Current mood:	restless
Current music:	"Someone to Watch over Me"(Just came on)

The Girl with the white parasol

We are discussing moments that  various couples had-- when the "knew" that that person was the one.

The problem is, I  think I have felt "the moment" before--or at least,  "a" moment, if only in the sense of establishing a prototype of the way I wanted to feel. I've just yet to find myself in a position where it was appropriate to follow through on it.
Anyway, I had possibly two "aha" moments-- possibly one with a part aAand B. I'll getback to that.In any case, they turned out to be Citizen-Kane, Girl-with-the-white parasol moments and I never got a chance to find out if I should/ could trust those particular instincts.Here they are, for your reading pleasure:

1. About 60 pounds and 15 years ago, I was walking down a hall at ____ _______.and I passed a classroom where a movie was playing. Back then I was about a size 10 and wore funky hippie clothes even to my preschool job, and I had a short dark brown bob. In other words, I was pretty cute.Anyway, I stopped in the hall and watched this movie for a whille. I saw that it was a documentary or an educational film of some sort, and I almost began to walk away. Then the narrator began talking. Instead of droning on about obvious stuff, the narrator was actually engaging and interesting. So, I stopped and watched. I have a vague memory of dark-skinned women in t robes and turbans, seated, talking to each other. 

It was a hot day--which is probably why the door to the classroom was open to begin with.A lot of people were looking grouchy that day. A grouchy-looking dark-haired  man came up the aisle of the darkened classroom and grabbed the door, darting me a sharp look.I mumbled an apology and started to head off.

He stopped before he shut the door."The light''s coming in. Do you want to come in?"
I blinked.
He stepped out into the hall and repeated himself-- I saw now that he wasn't really grumpy, he was just curt.  he was also kind of attractive, in a starchy sort of way."I'm just shutting the door to keep the room dark. Come on in if you want to wacth."

I looked up at him, and he was giving me a really direct look, like his eyeballs had points.Eye contact was never easy for me, but in this caseit was unavoidable--he was not much taller than me, and his eyes came right at me. That's when it happened. When I made eye contact, I felt something like "POW." Like I had an unknown electric cord attached to me and it had just gotten plugged in. Since I had never felt that before, I had no basis for interpretation-- I had no idea whether this feeling was a good thing or a bad thing. I just suddenly felt like the look we were holding together was tangible, as if he were holding my arm rather than just my gaze.Whatever thoughts that were drifting through my head were monkeywrenched by the immediacy of the moment I was confused, maybe even a little frightened.

(Later that evening a wordc for the feeling came to me--"magnetism")

"I -I - This isn't my class", I sputtered.
This is when the spell broke. he straightened up, gave an exasperated snort, and puffed, "I'm the INSTRUCTOR!"

The prissy tone he took kind of put me off, and it finally occured to me to ask myself if it was normal for for an instructor to be recruiting bypassers to come into his class. So I did something I rarely do-- I flat out lied.. I told him that I had another class.

I wasn't going to any class. My next class was something like four hours off. I hung out in the library for a while. About an hour later, I found myself walking down the same hall again. I peeked in the door again. This time the INSRUCTOR  and the students were discussing the film. SOmethng stopped me again- a student about my age was delivering an animated speech about the movie, the whole class seemed alive and excited, and the INSTRUCTOR was sitting on the edge of his desk, swinging his heels, and looking more like a bright, friendly guy having an interesting conversation than a teacher asessing a student's comments.He looked up and spotted me again. He laughed.and beckoned to me.

"Come in!"

And I skittered. At the time I was just a bunny, no axe
.
2 The weird thing is, I think I met him again.. I think.

That year (shortly after I'd begun dating my first serious boyfreind) I went to the Sing-it-Yourself Messiah at Davies Symphony hall, with my mother and my sister. We went to look at the practice tapes and other merchandise, and I looked up to see a quite handsome man standing behind the  swag table.He looked familiar.

"Where have I seen you before?" I asked.

He gave me a sideways look and a knowing smirk. I can't really remember that much about how he looked; only that he had dark hair, that damned insufferable smirk and a dangerous twinkle in his eye.He shrugged.
"Where have you seen me before." he said quietly.
I stared at him and thought.
"You go to ____ _______ ."
"No," he said quietly. "I work at ____ _______ ." Insufferable smile.
"Oh!" That's right! Music Department!"
"No," he said quietly. Insuferable smile.
I was moving from intrigued to annoyed, and I still could not place him. I was seconds away from teling him to wipe that damn smirk off when my mother took me by the arm and drew me away, making some coment about our seats.
Once we were theoretically out of earshot, Mom and Sis pounced."What was that about?  He was cute!"
I shrugged, still trying to place him.
"You should ahve given him your number!" they insisted.
Now, as I said, I had just acquired my first serious boyfriend and I was very much  a one-guy-gal.I opened my mouth to to retort to that effetct. for some reason, the words melted in my mouth, and I took another peek at him. He'd been watching us--me-- the whole time, his eyes slanted to one side, that twinkle even more dangerous.

There it is.(they are. )As I said, might have been same guy, might have been completely unrelated persons who happened to work at at ____ _______.. All I know is, I never forgot him/ either of them, nor my first encounter with magnetism.