I think I've reached it. A clean state. The point of clarity to which I presume monks aspire. I am not in love. I am not even remotely crushed out.

It is a weird feeling, like sitting at a grand piano in front of an empty theater, like inhaling from the top of one of those Sound of Music hills, like wearing a new shiny blue jacket. My feeling is amplified, I am sure, by my current vantage point -- an office on the 11th floor of the federal building, overlooking the Mississippi river and the ridiculous but strangely beautiful Memphis pyramid.

I cannot call this feeling happy, because it is not. But it is clean, in that cold New England air kind of way, and that comes with its own pleasures.

One of those pleasures is the anticipation of movement. This is not one of those flat points like at the bottom of a potential energy well, where you just wonder how the hell the particle is going to tunnel out of it. This is one of those flat points at the very top of a potential energy curve, maybe a very very flat point, with no dropping off in sight, but you just know its there. And at any point the particle will come flying off. Oh yes, this is one of those.

I am not in love. My pale lingering crush is becoming paler by the moment and dissolving into the huggy off-white of friendship and CD giving and art poster trading. My past regrets are washing away into that special pail of amnesia that I reserve for passed regrets. My nonsensical spring flare is a fantasy I play with when I am bored. And I am getting over what I am getting over.

I am not in love. It is everything I planned on with Memphis, and more. But it is a strange feeling, this detachment.

See, I'm actually a big believer in love. Not that we should all be in love, or even that love should be a goal, an endpoint. Or that it solves everything. But that there is such a thing as love, and that it's nice. Super nice.

Can you believe how I'm opening up to you?

If I could pick who I were to be in love with, I would pick . . . no, but I can't just pick, can I? If I could pick I wouldn't be filled with this anticipation, this double derivative. When the slope of the slope can quantify but can't quite describe what it'll be like to fall.