We both wish we had known each other in the bud of youth. She has a picture of me in my early twenties with long flowing hair. She has confessed that that is with whom she makes love to on occasion. I have a picture of her with a wide-open face revealing the totality of her character through pervasive blue eyes.
Yet, we know each other in the glow of maturity, motherhood, warmth, compassion and passion of pure glee mixed in with the frantic grasp of those drowning at the side of the Titanic, so we know love. It is richness like that of the gems that come from her native South Africa and broadness like that of the ocean standing like a forbidding parent between us.
We have been on different wavelengths since we first spoke. Different: cultures, humor, spiritual belief systems, I could fill up the page.
It has been a difficult time. Yet, from the beginning, I had a sense of her. At first, there was observation, which slowly brought me into an unconscious meeting of her half way. I assert unconscious because I thought that I was still on the observation deck.
She is quite the charmer. Those of you who read her, well need I say more?
Though she calls me the impossible American, I tend to give people space. However, she is as demanding as she is a smoker, unrelenting, constant, resolute; gives no space “just do as I say sweetheart”.
I am called impossible because I say, “yeah right?”
Somehow, in the last year the observation deck became a vague memory and I quickly, but I must admit wholeheartedly, slipped into conscious awareness that I was in love.
Scary, I had been so well protected. Armed, I had worn the psychological chastity belt of the Crusades my entire adult life. Intimacy was not my forte. Playing with impossible relationships always followed by the predictable lamentations was my custom.
We are finally on the same page. Upon rising, I check in, her day is well into the afternoon. We speak many times during the day: Common things, life things, just to exchange, nothing of great import.
Yet, it is a connection. We speak of holding each other on a rainy night. The simplicity is undeniable and incomprehensible.
She will be on my side of the Atlantic in two weeks. There will be twenty-nine days of tenderness, hilarity, ardor, arguments, and then the trip back to the airport.
One wonders what side of the pond each one of us will die upon!
Copyright © 2008 by m.m.sugar
2 comments:
Beautifully written. Love is truly an amazing emotion. I hear it hates airports, though...
It does both. It loves and hates airports because airports are vehicles for separation yet also for reuniting.
A few years ago, while in an emotional state, I was looking for shampoo in the drug store. It was no where to be found. I was about to look for another item when I realized that I had neglected to turn around and look at the other side of the aisle!
It was an aha moment!
I shared this with her and we decided that we would, from then on, look at each other's side of the argument and any other dilemma that we faced.
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