BY AMY ESTES

Hyun Jung Ahn, *Wish You Were Happy 02*, acrylic on sewn canvas and linen, 46 x 36 in, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Ordinary Softness

AMY ESTES | APR 2022 | ISSUE 15

When I was 22, I decided to take BART into San Francisco to wander the city on a brisk, fall Friday. This wasn’t just any Friday: it was the day my divorce was legally final, after six long months of waiting, and a year filled with anger and terror and the deepest sadness I’d ever known. I’d married the wrong person too young, and thankfully, I’d gotten out. I was both heartbroken and relieved that it was over.

I told everyone I was going to San Francisco to celebrate, but really, I was desperate to be lonely in a different city—a place that didn’t feel haunted by what I thought my life should be. I was angry all the time, and I’d started telling anyone who would listen that love didn’t exist, or that if it did, I didn’t want anything to do with it. I’d had the proposal and the party and the magazine-ready milestones that allegedly defined love. None of it meant a damn thing.

When the train doors whooshed open at the fourth stop, a couple boarded. I peered over the pages of my book and watched them select a seat directly across from me. The man was tall and muscular, dressed in all black, save for the shiny silver pentagram dangling from a thick silver chain around his neck. He had floppy, stretched earlobes that were now dangling and empty. I could picture him in his youth: the sort of man that stands in the back of the room at concerts donning a fedora and sunglasses inside.

The woman was his opposite: short and slight, with bird-like features that were simultaneously sharp and delicate. Her blonde hair and wispy bangs gave her the appearance of a halo, and her blue linen dress fanned out behind her. She walked deliberately and used a cane to slowly make her way onto the train. The man stood behind her, guiding her gently, and the train was already moving by the time he helped her sit down.

The woman winced as she lowered her body into the frayed blue seat. Once she was situated, the man took his seat next to her. She leaned into him and exhaled, relieved to have the seat and his presence. He shifted to better accommodate her and removed an iPod from his pocket, deftly unrolling earbuds and plugging them in. The man stuck one earbud in his own ear and offered the other to his companion, and she accepted with a smile. He scanned his screen for a moment and showed it to the woman who nodded and smiled in approval. He pushed play and she closed her eyes while he wrapped his arms around her, protectively pulling her tiny body into his. They both swayed slightly to the music, eyes closed. I tried to figure out what song they were listening to, dissecting their movement and straining to hear any hints of a beat over the clacking of the train down the track. I couldn’t figure out the song. I couldn’t stop staring.

After a few minutes, the woman’s eyes fluttered open and she gently tapped the man’s forearm. He opened his eyes and she gazed up at him, offering him her hands. I hadn’t noticed before that her knuckles were oversized and swollen, gnarled and red. She shifted her body and he rested her left hand in his, cradling it as one would a robin’s egg. With his free hand, softly pulled at each finger until her knuckles softly cracked. With every crack, the woman’s face relaxed slightly. She switched hands, and he repeated the process. Crack, crack, crack. He did it with such gentleness, and when he finished, he kissed the top of each hand before she returned her hands to her lap, a small, satisfied smile across her lips. I was captivated by this display of unfamiliar gentleness.

She caught me staring, and I looked away. I didn’t want her to know that I’d witnessed this small, intimate ritual. I felt like I shouldn’t have seen something so private and beautiful. I watched them exit a few stops later, reversing their gentle entrance, him carefully guiding her off the train, holding her hand every step of the way, patiently walking her to their next destination.

Tears ran down my cheeks as they left. I felt my heart crack open just a bit. I’d had the diamond ring, the storied proposal, the white dress, the Crate and Barrel registry, and I’d mistaken it for love. I was right when I said that I didn’t want that hollow definition of love again. As I watched them float down the stairs to wherever they were going together, I realized that what I wanted wasn’t grand gestures, but rather these tender windows of ordinary softness—a love I hadn't known I’d been yearning for all along.

Amy Estes is a writer, storyteller, and educator from Sacramento, CA. Amy’s humor writing has been featured on McSweeney's, Slackjaw, The Belladonna, Weekly Humorist, and others. Amy’s essay writing has been featured on the Huffington Post, Catapult, Evocations Review, The Financial Diet, PULP Mag, Livability, POPSUGAR, and others. Amy’s live storytelling has been featured in Mortified, Cliterary Salon, Greetings From Queer Mountain, and on SoulPancake. Currently, Amy teaches satire writing for the Second City and middle school English for a bunch of rad students. When she’s not writing or teaching others, you can find her drinking coffee with her wife and dogs, reading books, and watching her murder stories. Or napping, if we’re being real about it. Amy completed the first draft of her memoir, Let The Love Surprise You, in 2021 and is actively seeking literary representation and publication.

Hyun Jung Ahn is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist from Seoul, South Korea. Through her work, she investigates enigmatic abstract forms. She begins by drawing from her visual diary, which captures feelings, personal connections, and emotional states of being. She then translates these notions into minimalistic drawing and sewn painting. She has attended residencies including Vermont Studio Center, MASS MoCA, and Trestle Art Space. Ahn graduated from Duk-Sung Women’s University, Seoul (2010 BFA and 2013 MFA). She received a second MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute and currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Seoul.