The Write Thing

It is a cold night in Houston, with temperatures dropping below zero degree Celsius. My eyes hurt with the sting of the slow tears that have accompanied me throughout the day. Yes, I am in pain.

I was never drawn to drama, so I am not sure how I got myself into this. I am trapped in an icy prison, like that Dead Man Walking the Houston Grand Opera decided to revisit with Flicka Von Stade as the mother of the convict. I’m probably a dead heart walking, only that mine still beats, despite myself. I wish it did not. I wish it were free…to death or to a happier fate, if something like that exists.

I was recently watching the last movie version of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, with  Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes starring as the lovers whose fate is doomed by a too likeable husband (somewhat like a Brief Encounter type, with more screen time) and by the mother of all fates and relationships: circumstance.

Timing is always an essential ingredient to relationships, and yet lovers take it for granted. Perhaps because I am behind these prison bars now, I can look at happy couples with a renewed eye, knowing without their sharing in that knowledge how lucky they are to have fallen for each other on a tabula rasa, with no past to pay dues to, or to feel they have to. I did not know how much circumstance shapes facts and options until I met you. Perhaps it was because of the extended suspension of disbelief that accompanies the anesthetized initial romance, or the pursuit of seduction as a game, as an option, that fleeting moment in which we think we know where things are going, and when “inevitable” seems like an infallible word.

Oh, well, I’ve learned that “inevitable” is a nice umbrella word to cover up for the fantasy of thinking that we know, when we really do not. We do not know the secrets, the hiding, and mostly the lying that accompanies each strategy of seduction, the moves behind the scenes  to get what we want, not thinking of the future because it scares us, because it is too far to think about. Greene’s Maurice Bendrix is consumed by jealousy for what he cannot change and he cannot understand…for what he cannot see. In my version, there is only emptiness, as my side of the story becomes a tepid version of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black.

And now add to the tragedy of a lover’s plight the fact that you may be ill, and then the terror of hearing the worst prognosis is superseded by the certainty that I will be external to you in any process, as you let circumstances take over the fragile texture of a life that a radiologist’s report can change forever. I know more than you do, despite your technical expertise and the medical degree that probably decorates some wall in an unreachable house. I know that rotting out is not paying homage to whatever is left of your time anywhere, be it long, fruitful years, or the sad and lonesome count of a calendar the family you think you are protecting imposes on you. Rotting out is another kind of prison, one that you build around yourself, one that is hard to resist without real love if real love has come to you. And I know it has, and I wish you could stop fighting it like a disease.

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.

What do you write about when you cannot think? What do you write about when you can’t deal with a lie, and the only thing that stays printed on your brain, in your heart, is the absence of words?

Perhaps you write about the nuances of words, so I should write about the odd conversation we had a few days ago, while you were still edgy with me because I stepped away from the peace and quiet you wanted that night over dinner. We talked about three verbs in English that are summarized into one in Spanish and two in French. We talked about wait, hope and expect. I asked you, the native English speaker, to pick one that would boil down to the very origin of the meaning, that could be the one that would eventually stand above the rest, if you had to choose only one. It was a tricky question, but I like to ask those, because you always find a way around them, and eventually I know that, just as in our conversation over dinner, I will end up struggling to steer my boat towards the shore I wanted to go to.

You picked “hope”. I think you got extra help there, because you do speak Spanish, although you won’t admit it. It does not matter, you still picked the only one of the three that clearly depicts an emotion. So it might all start with an emotion, but then as that emotion matures, we evolve into some form of passivity and then some form of impatience. I would agree with you, and start with hope, only because that’s the only choice in Spanish. You are definitely right. I would also start with the emotional “esperar”, instead of the passive or the certain versions of it. I would then grow into the less interesting “wait”, dispossessed of excitement and sequestered into the trap of clocks and Blackberries. Finally, I’d go for “expect”, the ironic combination for pregnancy while even that can fail, and leave you empty-handed six or seven months into the infallible future. I wonder…is the fall harder because you “expect” the child? Shouldn’t we wait for the child, or simply hope for it?

I wonder how it must have been for you, and whether you ever experienced the three. I wonder if you hope, because I feel that is the only one left for me when it comes to us. I know that you wait, mostly at airports, until I make my exit on time, like I did last week in the unusually hot Pacific Northwest. Something tells me you are good at expecting, but that comes elsewhere, and it does not involve me, but your priorities.

I used to think this absence in you, as I perceive it, was a temporary feeling, but now I’m beginning to feel it may not be. And it is too sad, because soon I may lose my root. And I may no longer hope.