Absoluto

The loss of someone very dear to me recently has gotten my mind wandering in directions where it's not ventured for an awfully long time, and somewhere in that endless loop of conscious and unconscious musing I've come to the conclusion that really the only proper way for me to process all this emotion is to try to place it all along a coherent line of thought and see if that helps. I used to love writing with a fervor that was almost consuming, so much so that some nights I had to force myself to stop and just go to bed, but for years now it's just been me staring at an empty page, wishing I could get back that love and near necessity for what used to be my greatest solace.

Writing is a tangible manifestation of thought generated in a language. But in a way it's also a language all its own, equal to all others in that if not practiced, the ability to use it properly simply slips to the recesses of memory, ever-further, until one day it simply ceases to exist at all. And so perhaps the best way to make sure I don't lose it altogether is just to force myself to sit down and write. Write about all those things which bear a second of pause, and all the things which may seem trivial and passing but that undoubtedly make up the fabric of life, of change, of the eternal march forward. Because indeed, nothing is absolutely; everything changes. But if it's ever possible to clutch a few of the pieces for even just a second longer, to appreciate for that moment what they mean in the larger scheme, then it's undoubtedly worth a try.

Twenty-four.

Sometimes it seems that the most tragic thing in life is to miss someone that no longer is. Until you realize that the person may actually never have been at all.

To the men I have loved.

It is strange to think back over the past few years and realize, not only how fast they've gone by, but the way in which they seem to blend together in an indistinguishable blur of events, trips, places, and above all, faces. It would almost seem as though the mind creates a subconscious timeline, marking the passing of months and years, not with numbers, but with the beginnings, durations, and sometimes endings of ones relationships. I have heard it said that every instance of human interaction leaves an effect more profound than is ever truly realized, much less fully appreciated, that the sights and sounds and smells which we associate with a certain time or place are more often simply mementos which we take with us in remembrance of someone who has touched our lives irreversibly. And if this be true for every type of human interaction, then it would seem to me also likely that the effect be twice as powerful when remembering our amorous exchanges, the precious collection of romantic liaisons which mark, not only, our never ending passage into adulthood, but the very image of the people which we become.

When posed the question "have you ever been in love?", I often find myself at a loss for words. I am aware, of course, of the connotations implied by the term in love, yet find it very difficult to distinguish the plethora of varied emotions which I have associated with this sentiment and determine what it truly constitutes and how or why it is felt. Is being in love that feeling of weakness which seems to quiver through ones body when in the presence of another? Is it the desire to share oneself in all entirety, to be a better person, or to protect another from all that which can be perceived as a threat from the outside world? If I think back for a moment and focus on the face of each of the men which I have ever claimed to care for, I am confronted by a wave of distinctly unique feelings, memories, circumstances and outcomes. I realize, almost immediately, that while these elements may have varied greatly, the very essence of the sentiment which I associate them with remains the same. Each encounter was, of course, unique, and I can say in all honesty, that I cared for some more than others, but where does that golden line lie between caring about someone and truly being in love with them? Is it true that we are lucky if, in an entire lifetime, we find even a single person to fall in love with, a person which shakes us to the core and changes us in ways which ensure we are never quite the same again?

I was sixteen when I became convinced for the first time that I was in love. It began with an adoration of the way in which his soft brown hair would fall into his eyes when he spoke to me, the way it seemed as though my hand was made to fit into his, and grew slowly into an insatiable desire to pass every waking hour in his presence, a mutual addiction laced with the innocence of inexperience and an affection which made the entire world seem to stop. As time passed, however, this feeling of security and resolve became slowly replaced by a hunger for new experience, a desire to explore the world outside that which I had always known, and more so, the one inside of me of which I had so little understanding. It was in my quest to discover this new world that I found myself in love again, this time with a boy seven years my senior who I spent all of four weeks with before deciding to pack my bags and travel oceans away for. The thrill of being only eighteen and standing on the edge of an adventure so profound filled me with enthusiasm, a desire to throw myself into this new existence and let the sensation of this new love, so unfamiliar and overwhelming, wash over me completely.

We learned everything together in the years that would follow, the complexities of building a home, a routine, an entire web of life which both thrilled and terrified us. It was during this time that I became convinced that this was what true love felt like. Not the obsessive, needy puppy love I'd known before, but something much more certain, more lasting, the bud of a blooming flower that required patience, a soft hand, and dedication which was sometimes difficult to summon, but which ultimately made our love stronger. With him, I could spend hours talking, laughing, sharing with one another the similar and distinct ways in which we interpreted the world around us. We would take spontaneous trips all over the country, document what we saw and lived in photographs, and grow together as family, as lovers, and above all, as friends who knew one another inside and out, could recite each others' stories from memory and who sometimes needed no words at all to express the most complex of emotions. Yet while we learned to allow our roots to twist and bend and become evermore entwined, neither of us ever stopped growing and changing individually. What we had together was beautiful, yet the desire to discover the things which cannot be shared with another person, but must be experienced alone, became greater and greater and we began to pull apart from one another until all that remained were the delicate threads of the one thing that would bind us together forever- our friendship.

My second long term relationship behind me, I left my life under the Low Sky and traveled to Barcelona to, once again, start anew. I arrived intent on spending the next few months focusing on myself, on finding a balance on the line between adolescence and womanhood which seemed so hopelessly ambiguous then. Little did I know, of course, that this would be just the first in a series of actions which would mark the beginning of my next chapter, one in which I would encounter a whole new rush of emotions, of love and lust, pleasure and pain that would change me forever. And how I did love in those months that passed by so quickly on the shores of the Mediterranean, and deep into the years which would follow. I loved fiercely and selfishly, whimsically and unknowingly, taking, giving, building and crushing with no rhyme or reason at all. I loved the Swedish boy with his chilling green eyes and heart-crushing sincerity, the way he would watch me while I slept and tell me he would love me forever. I loved the sarcastic and charming filmmaker with whom I spent years weaving a web of trust and familiarity, with whom I could share my most fleeting of thoughts and darkest of secrets, with whom making love seemed like a game between two children and an earthshaking shudder of passion at the same time. I loved the days and nights in which the tension was so thick that I could feel it in my lungs with every breath I drew, yet where no more than a betraying glance or casual brush of skin would be exchanged. I loved the walks along the water, the nights of chess and poetry and jazz music, the mornings of bare feet and whispered melodies, the laughs which I elicited with silly faces or games played in my childhood, and the tears which I provoked sometimes out of sheer cruelty. In my mind, there was no limit on the number of ways in which this love could be felt or expressed and I reveled in the complexity yet utter simplicity of it all. I loved the entire process of falling in love, then out again, a fascinating act which seemed as colorful and beautiful as a dance of abandon or carefully penned poem.

In my mind, this flurry of passion could have continued forever, until I fell in love with the one who would commit an act of betrayal so profound that it seemed surreal, who would make me taste the bitterness of heartbreak for the very first time, and who would leave me completely shattered and unable to remember, in even the faintest of detail, the way in which I had once been able to love. My sadness, however, would soon turn into anger, then hate, then ever so slowly, indifference, which is perhaps the truest form of hate there is. I would nurse this feeling grudgingly until I returned to Spain once again, this time to the heart of Andalusia. It was there, so far from the piercing reality of these memories that I would forge a friendship which peeled back the layers of protection I had built up around myself and allowed me to once more catch a glimpse of the breathtaking descent into the depths of adoration. With the utmost of patience and care, we fashioned a love not experienced in the same reckless and selfish way I had known it before, and not fueled by the same motives. It was not so much romantic love as it was a process of learning and understanding. In pure innocence and fascination, we spent these months coming closer and closer together until it seemed, at times, that we were two parts of a single person, two elements necessary in the existence of one picture. And yes, in the end I loved him too, his dark brown eyes and intoxicating laugh, his incessantly churning thoughts and the life which seemed to radiate from his every movement. I loved him as a friend, as a brother, as someone who would change me forever and make me forget that bittersweet taste in my mouth, that cold feeling which I thought I'd never be free of.

Have you ever been in love? I hear the question and can only smile, because I know that I have. Perhaps not in a way which can be defined in any set terms or numbers, nor in a manner which can be described in any song or film or dream. I see it more as the culmination of several moments, places, occurrences and emotions, the sum of all parts melting together into a state of mind, a memory, an ability to recall each face individually and remember something about it that filled you with hope. As I said before, there will always be those that you will remember more fondly, more vividly, the few stars which shine just a bit brighter than the others, but this is only natural. What these experiences have taught me, above all, is how to find beauty in the process of allowing yourself to care for someone, to not take any of it for granted because every step changes you in one way or another.

These days I find myself, once again, dancing on the line of a blooming affection, treading carefully into the pages of another new chapter. It reminds me of my past yet is undeniably distinct and I am so fascinated by the feeling of it, that I approach the whole thing with a lighter hand and a softer voice. I want to savor the experience, let every thought and feeling wash over me slowly, resist the urge to allow myself to succumb to it all too quickly. It feels like holding a candle in my hands, sensing the warmth of the flame against my palms and fingertips and watching it grow brighter, like peeling back the skin of a pomegranate to expose the delicate red fruit beneath. It is frightening and thrilling in way I can't truly describe and it makes me feel nothing but gratitude for the luck which I have had and the sequence of events which have brought me to this point. It makes me want to close my eyes and dedicate a single heartbeat to all my previous experiences, to the adventures which I have already had and the ones I am just beginning, to my thoughts and fondest of memories... to the men I have loved.

Boa Sorte

The transition to spring is arriving much too early this year. With every passing day, the signs become more visible and more plentiful- the tiny yellow blossoms dotting the fields, the pale green buds on the trees, and the chilly yet blindingly sunny days that draw the city from its winter sleep and onto the streets and slowly-filling terraces. These days I also feel as though I'm awakening from a semi-comatose state induced by a lack of sunlight and far too much time spent alone.

After more than five years here, it amazes me, still, the devastating effects the winter months have on me and my ability to function as a human being. Every year, no matter how well I think I'm prepared, I always find myself slipping back into this lethargic existence that leaves me but a mere shell of the person which I normally am. This year has been an exceptionally difficult one, despite the fact that the winter was relatively mild for Dutch standards, perhaps because I spent last winter in Granada and quickly became accustomed to the climate standard there, which by comparison, is like night and day. In any case, the onset of spring couldn't arrive soon enough, as far as I'm concerned, and in just two short weeks, I already feel a thousand times more active, social, and alive in general.

The week before last I left The Hague again to spend five lovely days with G in Munich. I arrived early on Friday morning and pranced through the airport to the arrivals hall to find him there waiting for me with a beautiful smile and a long-stemmed red rose wrapped in pink paper. We caught the train back into the city and spent a few hours in his apartment, then headed to a little Indian restaurant around the corner for lunch before he jetted off for a meeting with his supervisor. I spent the rest of my afternoon exploring the city and marveling at the way in which the sun and beautiful blue sky overhead seemed to transform the city into a completely different place than it had seemed during my first visit. My first night back with G was intoxicating, beautiful, and laced with just a tinge of awkwardness as we both became reaccustomed to one another, a feeling that I savored until it dissipated in the early morning hours and was replaced by an overwhelming sense of comfort, familiarity and content.

We woke up rather early and forced ourselves to abandon the sheets curled at our feet to catch a train to Tegernsee, a village about an hour south of Munich, where we walked along the bank of the lake, to Rottach-Egern, the place where Bob Marley apparently spent the last months of his life. Armed with towels , a picnic lunch and a decent number of his tracks, we climbed up a hill overlooking the lake to spend a few hours paying tribute as we sat, talked, and enjoyed the breathtaking tranquility of our surroundings. When the sun began to dip below the mountains on the east bank, we headed back toward Tegernsee to meet with Tim (a friend of G's) and his girlfriend, Karoline for a drink. We ended up staying with them until the last train, with promises we'd return the next morning to accompany them on a hike into the mountains and spend a night in one of the cabins there (which are quite basic, but notoriously difficult to acquire). The next day, however, we decided that we'd both rather stay in the city and, instead, spent the morning on a free tour of the center given by an awesome Canadian guy with a mustache à la Salvador Dali.

We got to the Marienplatz a little before noon and spent the next two hours on the tour before heading back to the starting point for a typical Bavarian breakfast of weißwurst and beer and continuing on to one of the the art museums in the city center. Every moment that went by made me feel more and more attached the the city I was experiencing somehow, as though I was not only passing a few hours in her streets, but taking in the sights, smells, and emotions I felt and creating a memory in my heart and mind that would last forever. It's funny how a city can do that to you, can make you feel, even momentarily, that your life becomes intertwined with hers, that you can become completely lost in her web of history and mystery and want to savor that moment until it simply isn't there anymore, and you've somehow managed to become just as much a part of her as the very things that made you fall in love with her in the first place.

On our last entire day together, G and I went to the Englischer Garten to play catch, take pictures, and spend a few hours in the sun before heading to a training session at his Muay Thai school (an incredibly sweaty and exhausting hour-long class which I absolutely loved), then returned home to shower, change, have dinner and go out with two of his rugby friends for some pool. As fun as the evening was, however, I was filled with a growing sentiment of sadness, knowing that the next day would be my last, and that I would have to return to The Hague, which is about as far removed from the tranquility and surreality of my second visit to Munich as it gets. The next morning was a blur of a lazy awakening, slightly rushed breakfast and a packing session in which few words were exchanged. By the time we arrived at the airport I'd convinced myself I'd get through our goodbye without crying, yet while standing at the security check before my gate, still had to force myself to hold it together and not succumb to the tears which were threatening to spill down my cheeks, to the words, so delicate, which were forming on my lips. Once inside the plane, I spent the next hour trying desperately to distract myself, a task which proved easier than I'd hoped because of the beautiful view of my last Bavarian sunset which I was treated to through the window at my side. A perfect ending to a perfect visit.

Since I've been back, I've spent two nights at Melati's house in Delft, an evening out on the town with a colleague of mine from Cape Verde, a 6-hour long afternoon with a group of friends from uni at a coffeeshop in the city centre, and a day of cappuccino and chit-chat with Kasia. In the coming week, I have a trial lesson at a Muay Thai school here in The Hague, a load of work nights and essays to write for uni, and lunch with a friend whom I haven't seen in ages. In stark contrast to the winter months, the days are getting longer, yet still feel much too short to cram everything into them that I'd like to. I simply love how this time of year brings about so many changes, such a clear and obvious shift of emotions and undeniable boost of energy. Spring is on its way. And I can't think of a better time for it to arrive, nor a better shift in mood to greet it.

Then & Now

The emptiness which I feel upon waking
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never feel it as I do
nor suffer it exactly the same way
because for you it is an element of creation
a space filling the space of your lacking
exposed in the breaking light of day.

The sorrow which I know in my heart
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never know it as I have
nor understand it in a similar form
because for you it is a faint sense of loss
regret spun on regret for the wrong things
and silenced as soon as it is born.

The hate which I kindle in my being
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never control it as I can
nor embrace it as I do so now
because for you it is an element of substitution
a misuse of a useless emotion
that poisons as only it knows how.

The blood which I have on my hands
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never carry it as I must
nor mourn it as I have for so long
because for me it is a stain of injustice
of innocence killing innocence, unblinking
and the desolation of an unfinished song.

- 20 March, 2007
Granada, Spain


I scribbled these words on a napkin in an obscure little cafe between lectures less than a year ago. Reading back on them, I find it hard to believe that they're my own, that the way I felt then could contrast so vividly with the state of mind I find myself in now. It's funny where just a few short months can take you, how the passing of time can erase and create so much simultaneously. Nothing remains the same forever, and it's the transition between stages which somehow makes life so beautiful. Perhaps, in the end, that's the true lesson of it all.

Bilingual Love

It is said that travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind, that there is no challenge truly parallel to that of finding one's place in unfamiliar surroundings and forging the bonds necessary to call a new place home. After years of drifting from one place to the next here, far from all that was once so warmly familiar and safe, the one experience which continues to inspire and frustrate me simultaneously is the formation and maintaining of relationships, whether amicable or amorous, based on communication in a language which is not my own.

It's interesting how the simple act of self expression can sometimes be so devastatingly impeded by a either a lack of appropriate words or an absence of emotional connection to them. I've always attached an immeasurable amount of importance to my ability to communicate well, to capture the sentiment of a moment by weaving my words together, playing and twisting with sentence structures carefully to say exactly what is it I'm thinking or feeling. More often than not, however, this becomes infinitely more difficult when speaking in your second, or even third, language.

The first relationship I ever built based entirely on a foreign language was with Jose, my best friend from Granada. I met him through a mutual friend from the Czech Republic one afternoon, after a lecture, when we all went for drinks at a little cafe near school. Within moments of being introduced, we found ourselves deep in a discussion about nationalist movements in Spain and the concept of European identity in general. He fascinated me with his strong opinions and open nature, but as I'd only been in Granada for a few weeks at the time, I struggled to keep up with him, tripping clumsily over my sentence constructions and becoming ever-more frustrated by the fact that I couldn't get my point across properly.

After that conversation, Jose and I saw each other more and more often, until we were spending practically every waking moment with one another. My Spanish improved radically in those months, helped greatly by the fact that my new friend was so patient with me and my linguistic re-acclimation. We would spend hours, sometimes, swapping silly stories, locked head-to-head in fierce debates, or even just sitting in silence, enjoying one another's company. In addition to my ability to communicate with him in Spanish, something which came more easily with each passing day was the appreciation of expression which did not necessitate the use of words at all. By the time my semester in Granada ended, I could speak to Jose about anything and everything. While occasionally confronted with a temporary loss of words or improperly conjugated verb, I felt that I was really able to express myself in such a way that he, at least to a certain extent, could really understand me, that he could see beyond the words I spoke and into the source of where they came from.

With my experience in the shadow of the Alhambra behind me, I returned to Holland to find, much to my horror, that my Dutch was in shambles. Long after my first weeks of readjustment here, the fluency with which I spoke the language before leaving continued to elude me. Another thing which caught my attention was the way in which I just didn't seem to feel Dutch in the same way I did either English or Spanish. With a bit of effort, I could communicate sufficiently, but never felt that anything I said truly caught the sentiment in which it was intended, nor allowed the person I was speaking with to get an accurate image of what kind of person I was.

It was in the peak of my frustration with Dutch, a few months after returning to The Hague, that I started speaking regularly with G. We'd swapped a few sporadic emails throughout the previous year, usually composed of a strange mix of Dutch, German and English, but had never had any type of regular or continuous contact. Somehow during those first exchanges, we settled into speaking to one another almost exclusively in Dutch and writing emails to each other in English. Speaking to him felt a bit unnatural at first because of my lingering uncertainty about the use of the language, but G was really great at making me forget all that. He'd tell me wild stories about his trips through Africa and South America, make me laugh with his corny jokes and silly wordplay, and bring an enormous grin to my face with his deep and intoxicating laugh. At some point, however, my lack of emotional connection with the language we used as our primary means of communication really began to bother me. There were so many things I wanted to tell him, ask him, teach him, that I simply wasn't able to. At times, sensing my frustration, he'd suggest that we just speak in English, but the problem therein was my stubbornness and the knowledge that it's hard to switch methods of communication once one has already firmly been established.

As time passed, my contact with G became a daily thing and I found myself wishing more and more that I could find a way to crack through that barrier that was left between us. Then, out of nowhere, we decided spontaneously to spend a long weekend together in Dublin. The moment I arrived there, all the uncertainty and doubt of the previous weeks just faded away. My language skills were, by no means, any better during the four days we spent together, but somehow I was, once again, confronted by the significance of the unsaid and the ecstacy of moments passed in voluntary silence that I had learned to appreciate with Jose. Our days in Dublin flew by in the blink of an eye, as did my time in Munich with him a few weeks later, and his trip home to Holland shortly thereafter. And while the occasional moment would still arise in which I felt that there were things I simply could not say properly, my anxiety about speaking in Dutch began to ease more and more. I'll be back in Munich in two weeks now, and instead of dreading the confrontation, am starting to see it more as a challenge, an exciting way to push myself to regain all that I lost during my time in Spain and come up with new ways to express things which used to strike me as commonplace, yet now seem absolutely paramount.

I've wondered, sometimes, if it's possible to love someone when it can seem like such an insurmountable obstacle stands between you, if it's possible to reach past that which has always come so naturally and find other ways to show another person all the beautiful, ugly, and silent things which make you who you are. Something tells me now that it is, and that perhaps the key is just a bit more effort, patience, or even a slightly different way of perceiving things. A smile, a look, a touch or caress- there are an infinite number of ways to communicate just as high a number of emotions. And at the end of the day, there are some things that speak much louder than words ever could, things that you simply know and which need no further explanation. Love, in essence, is a language itself, one that we are all truly fluent in. For some, it just takes practice to get it right.