumpy and settles itself gradually into a gently vibrating pool of molasses that carries you along with it in the most delicious way. I adore it, and it's the kitten's favorite. You can tell by her body language whenever I put it on.

Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that she's a birder, and - well, you know his nickname, don't you?

But getting back to that guitar string theory (see what I did there?), I think the reason why it always sends me a little when I hear those kinds of noises in an otherwise seamless recording is that it's a little jolt of reality. There is a live human playing this beautiful thing, and ohmygod it's real.

I had that same feeling about a conversation I had, more than a week ago (but it's still thrumming around in my bones), with the boy I like.

It wasn't the kind of conversation where you instantly agree with everything each other is saying. It was much better than that.

It was the kind of conversation that gives one furiously to think, and the kind where I looked across at him, and felt the guitar-string jolt. He's real.

You may read that and think, duh. But - how can I explain this? There's a mad difference between constructing an image of someone and falling in love with it, and interacting with a living, breathing, substantial, complicated, warm-blooded, differently impassioned human being. As a young person, I might have chosen the former.

As I am now, give me the hot, messy, complicated, challenging, beating heart of a solid human any day.