The Write Thing

Time is relative, I have observed. I know, there is a calendar to abide by, a given set of numbers that decide how long a year, a month or a day is. Yet, time is relative. It is relative to what we have and what we lack, to our plans and our pitfalls. Our life, as it unfolds, sets the pace of time — and sometimes lets us become aware of its power.

A week ago, we were having fun together, playing pool as if we knew the rules at Houston’s Chances bar. A week ago, you were Texan and I was British, and we laughed over a few drinks as we mixed up our accents while we dared each other across the table. A week ago, Saturday morning would bring the garbage pick-up trucks early on and we would leave our bed to have coffee together in the balcony. A week ago, we would make love and nothing would matter…or everything would. A week ago, time was a clock that set an arrhythmic pace, a city of urban bohemia in the summer heat, a ride to Central Market, a granita and an iced coffee at the Empire Cafe, a failed Cajun restaurant, a disruptive conversation of unknown impact. A week ago, we were whole, and time passed.

After you left the apartment a few days later and I closed the door behind your inaudible sigh, the mourning clock began to tick. Your absence filled each room as much as your presence had, only minutes before. I endeavored to change my routine to no avail. Eventually there would be something that, had you been there, would have been natural, would have felt right. But you were gone, and this time I feared an indefinite abyss. The emptiness of you felt stronger, perhaps because this house was ours for some days even while it was not, both of us being strangers in foreign land.

With you gone, I had nothing to cling to, only impersonal crooked pictures and faded comfort colors that would lull me to sleep until you called from a remote airport, enslaved by your own withdrawal of us. As I woke up to set the coffee brewing before my shower the next morning, or even as I returned home at the end of my workday, time was always relative. It was relative to its forceful repetition of itself without you…it was relative to you.

I guess in our lifetime there will always be moments when we will be scared, moments when we will be happy, or anxious, or willing. When I am about to travel, the mix of feelings is quite unique. It was like that before you arrived. Now it is like that, but somewhat different. Regardless of the business I have somewhere else, there is you at some point…a reward to the many days we have spent apart since I last held you in my arms in a chilly night at the local airport.

The sound of your “I love you” almost got lost in the background noise, but you were still looking at me when you said it. I had to bring that moment back to my mind several times to stop the tears from flowing when I turned around to look at you and found you there, at the boarding gate, holding your hand up in the air in your farewell gesture.

The tears did not flow, because right before we parted you had said what I had hinted at the night before, when we played around the “sides of us” that are only percentages of us, and the word love was whispered as if we were speaking of others. I know we both knew it would not be long before we said it. There is a second when you become aware that you are starting to use substitutes. A second when you know that any other word you choose to replace the only one that fits would be a partial view of the compact reflection of you, now a vulnerable creature. And you have to be vulnerable, let your defenses fall, and simply love. Otherwise, it does not work.

I’m going on that plane now to do exactly that. In the course of the next days, I want to hear those words again and I want to say them, in silence, in darkness, while we simply indulge ourselves in the miracle of being.