Jun 22 2010
The towering divide
Two sister towers stand imposingly at the center of Kuala Lumpur’s downtown, on a hot and rainy afternoon. We made that trip together from Singapore, trying to absorb the contrasts of South East Asia in a symbolic nutshell. The flight was short, but the ride from the airport longer than we had considered. There was little time…there is always little time.
And we crossed the frontier with Malaysia, back into safe, police-controlled Singapore, to catch up on sleep while fully dressed before our early morning flight. And there was a last look at the hotel rooftop, where we had slept the night before under the stars. And I could tell you were already mellow with me, different, as if I had grown into you despite yourself, as if you were no longer fighting that inner battle between saying it or not saying it. And I could sense you drifting away into the land of your own demons.
We crossed a less marked frontier in that trip, and I still choose you. My racing heart betrayed me yesterday as we lay on the couch and you finally told me what your life is really about in that city on the West Coast where I have been banned to set foot, at least for now, the outcast of our love. I knew you were going to say something important, and I still don’t know what else I will be learning about your life before me. Yet, oddly enough, we keep blaming space and time for the complexities in our relationship.
Space and time we may not have, so perhaps it is best to go with what we do have. And that is love, unknown as experienced in this life, flaky and afraid, trying to withstand the fears of us. All we will ask of it is to surmount the great divide between our mirror images, so different in many ways, and see if it makes it through and it finally builds the bridge. For that, we only need to hold on to the walls of the Menara as we climb.
You hurt today, so much, and I love you.
