The Write Thing

It’s been quiet on this side, and yet it feels like I have been busy all along. Or maybe I have been busy, and it is just that time of year in which everything should be drawing to a close, but it is not, at least not on this side of the globe. The truth is that the world is divided into two hemispheres, and one carries more weight than the other. On my side of the map now, everybody sees winter as a natural occurrence in December. However, it is not logical and it will never be, despite the rulings of nature or political and economic superpowers. The year ends in December. Everything should lead to that conclusion, to that ending, and summer is the logical sidekick to reflection time.

November is perhaps the time to start wrapping up, coming to conclusions, planning strategically for the year ahead, deciding to be a better person. I have the feeling that we only decided to be better persons when we were children and we thought that was possible. Once we grow up, some of us just keep trying, even though we know it may only be wishful thinking. As adults, so many of us will still continue to be children. The more powerful we get, the more childish we can be. Our insecurities may have never left us, but simply changed focus from school life to office politics, and whether we can get that promotion, or our colleague’s seat. However, the hopeful side of human pettiness is that the line is always drawn somewhere. One can only wish that line is drawn closer to one’s true self, closer to our heart.

My birthday passed like the month that hosts it. It takes place at the end of August and I love the feeling of completion that a celebration at the end of the month can bring. I guess one could say the same about opening a month, but I’ll just imagine myself privileged for the sake of my self-esteem. She invited me to Seattle, and we were there sharing the sights, the sounds, the beauty, and the love that synthesizes perceptions. There was dinner at a French restaurant, which was funny because the escargots were nothing like those you’d have in France, although the poulet roti in a way compensated an evening in which you were edgy after two days in a row of living with an inverted daytime, in the cruel shifts society imposes on your profession.

Then came another distance, a couple of weeks in Houston for me before my conference in Rio and then playtime in Buenos Aires, where you joined me and where we confirmed — as if there was a need to do that — the foundations of whatever it is that we are building. We can name it love and that would be all right. I loved having you meet another friend of mine there, someone whose loyalty and trust have given me hope and made me believe that sometimes there is no vested interest bringing people together. It is funny how some of us do perceive the truth about this cruel exercise of life, in which we are born and die alone, so the only form of happiness is finding the sidekick to seal that unspoken pact with us, be it as a friend, family or lover, to know that it is OK to trust, because what is out there is what there is and if we are loved, we must be loved for what we are.

There were Freddo ice-creams, asados, alfajores, my mother’s home cooking bringing you an arroz con leche that gave you back some of that lost childhood. There was your friend sharing with us, being a funny accomplice to the game of teasing you, like two people who love you in different ways. And I loved your shyness around me, the way in which your body tentatively sought mine when we were walking or standing near. I loved the stealth kisses and your happiness, your wholesomeness, the real you that emerged in an atmosphere of simplicity and cool spring chaos.

Now I’m back to Houston, with a book by C.E. Feiling that my uncle gave me without knowing that he perhaps owned a collector’s item. I’ll be reading that, and I’ll get back to the life of office work and odd interruptions from you in those days when you work late or not at all. I’ll get back to the waiting time that has now become a staple in our dynamics, the longing for you that feels like a pang in my stomach for a few more days until I see you again at the airport and I give you the inevitable kiss. Then I will lead you to my car, to my place, to us and everything will be all right for a treasured moment, for now.

I am reading Emi’s post on Don Giovanni and I just realized how much I’m missing an opera night. Here in Houston the season will open shortly, but for now opera is unfortunately a wish. However, I have already told her I’d like to see one of the highlights of this season Madama Butterfly with her. That is when she shared with me that her mother, in the final years of a long-lasting illness, had expressed a wish to see that Puccini classic.

So I am now set off to book our seats for one of the performances in October or November, as fall here once again signals the beginning of a working year. Before then there will be Buenos Aires, her own Portland earlier on and Seattle for my birthday. However, there is that specific image that I keep replaying on my mind, her hand on mine, enthralled in the story of Cio Cio San’s love belittled by Pinkerton’s «butterfly« desire. It is that vision alone that gives the wait its meaning. And I have waited for you. And I will wait for you as long as it takes you to trust the love I bring, knowing that you may be Pinkerton to my hope, but you may also stand up to it like the woman I think you are.

Regardless of outcomes, life, or potentially thwarted plans, Butterfly’s final scene will remain with me, like the first time I listened to the opera, which I have never had the opportunity of seeing live yet. The final aria, Con onor muore is Butterfly’s goodbye to her son as she puts an end to her life in search of the honor she failed to have when she was alive, according to her own traditions.

I, for all life is worth, will prefer to live with honor, with the truthfulness of a word that does not falter, a love that remains and gives, and the belief in the you I know, rather than the dim hope of your memory.