Modern Love: What Is Carved in Stone

A few days later we were discussing the details in person. I would join AmeriCorps, a roving volunteer organization. I would be stationed in Denver but moving around. She would visit at Thanksgiving. I’d return to Boston during winter break.

Then I said, “I’m not bringing my laptop,” and her lip turned over and she started to cry. I realized later that she saw my rejection of technology as an assault on the very core of our relationship.

We had gone to the same high school in New Jersey, and when we both ended up at colleges in Boston I fell in love with her familiar face. Together we nursed our dying childhoods, going to the circus and calling each other pet names.

I would call her as I walked to class, alternating my phone hand when it turned pink from the cold, and she would text me during lectures. We’d video chat from our dorm rooms, half-talking while surfing the Internet, calling out occasionally to make sure the other was still there.

This was after communication had become nearly limitless but before people thought much about boundaries. Taking advantage, we fell in love like addicts. All day long the contents of my heart would slide down my arm, past my sleeve and into my phone. When we were together I chafed from overexposure, but when we were apart I would lose my sense of identity and grab my phone.

Our ultimate break-up was confusing and explosive. I landed in Denver around the time the housing market crashed. Deep in heartache, I called my friends while pacing outside my new dorm. Sometimes I called Sarah, until we agreed to stop talking.

During the monthlong orientation I explored and grieved and went to bed early. New friends would invite me to the Mexican bar across the street, but I was dedicated to my loneliness.

I met Patti in an airport van full of idealistic AmeriCorps members. I liked her eyes, which looked like those of the Afghan girl from that famous National Geographic cover. While everyone was discussing the best ways to save the world, she was taking in the passing public art. Forced to weigh in on the conversation, she expressed a bold realism that I found refreshing. Back at the dorms, I watched as she crossed the parking lot and sailed off into the sunset in her boxy 20-year-old Crown Victoria.

Soon I was inventing reasons to hang out with her. She was quiet, pausing for several seconds before answering questions. I would talk until I exhausted myself, fearing that her silence meant she didn’t understand. Then, like Muhammad Ali coming out of the rope-a-dope, she would say something astoundingly true. Knocked out, I couldn’t repress my smile.

We started sitting together during the AmeriCorps meetings. Still, I was resistant to love, fearing a repeat of my past relationship. I opted to join a wildfire-fighting team, assuring that I would spend a majority of the year in isolated mountain towns and away from Patti.

Upon separating she suggested we write letters. A few weeks later I addressed an envelope to Texas, where she was living in a tent city and working for FEMA. At first I poured thoughts onto the page like I was sending a long text message. By the time I finished, the words at the beginning seemed untrue or melodramatic. I crafted and reworked. Sometimes I would rip the letter up and start over.

Her letters were often entirely visual, scattered magazine collages. I would hold an unopened letter for a while, delaying gratification. After reading them, her intimate stories wouldn’t fall to the bottom of my in-box and disappear, but stay with me, under my bed, waiting to be reread.

We started to call each other at night. She told me about her love for the sprawl and beaches in our home state, New Jersey. She told me that, despite her tall, slender frame, she hated sports. I was falling in love, but Patti hesitated, wanting time to allow her feelings to settle. I struggled to accept the uncertainty.

David Mark Simpson, a runner-up in the Modern Love college essay contest, is a senior at Rutgers University.

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In Joplin, Obama Offers Healing Words to Residents

With his European tour behind him, President Obama traveled to Joplin Mo. on Sunday, to offer some healing words to a city ravaged by the worst tornado in decades.

As he did during trips after the tornadoes in Alabama and the flooding along the Mississippi River, the president tried to reassure that survivors that they would not be forgotten.

“The cameras may leave, but we will be with you every step of the way until this community is back on its feet. We are not going anywhere,” the president told a memorial service on the campus of Missouri Southern State University. “That is not just my promise. It is America’s promise.”

In an emotive speech peppered by biblical homilies and pledges of national solidarity, Mr. Obama praised the residents of Joplin for coming together in the face of tragedy. He recounted stories of heroism, including that of a 26-year-old manager of a Pizza Hut restaurant and father of two who died while sheltering a dozen people in a pizza freezer, trying to wedge the door shut, before he was swept away.

“The world saw how Joplin has responded,” Mr. Obama said. “You have shown the world what it means to love thy neighbor.”

Earlier, the president visited with survivors and family of the storm that killed more than 130 people and injured more than 900. At least 40 people remain unaccounted for, as authorities continue to sift through the rubble and accounting for the dead.

Air Force One arrived Sunday around midday, flying over a stretch of landscape flattened by the tornado. The president was greeted by Governor Jay Nixon on the tarmac before they set off on a walk around a devastated neighborhood.

He also was to meet with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate and local and state officials to coordinate federal assistance and recovery efforts in the city of almost 50,000.

Governor Nixon said the tornado had caused unprecedented devastation even as it had united the people of Joplin like never before. “That storm has brought forward a spirit of resilience the likes of which we’ve never seen,” he said. “What our nation has witnessed this week is the spirit of Joplin, Mo.”

Mr. Obama’s motorcade drove through some of the most devastated neighborhoods, where the houses had no roofs, The Associated Press reported. There, he saw signs of the havoc the tornado had left behind: a recliner sitting amid rubble, a washer-dryer standing next to a decimated house. American flags were planted everywhere.

“Sorry for your loss,” Mr. Obama told an anguished woman, hugging her twice as they talked, the A.P. reported. Another woman told him that her uncle lives up the road — he survived but his house did not. “Tell your uncle we’re praying for him,” the president said.

The president also had words of thanks for the volunteers helping to rebuild the city, including dozens who had streamed in from other states. “It is an example of what the American spirit is all about,” he said.

“We’re going to be here long after the cameras are gone,” Mr. Obama said. “We’re not going to stop until Joplin jumps back on its feet.”

With his re-election campaign fast approaching, Mr. Obama’s ability to connect with voters has been tested in recent months, from the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January, to the tornadoes in Alabama and Mississippi, to the more recent floods that devastated parts of Tennessee.

Mr. Obama lost Missouri to Republican John McCain in 2008. But many residents said they were grateful for the president’s visit and for the attention he was bringing to Joplin. When Governor Nixon introduced him at the memorial, the crowd exploded in rapturous applause.

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