Thursday, October 06, 2005

The Mix Tape

Having just gotten engaged (sorry if this is news to anyone, you should see my phone bill!), I've been feeling rather emotional and nostalgic lately, and I though I would tell you all a story about the greatest gift I've ever received from a boy (at least, from one to whom I am not surrently engaged).

There was a boy, a very quiet boy, who came to my high school for one year (and I am not even sure he stayed the whole year) my junior year in high school. He almost never spoke, but had that irresistable combination of fragility and the capacity for Deep Thought; a kind of perpetual pensive expression on his face. He wrote poetry and had a meloncholy, Lloyd Dobbler-esque demeanor as he sat two rows up from me every morning. He unsettled me, and intrigued me, because he was so quiet and sad. He was also one of, if not the, only boy in my Honors English class that year, which set up a weird vibe from the very beginning. I kept finding myself making eye contact with him, which he would hold a moment past the confort level, then look away.

But he never spoke!

Until one day, he heard me say I had a Cure song in my head, and he asked if I liked The Cure. Caught off guard, I said I did, very much, but did not own any albums and only knew the songs from the radio (back when radio played stuff like The Cure).

The next day he brought me a hand-made mix tape.
There wasn't even a case for it, and it looked like it had been recorded on about a thousand times before, but he had taken the time to title each side.

Side A was "Just Like Heaven..."
Side B was "Close to You..."

I didn't even listen to it for months, and then one day I realized he didn't go to my school anymore.

Out of curiosity I popped the tape in one quiet night.

It was all his favorite Cure songs, painstakingly recorded on a beat-up cassette, because I had said I loved the Cure.

I never did get to tell him how much I loved it.


To this day, I listen to it whenever I have the house to myself, up as high as it will go, until Robert Smith's melancholic wail shakes the windowpanes.


So, this post goes out to Gus, my quiet poet of the 11th grade. May you find the Cure-loving poetess who will appreciate you for all that you are, and may you always make mix-tapes in spite of the dawn of digital media.

As John Cusack has taught us over and over again, never underestimate the quiet boy who never speaks in class.
He just might tell you he loves you without you ever noticing.

1 Comments:

Blogger Designated Blonde said...

You didn't listen to it for months? Hooker.

5:34 PM  

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