the scientist

a vignette

I remember going to your house for the first and last time.

You were about to move to Italy and though I didn’t realize at the time this was the last time I’d ever see you.

It was a nice farewell party and my parents picked me up from college for the weekend so I could go, I was barely into my freshman year. I brought a gray vest with a bow tie and I think I wore a white button-down shirt.

I remember her wearing a flowery dress and there were lots of our friends from high school there, most of them still going there at the time.

I remember catching up with you on the backyard deck sitting at a table and my sleeve caught on fire as a result of sitting too close to a candle and a friend with a water bottle came immediately to the rescue. I was telling you about that girl who was obsessed with me the past few years and how she finally had made a move on me right before I went to college and how I wasn’t really interested. You later told me that was the moment you knew it was time to tell me how you felt.

We went inside and it was just you me and your baby brother in the living room; he was coloring while you watched him and we just chatted. I hopped on the piano and churned out some crude tunes that I wouldn’t refine until later, but I think I managed to at least eke out “The Scientist” by Coldplay.

This song would turn out to be an oddly powerful vehicle for moving others throughout the rest of my life, especially when I finally learned it on piano. Recently a friend recounted from years ago when she first met me that she really liked when I played it on guitar and asked if I could play it again.

It sort of became our song which- if you listen to the song you know that was sort of an ill omen for a relationship.

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start

Yet this was the song that when I sang it for our senior concert apparently made you realize you had feelings for me. It’s like through our short relationship we both new the clock was ticking yet we went for it anyway.

I left that party without realizing that during that time together you had wanted to tell me how you felt and it wasn’t until later that you shot me that essay-length text when I was back at college watching Interstellar with my friends. I remember exactly where I sat outside our Student Center when I was on the phone with you, not being able to believe what was happening.

2026 will mark 10 years since that farewell party, and you’ve held pretty fast to your later commitment to cut me off and never speak to me again.

Funny though, you were the one who convinced me that I had a talent for writing and that I should pursue it. Which first led me to make this blog, and eventually this one.

Makes sense, because we’re always

Runnin' in circles, chasin' our tails
Coming back as we are