A Meeting Of Soulmates By Barry & Joyce Vissell

The following is excerpted from the Vissell’s new book, A Couple of Miracles: One Couple, More than a Few Miracles.

As a first-year college student at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, I tried, for a few months anyway, to be the person I thought I should be. I fell in with Alpha Delta Omega fraternity which, at the time, had a reputation of being the “partying” fraternity. I tried to convince myself that “sophisticated” girls were the ones to date. The word in 1964 was “cool,” as in West Side Story.

I saw Joyce for the first time at a soccer game on a very cold day later that fall. I was sitting on the bleachers with some of my “cool” dorm buddies. I was in college now, and I wanted to show everyone that I was an adult. That meant controlled laughter … not too loud … and controlled body movements … never anything that could be judged as childish. After all, I was eighteen years old and all grown up.

There was a loud outburst of almost hysterical laughter a few rows above me. I turned to see who could be making such an immature display of emotion. It was an attractive female freshman with large blue-green captivating eyes, sitting with her friends and laughing the “wrong” way … way too loud, uncontrolled, obviously immature, and worst of all, not caring at all what people must be thinking of her – in other words, “not cool.” How dare she act so childish! But I couldn’t stop looking at her. My mind was repelled by her, but my heart, which I scarcely understood at the time, was irresistibly attracted to her. I was having minimal fun. Joyce was having all the fun she wanted. I was dampening my joy. Joyce was freeing hers, living up to her name. I was hiding my childlikeness. Joyce was in no hurry to grow up, exuberant in her innocence.

 I forced myself to look back at the soccer game, but my curiosity overwhelmed me. I kept sneaking glances over my shoulder. Who was this girl who cared so little about being cool? She was simply allowing herself to have an outrageously good time. Her joy was innocently and un-selfconsciously bubbling over. I, on the other hand, was caught in a world of social conformity, a world of play-acting to get the approval of others. I felt shame, then embarrassment, and looked away again. I had a feeling of insecurity deep inside me … that this girl would never willingly have much to do with me.

For the next several weeks, I tried to get the image of this girl out of my mind but I couldn’t. Then came the first snowstorm of the year. Someone in our boy’s dorm had the idea to attack the girl’s dorm and challenge the girls to a snowball fight. We bundled up and ran, whooping and hollering, across campus. Outside the girl’s dorm, we started throwing snowballs at the windows, and yelled out challenges. The girls wasted no time in hurriedly dressing and rushing out of the dorm to meet our challenge. I was ready with snowball in hand. I spotted a good target, a girl standing about a hundred feet away with her back to me. I launched my projectile with the practiced arm of a baseball player, then watched in horror as the girl turned around. Almost in slow motion, and helpless to stop the arcing trajectory, I watched the snowball heading right for her face, and recognized the face. It was the girl from the soccer game, the girl I felt so attracted to, and so conflicted about.

Too late, I saw the snowball smash into the middle of her head. I heard her startled scream. For a moment, I didn’t know if she was hurt. And I didn’t dare announce my guilt.

Suddenly, she burst out laughing, bent over to grab a bunch of snow, and took off after some boys. They saw her racing toward them with such wild abandon that they turned and ran in fear. All I could do was gawk at her boldness. I was deeply impressed, and I still didn’t even know her name.

A short time later, I applied at the school cafeteria for a job as student-waiter to help with college expenses. Dinners were a bit of a formal affair, with sit-down dining for the students. The job paid a whole dollar an hour. For some reason, boys and girls were paired up to work as a team serving a row of tables. And who did I happen to be assigned with? You guessed it, Joyce.

I was thrilled – and uncomfortable at the same time. I don’t think I ever felt quite that uncomfortable around a girl. Perhaps it was the combination of my profound attraction, bundled with my fear that she wouldn’t like me. And what if she found out that it was my snowball that hit her head.

Meanwhile, Joyce had noticed me almost from the beginning of the school year. She and her friends referred to me as “the boy who dressed weird.” You see, I had very little awareness of clothes. My mother had bought all my clothes and, to tell the truth, she had very poor taste in clothes. I guess I stood out from the crowd, but not in a good way. And that’s probably why Joyce had noticed me.

Now we worked together. And I wore a uniform as a waiter, so I suppose I looked better.

I asked Joyce out, a bit awkwardly I remember, for the following Friday night. She said yes, and inwardly I rejoiced. So far, so good.

I took her to see the movie, Tom Jones. I actually have no memory of what the movie was about. I felt so attracted to this girl, Joyce. Sitting next to her in the movie theater, all I wanted to do was hold her hand. I gingerly reached my hand toward hers. When it touched her hand, she made my life so much better by opening her hand and taking mine. A joy filled my heart, just holding her hand for the rest of the movie, whatever it was about.

Then we walked up the hill to the campus in a frigid early December Catskill Mountain’s evening. I wanted to continue holding her hand forever, but it was just too cold. We needed our hands in our own pockets to keep them warm.

We approached Joyce’s dorm, Dewer Hall. There was a ten o’clock curfew and it was approaching that time. Other couples were converging on the dorm at the same time from their dates. We squeezed into the small entry room minutes before ten. The other couples were saying good-bye to one another. A small window framed the face of ancient Mrs. Wilcox, the dorm mother, who was probably in her sixties. She watched with hawk-like eyes to make sure all the couples were behaving appropriately.

With so little time, all I could do was say good-bye to Joyce with the briefest of kisses. I leaned forward and felt my lips lightly touch hers. It wasn’t passionate. Mrs. Wilcox, if she saw it, which she probably did, would have fully approved. What she didn’t see, what she could never see, was the transmission of energy between two souls at the speed of light. One small kiss, but a powerful recognition of something very big, a love we did not yet realize but could feel clearly in that touch of lips.

We were lost and overwhelmed in that eternal moment, when the door suddenly opened and elderly hands started pulling Joyce away from me and into the dorm.

I remember floating slightly above the frozen ground rather than walking back to my dorm. I had kissed a few girls before Joyce, but this was something else entirely. It was like waking up from an eighteen-year dream sleep. Neither of us had developed the framework for understanding what had happened in that moment. Our minds were both blown, but our hearts were starting to awaken. 

About Joyce & Barry Vissell:  Joyce & Barry, a nurse/therapist and psychiatrist couple since 1964, are counselors near Santa Cruz, CA, who are passionate about conscious relationship and personal-spiritual growth. They are the authors of 9 books and a new free audio album of sacred songs and chants.  Visit their web site at SharedHeart.org for their free monthly e-heartletter, their updated schedule, and inspiring past articles on many topics about relationship and living from the heart.
 

Joyce & Barry's Website: https://sharedheart.org/