The yellow bird which lifted me.

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera speaks of poetic memory, that aspect of our mind which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. He also warns us that metaphors are dangerous. After all, love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the moment when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

Reading this passage last night brought to mind the very beginnings of my relationship with Jacquelyn. When did I know I had fallen victim to that prickly trickster known as love? Milan should have warned me earlier; it began with a metaphor.

In June when Jacquelyn first arrived in Madison, and I met her for the first time, I played the role of good friend, helping her to adjust to her new life here. However, there was something below the surface, tugging, or perhaps something high in the sky beckoning. I saw her occasionally throughout the summer, titilating chemistry percolating, the winds of affection swirling, though we denied everything. And then she was gone, a research trip and visits to her family. For a month, I did not see her. We spoke only once, and when she called, I must admit, I was surprised, as if I'd forgotten about her.

After this long absence we met, prepared a succulent dinner together, drank copious amounts of wine, and finally opened that repressed vault of emotion which had simmered over the summer. In the early hours of morning, when the sun still casts long shadows, a hazy glaze of white on stark surfaces, I drove her to work. As we sat in the car, saying our good-byes, basking in the glow of this new development, Bright Eyes played on the radio and the moment froze.

If we are lucky, each of us gets but a handful of perfect moments in our lives. The very lucky, or perhaps the very wise, realize that every moment is absolutely perfect, but let's say for the sake of narrative, that this frozen moment, the perfect tone of the perfect music for the perfect time in the perfect light, eye to eye, our souls spilling secrets back and forth, was one of those rare perfect moments. The kind Kodak can only dream of. It was then that Jacquelyn wrote her first word in my poetic memory.

The lyrics which played during this perfect moment, the metaphor which forever emblazoned itself into my psyche, infecting me with that virus of Eros?

Did you forget that yellow bird?
How could you forget that yellow bird?
She said this one will bring you love...
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for.

It might not be what Conor Oberst meant when he wrote that, but it's mine now, and I will do as I please. These lyrics were the dangerous metaphor Milan warned me about, three months too late. I have a yellow bird, which I have long been waiting for, who fluttered out of the ether and into my heart.