The Story
Boston, 1984. A party Jim Garraty never wanted to attend. A girl who didn’t look away. A night stitched together by mixtapes, quiet courage, and the ache of choosing to stay.
Jim isn’t chasing romance—he’s just trying to outrun the noise. But when Kelly Moore enters the room with her drink, her Rachmaninoff references, and her uncanny ability to see without pressing, everything shifts. Over cassette tapes and Heineken beer, conversations deepen, touch becomes language, and for the first time, intimacy feels less like performance and more like breath.
Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen is a quietly luminous companion to the Reunion Duology, capturing one night’s transformation from awkward beginnings to the kind of closeness that rewrites your inner dialogue. It’s about music, memory, and the rare kindness of someone meeting you where you are—with patience, humor, and unexpected grace.
This isn’t a story about first love.
It’s a story about the first time you didn’t have to explain yourself.
The Reluctant Poet
I’ve always been more at ease shaping stories—those quiet, “regular” ones that unfold between glances and decisions, where prose gives breath to emotion. Poetry, for me, has usually lived on the edges of that comfort zone. Still, every now and then, I give in to its quiet pull.
I’ve only written one award-winning poem—back in high school, a moment I’d nearly forgotten until I remembered that Jean Kennedy Smith once read it at the 1982 Very Special Fine Arts contest. That memory feels like a whisper from another lifetime, but it reminds me that sometimes, when the moment calls for it, poetry finds me anyway.
This next piece, drawn from Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen, is one such moment—a glimpse into Boston, 1984, and the kind of quiet courage that lingers long after the night fades.
The Poem
Soft Light, Quiet Courage
from Kelly’s memory
The stereo fell silent after midnight—
not because the world demanded hush,
but because the room no longer needed music.
It was already brimming
with breath, with pulse,
with the quiet ache of something sacred
just passed between us.
His warmth leaned close,
uncertain in its grace—
like a door halfway open
asking permission to stay.
One hand near mine.
One unsure.
And I stayed still,
let the silence do the holding.
He spoke like pages rustling,
soft and slow,
with honesty untouched by shame.
“I wish I’d been better,”
he whispered,
his ribs echoing with regret.
But I knew better than to measure
moments in minutes.
Kindness is its own kind of rhythm.
Presence, the perfect tempo.
I kissed his forehead.
Not to soothe, not to teach.
Just to be with him
in the way he needed
and maybe in the way I did, too.
“Why me?” he asked,
not with doubt
but awe.
And I gave him
what truth I had.
Because I liked him.
Because I needed to.
Because I saw the want in his eyes
and answered with quiet courage.
He held my hand like a promise,
not yet spoken
but already kept.
And I stayed.
Because he did.
💬 “Every line is constructed in a way that reminds the reader of the great writers of the past: Hemingway, Fitzgerald… You will not put this book down.”
If that sounds like the kind of story you’ve been longing for, then maybe this quiet night in Boston—filled with cassette tapes, Rachmaninoff references, and the ache of being seen—was waiting for you too.
📖 Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen is available now on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions. Let it find its way into your hands.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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