LOVE WHICH GROW

“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.