“We should have gone
all the way last night.” He called me
back to tell one just that. He had called me earlier, saying he was on his way
out for lunch. I can not hold back my smile. “why?”
“ it is not worth the
aches and pains. God, my arms are killing me.”
We
both laugh and hang up after exchanging sweet
nothings, like “take care “ or “take it easy,dear” or have a great day”.
It was never my style, but he had unknowingly taught me this by just being
himself a naturally polite and thoughtful
guy. His prince charming attitude had
somehow infected me. We still have our bitter sides that we share from time to
time, and that’s what i love the most about our connection. For me, a perfect chocolate
bar should be bitter sweet, not all sweet, and certainly not all bitter, for
then you lose all the fun. We are that dark chocolate bar where you can have
four at once without getting jittery.
We
spent ten good hours together yesterday, talking and hugging, and i crave for
more. It felt unnatural to see him walk out the door. He should never have left
there shoud not have been a door at all. Perhaps just a medium sized window so
that the air could circulate, not too big, because you whold not want the
warmth from hours of suffocating bear hugs to escape the room entirely. Before
this, i never knew bear hugging could be such a steamy activity. We were like
two wrestlers fighting in slow, intense motion. All the yearning and last
converging into one tiny channel. Clammy air and aching muscles are what you
are left with afterwards. Same result, different method.
I
shut my cell phone with the same careful determination as i would fold my fine
silk scarf. Everything related to him must be done with extra caution. His
presence has turned me into a procelain
doll fragile, breakable, too fussy to be carried. Before that, i never knew a
ten second phone call could consume so much energy. He hadappeared in my night
sky like a white dwarf, a star feeble in light but so dense that i was sucked into a gravity field where my normal self was either shattered or flattened.
Within his orbit i was nothing but a flat noodle. It is so hard to breathe. So
hard to get out. And i do not know how much longer i can keep this up.
He
was talking about going to Borobudur tremple on his birthday. I could immedietly piccture him
mediatation behind one of the stupas , graceful as the slowly rising orange orb
in his backdrop. What i saw through the cornres of my eyes almost converted me
right there and then into a devout Buddhist. If i saw him doing the same thing
at the biggest, most sacred temple in
the country, the sight would surely take my breath away and i would turn to
stone. Not as a Budha statue, of course just as an inanimate, unenlightened
stone called myself.
On my lap rests a light square box with a golden bow on
top. Inside, there is a tape, a card and a handwritten letter, arranged as a
neat triple decker. Who still listens to tapes these day? It had been a though week in this digital era, so i decided
not to care. Spending ten magical hours with a person i.m madly in love with,
realizing nothing could in two days. It is a frantic combination between
drowning and wanting to get out, between dying and gasping for life. I’m lucky
enough even to be function today.
My original plan was to give him down bolster for his
birthday gift, some sort of desperate symbolic attempt at intimacy. But last
night i up to a tune, and moment later i found myself writing a birthday song,
sung whole heartedly into an old cassete recorder that i placed up on my piano.
A more artsy way of showing desperation, to be sure. Fore once, i strive to be
blatantly honest about who i truly am. To him, i might be this creative genius,
a spiritual enthusiast with whom he can spend hours discussing the illusion of
self. To him, i might be a unique blend of lowbrow jokes and complicated
quantum theorist. To him, i might be the perfect friend. But deep down, i’m
just in love.
“Sometimes it is hard to be your friend,” he whispered to me last night. His lips were
inches from mine. I saw tiny beads of sweat glistening just below his hairline
and could have numbered them had i wanted to. We were so close it got me dizzy.
Love is surely blinding at a certain range. Better just to shut our eyelids and
join force with the darkness.
Go home, go back to your peaceful life, to your lovely girlfriend. You two
would make a beautifull wedding picture. My lovely boyfriend could be back any
minute. We just made a beautiful pre-wedding picture. No did not go. This is
where you truly belong, in our foamy conversation about nothing, in this
three-seat sofa that perfectly fits our bodies. And i realized how i was
constanly swaying from one side to the other. I wanted to stop. I wanted to
decide. But some stupid philosopher kept telling us to go with the flow, to
drift with the river of life. What flow? This is not a flow.
It is predictable swing that goes back and forth without
ever moving elsewhere. We should have known better. Maybe we had, but pretended
not to know because this chocolate bar was just too tasty to pass over. And we
covered it up with alternative hippie concepts like “polyamora” or free loving
or whatever. I read about them all, you know. But at the end of the day, i knew
i was just a love fool trying to find some sense in this crazy world
I have only known you for three months. I need at least
another three months to ensure i am safe a enought to live a door away from
you,” he said with a giggle. “hey, you can build a two meter concrete fence if
you like. I don’t care. I just want to buy a piece of land,” i quickly responded, not wanting to
come across as too eagerly seeking closenes. It was such a lame idea in the
first place, now that i realize that even a skyscraper of a fence would not work
either. I need a line of faith as the
real border between us. A strike of amnesia, perhaps.
I plan to leave this box at the reception desk an take
off before he is back from his lunch break. I hate seeing him briefly. It is
not worth the piercing sensation in the chest, the gastric commotion, and the
long, blank stare into nothing afterwards. I gaze out through the car window
hoping the traffic jam will keep me here a while longer. His workplace is just
two blocks away. To remain in this car is like a final stroll along the shore
before being sent out to an epic battle at sea. I wish this walk to never end.
I know i wil die out there in the vast ocean. I don’t want to die. Another
away, another swing. Suddenly, i feel nauseous. It is been a long, long way of
saying goodbye. I cannot afford to doubt now. Everything is set and
synchronized. I can feel it. The universe is working on a farewell scene and it
is going to be billiant. We have his birthday, borobudur at sunrise, and a
song. The inferior recording on obsolote
media will add a vintage touch that should melt his sensitive heart and
perharps bring more tears to his eyes. It will be a climax. It will be a goodbye with integrity
and class.
The letter i wrote was short and without poetic nonsense.
More like a statment, really, sayingthat i am not much of a polyamorous person
after all. It is great to meditate on compassionate person after all. It is
great to meditate on compassionate saints whose hearts can contain all the love
in the world. But i can only carry one romantic connection from which there
will be no return. It is going to get ugly. My heart is not spacious enough to
contain two of us, let alone our current partners.if you love someone, you have
to embrace the whole package,right? Love the person as is. I read it somwhere.
I don’t like to say i don’t agree but it sounds wise and true. I cannot love
him as is. A crwoded relationship is naturally not my thing. I didn’t even know
why i got myself into this. In short, what i am saying in the letter is this
has been nothing but a cosmic joke, very funny, and will you please excuse me
know?
The song,meanwhile,is easily the sweetest tune i have
ever composed. It came to me in a rare moment of complete gratitude and
contentment, which in my case would be
just a flash in the fragment of a second. I
managed to weave my fleeting awareness into a three and a half minute
song. A simple yet effective set of chords. The way i dont like my next move to
be, too. Stepping out to be building’s lobby, depositing my car keys with the
valet counter and heading straight to the reception desk. I cannot be bothered
with the hassle of parking. Timing is everything. Leave the box and go. Scar
his heart and fly away. A slight gust of jasmine-scented air brushes my skin as
i walk into the dimly lit foyer of his office. I have always been fond of this
building, long before i knew he rented space here. The structure stands just
four stories tall and is surrounded by a meticulously pruned tropical garden.
Just below the enormous rectangle mirror above the
reception counter, my feet suddenly come to a stop and i catch myself staring
blankly at the reflection behind my back. It dawns on me how this place and it
is whole concept have seccessfully captured me as prey. Here i am, rushing
through on a hit and run mission, and end up standing at the edge of my own
grave of my own grave of embarrassment.
“ hey, what are you
doing here?” he can’t believe his eyes.
“aren’t you supposed to
be out for lunch?” i answer his question with question. And, damn it i do
really like to know.
“yes, but i have this
one client who flew all the way in from jogja, and has to fly back this
afternoon, so i rushed back here when i got her call. But, seriously, what are
you doing here?”
I stand there grasping
the fancy box with the glittery bow on top, too big and too shiny to be fully
covered by my now sweat palm, “ i wanted to give you this!”
“ a gift? For me? Why,
thank you. My birthday is still two days away,you know.”
Yes, i know. I’m
planning not to see you tommorow and the next day after that, and so on. So
that’s wy. I only have today.
“why don’t you come up
to my office? We still have ten minutes before my client arrives.
I
am dumfounded but manage to transfer myself elegantly to the elevator, as
if i’m comfortable with the future that,
awits me. The plan has been ruined. I’m not ready
for a ten minute chat. It is not worth the emotional uheaval, despite the
therapeutic support i gain from this scented air and the clever lightning,
despite the breathtaking sigh of him in a casual long-sleeve T-shirt an black
jeans. He never dresses up for work. And that’s what makes him stand out from
the suit and tie crowd. He likes to dress casually so his clients feel at ease
lying on his sofa, rambling about their life struggles.
There
are two sofas in his work room. A small one is his and a big one is for the
patient. We sit together on the large one, both aware of the egalitarian
principle of healing one another without hiearchy. “ you are the healer’s
healer,” he once told me.
“This
is another beautifull coincidence,” he says, and then breathes a long sigh, “
just this morning, i was contemplating how deeply grateful i am for having you
in my life. And suddenly here you are.”
“Here
iam.” I mile sheepishly.
“this
is such a nice surprise, you dropping by, and this. Can i open it now?” he
asks, storking the box gently.
“no,
“ i shake my head firmly, but i can tell you what it is. It is a tape. I wrote
a song for you last night. I want you to listen to it when you are up in
Borobudur.”
He
gasps. “A song?” Wow. Nobody has ever written me a song before.”
“i
won’t pretend to be modest, either.. it is really beautiful piece. If i ever
become a profesional singer, i will make it my first single. It will sell .
I’am sure.”
He
throws his head back, laughing.
“I’am
serious. You are a lucky guy. So, yeah, I deserve that contemplation of yours
this morning..”
“i
love you.”
I
grab hold of my breath. One more push and the anchor will plummet. “ Well, i
love you too, you know that.”
“you
seem very nervous. Are you okay?”
That’s
the wrong question. If he asked me : are you going to explode? Are you planning
to walk out on me? Are those tears in the corners og your eyes? I would answer
‘yes’ to them all, and i do be completely okay with it,too.
“yeah,
i’m good, “ i asked.
“can
i often you a hug?” he bend over like a knight ready to console a confused
princess who had been saved from a dragon by another knight and lived happily
until this brightly shining newcomer arrived and swept her off he feet. The
problem is, he was too late. There is no dragon left. The battle had already
been fought and won. All he can possibly offer now are various kinds og hugs:
friendhip hugs,lover hugs,therapist hugs,family hugs.
