The Write Thing

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.

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.

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.