He has lost ten pounds since coming home. At hearing her say they can’t talk tonight, for example, he almost cries. He is an addict, and he feels incapable of eating, his stomach a tight ball.
Yes, he is too needy. She is freer perhaps, and she may not need him like he needs her. Could that be true? That kept him awake last night, made his feet sweat under the covers.
He knows it is not healthy. He begins to think the best thing to do is just break it off. This is not how he really feels.
She tells him that people tell her she has an open mind. He believes to have an open mind as well, to be one of the more unassuming people he has met. He has seen a lot of weird stuff. He thinks people are good, believes in redemption but also does not blame when it doesn’t happen. These things are beyond me, he says.
He thinks most of this is happening because of lack of self-esteem and lack of reading and writing. These things seem to humanize him, and his self-esteem is low because she feels so fine without him and he feels so hopeless without her. He has lost ten pounds. She has not. He needs to understand she loves him. He does not seem to get it. Reading and time and reflection and friends, these things seem to help. Human things. Get him out of his head.
Today she says she is watching the TV and will talk to him in half an hour. Is that rude? He doesn’t know quite what to say. He was the one who said they should talk later. He can wait. It is fair. It is not rude. Why does he have to convince himself? She is a real person; more real and well adjusted than any of the other girls he has dated. She seems to always keep things in perspective, whereas he does not really ever do that and cannot seem to occupy his free time (too much of it!) in anything else besides thinking about her, which probably drives the two of them crazy. If only he had more of a hobby. He is tired of waiting. This is not normal for him. If only he had something in which to invest. He needs a job, a new space.
He has an open mind, is calm and accepting and sympathetic and has always been great with young people, with his friends, with everyone. He is not racist or homophobic and he does not judge or discriminate people for what they have done or not done. He knows guilt is poison and is working on his savior complex. He worked with homeless youth for a year and met countless sob stories, gangsters, and addicts. He believes in faith, in religions, in ortho-praxis but not ortho-doxy. He has seen poor people, known them well, eaten their food. He doubts these things because he wants so much from her. He wants her everything. He is crazy, probably.
He does not really want to go to Europe. Actually, he really does. He would love to see lots of things with her. He doesn’t quite know what to say about it all. Sure, it would be fun. He would never have really gone, or thought about going, if it weren’t for her. As long as she promises to love an insane man like him forever.
He is in love and lonely.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monsoon
It's all rain exploding onto aluminum now, the hut's roof shaking and I'm worried it will all just fall down. I ran here from the edge of the Atlantic, where clouds had towered for days and this morning suddenly stampeded onto land. Fishermen hauled lines in fast, hard. It was to be a big one.
The first monsoon of the season always comes out of nowhere. It was hot for months, the bottoms of my feet cracked and dusty. But then the clouds broke open and it felt good as I ran home, the morning light bright and clean and the air a pregnant cool. The fruit freshly cut in the markets, the coffee hot in the cafes, bread warm, the drunks still sleeping on sidewalks, women just arriving to the heart of the matter with the morning gossip. Everything waiting, and then the clouds break open and it really is all noise and cold water and I am beginning to worry it will really all just fall down because I came to this country on a whim, on the advice of a cousin, and nothing seems more flimsy than that as the rain hurls itself all around me. There are old men covering peanuts and fried pork skins and roasted corn with the lids of frying pans and plastic bags and the explosions on the aluminum rock me now as I have nowhere to go.
My students laugh too loud and walk in packs. They join gangs. They watch roosters kill each other. They climb trees fast and jump into bottomless caves filled with dark, dank water. They are eager to learn how to read. They eat mountains of rice, dance bachata every weekend, and are kind toward me in the most beautiful ways. Even the rain, tearing down dead leaves and crinkled paper and plastic bottles from the bushes and trees and pushing them down into the street gutters, is harsh and kind and nurturing and I cannot always see that.
Once it stops I get out and walk along the beach again trying to listen. The ocean is clean and fresh. The sand is all caked together, smooth and brand-new. Crab tracks and seagull prints appear every so often. Sunlight streaks through the clouds. No rainbows. I climb to the top of a hill above the beach and a young boy is also up there, alone. I greet him, say good morning, and begin to throw rocks into the sea below us. He does too, and I bet him a small coin I can throw farther. There is a big cargo ship beginning to show on the horizon. On the next throw, he acts as if he's hit the ship and sunk it, satisfying sounds coming from his lips pursed in a smile. I wonder where it's from, where it's going.
The first monsoon of the season always comes out of nowhere. It was hot for months, the bottoms of my feet cracked and dusty. But then the clouds broke open and it felt good as I ran home, the morning light bright and clean and the air a pregnant cool. The fruit freshly cut in the markets, the coffee hot in the cafes, bread warm, the drunks still sleeping on sidewalks, women just arriving to the heart of the matter with the morning gossip. Everything waiting, and then the clouds break open and it really is all noise and cold water and I am beginning to worry it will really all just fall down because I came to this country on a whim, on the advice of a cousin, and nothing seems more flimsy than that as the rain hurls itself all around me. There are old men covering peanuts and fried pork skins and roasted corn with the lids of frying pans and plastic bags and the explosions on the aluminum rock me now as I have nowhere to go.
My students laugh too loud and walk in packs. They join gangs. They watch roosters kill each other. They climb trees fast and jump into bottomless caves filled with dark, dank water. They are eager to learn how to read. They eat mountains of rice, dance bachata every weekend, and are kind toward me in the most beautiful ways. Even the rain, tearing down dead leaves and crinkled paper and plastic bottles from the bushes and trees and pushing them down into the street gutters, is harsh and kind and nurturing and I cannot always see that.
Once it stops I get out and walk along the beach again trying to listen. The ocean is clean and fresh. The sand is all caked together, smooth and brand-new. Crab tracks and seagull prints appear every so often. Sunlight streaks through the clouds. No rainbows. I climb to the top of a hill above the beach and a young boy is also up there, alone. I greet him, say good morning, and begin to throw rocks into the sea below us. He does too, and I bet him a small coin I can throw farther. There is a big cargo ship beginning to show on the horizon. On the next throw, he acts as if he's hit the ship and sunk it, satisfying sounds coming from his lips pursed in a smile. I wonder where it's from, where it's going.
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