The look

"All our young lives we search for someone to love. Someone who makes us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of hearbreak and hope -- all the while wondering if somewhere, somehow, there's someone perfect...who might be searching for us." -- "The Wonder Years"

I think about the look sometimes, in the mornings mostly, when things are quiet and the day has yet to begin.

I've seen it twice, I guess, both times after offering a few meager words that don't come anywhere close to how I really feel. Her eyes lit up, though; a smile crept onto her face. And she glowed. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I think about that when the world doesn't make much sense. All the cynicism disappears and for a few moments I still believe in the old, good dreams, the crazy ones, that have absolutely nothing to do with sense or reality.

I'm a romantic fart and tend to wear it on my sleeve. It usually gets me into trouble, or leads to misunderstandings, but I don't know how else to do it. I tried being stoic awhile, but keeping things bottled inside nearly killed me -- literally. I am who I am and am finally becoming comfortable with it.

And I guess if I were honest with you, and can be an absolute wuss for a moment, I'd say that my fondest wish (other than for the Tigers to figure out how to pitch and hit) is to fall madly in love with a woman and go 100 miles per hour on a feeling as untamed and free as wild horses on the run -- something that isn't limited to your own fears, reality or the stifling expectancies of modern suburbia.

Sometimes I feel so close to it, staring at Jay Gatsby's blinking green lights, literally in front of my face. Other times it's a pipe dream, as distant as Pluto, and I'm insane, people say, for even thinking about it.

But I hear it in a sad song, see it in an old movie, read about it in a Hemingway story. And I saw it a couple of times in a brief look -- the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.