Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

The untouchable event of you and I

We can't return... at least not in time... and our memories change, become increasingly limited or vague over time.  We can return to the places and the people... But, the places and people evolve... and the events terminated with the events...

I find myselt thinking about that day we visited my mother's house in New Jersey... That last time you went with me to visit my mother... And how I was.  But how was I?  Obstinate?  But why?  And my mother suggested taking you back to the train that took you back to New York.  The following day I encountered the apartment door ajar, the lock broken and believe I called the police, although I should have know it was you.  But so quickly?

I imagine something has me perplexed about the event we can call you and I...  And what it truly "meant" for the one and the other...  Or what it may mean today or tomorrow.  Since everything leads to something else, although we may not know or accept it...  Maybe we invent meanings.  Maybe the inventions aren't illusions or fantasies and share with us some sort of truth about our lives, the universe, the metaphysical...  Maybe...  Maybe those meanings evolve over time.  Maybe we also deny the truth... Maybe it really doesn't matter what is the truth behind all of our experiences.  Maybe it doesn't matter so much what we think.  And the feelings are momentarilly important for moving us...  Maybe there are things we've just gotta do whether we approve of those events or actions or experiences... We are moved for evolving for experiencing for learning for changing perspectives...  We say things that later on maybe we would say we didn't mean...  Of course we meant those things or we wouldn't have said those things...  They had to come out of our mouths so we could learn... so we could react to a situation, to ourselves and wonder why we did such a thing...  Why did we act like a coward, a dependent, an egoistic selfish monster...  An uninterested when we were always interested...  I'm not talking about myself so to speak.  Nor am I talking about you, so to speak.

But I found myself half laying on the couch listening to Los Caifanes, drinking a horrible coffee with milk, since Margarita has the tendency towards preparing coffee much lighter than Nicolas, José or I.  And when you place milk in that coffee, it becomes horribly watered down.  And I was observing Nicolas and José in the kitchen.  José was washing the dishes and I don't know what Nicolas was doing.  And I was thinking about that day and also thinking that I had no desire towards going to the market for vegetables and that I imagine we can get by today.  And thinking about Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" I was reading in Spanish.  I had read it in English back in New York in the 90s...

We had planned a weekend visit with my mother in New Jersey.  And at the last minute something happened and I was dodging you on the subway into Manhattan, you directly on my heels with an incredibly determined look on your face.  And you went with me to New Jersey.  And less than an hour later you were on the train back to New York.  The following day you had retrieved some of your belongings... by breaking the lock on the door...  The following weeks I found myself trying to track you down for resolving an unresolvable situation I was trying to disolve for quite a few months...  So, I wonder about those contradictions...  And "who" was it ending the event we called our crazy relationship, if I was always supposedly in-love, although hating every minute of it...  Who was doing the ending if that "someone" wasn't truly you or I?  Foolish questions since I've always understood that answer...  But, if I always understood that answer and how I ended up in Mexico... now married to Margarita 10+ years somewhat successful (much more so than in New York City) and why, then why continue thinking about these things... about that or those events and about you?

Yesterday I saw a photograph on a "friend's" wall on facebook of a woman naked from the hips up and a fish from the hips down.  And that woman was so similar to you... I've seen people who look just like you, and imagine you do some modelling or you participate in certain music videos... a The Roots video filmed in East Harlem...  So, I guess it's impossible not to think about you and the possibilities of your life and what I am doing since that event terminated... And I wonder about my memories and how they gradually fade or evolve.  And I wonder about your and my interactions... and your thoughts that I am sure I will never know...  and why does it matter...  I guess it is interesting.  I imagine you've decided that it isn't interesting and never was...  It must be better for you for advancing in whatever it is the career you are pursuing...  Well, that is my mind partially placed 12 years ago within your obsession with success and glory... And those are my words from back then, probably a bit less intense or critical or accusing, since here in Mexico, I've worked 10+ years immersed in the pursuit of some sort of success and glory...

Remember the S.E. Hinton novel "That was Then, This is Now"?

And that's all we truly have... and trying to understand the difference or the evolution or the consequences...

And had I not met you?  But, you know looking back at the time line and the events and the "coincidences" that fell on that line and how and when they fell on that line, that our meeting and the trajectory of those events and how we ended was inevitable...  So, the better question is;  and with our meeting? what truly happened?  How did it truly affect our evolution?  What does it truly mean for us...

And why attempt returning to those points on the time line?

If I could physically return to that period, that event or those series of events and reactions and attitudes and behaviors, would I?

Or how would I feel?

How would I respond?

What would I change if I could?

I guess we return because there is always something new we can learn from past events...  The problem is that there are many holes in the history, in the memory...  And, somethings scare us if we could recreate the events as we lived them... Do you scare me?  No.  It's not about you, but about me.  I don't scare me in that there is a monster within.  No.  What scares me is being someone I never wished of myself, like running out of restaurants or arguing with you horribly on a busy street or trying to observe you for hours from a hidden place because of my horrible concern about your dishonesty, your infidelity...  What scares me is that part of me that lost control, that obsessed, that couldn't let go, that couldn't just let you live your life so that I could just live mine... The fear of not being as healthy as I would have wished...  Of being out of control... 

So I return for moments at times...  I guess it's because I've evolved greatly and can "observe" from an increasingly healthier place.  Plus, we are aging or getting old.  And somethings we can't do or fantasize anymore... and we observe from a high ledge on the edge of a cliff overlooking a distant beach and the distant waves crashing on that beach and possibly children playing in the surf and their parents and aunts and uncles observing those children as they play freshly...  There are places we can't return if we wish, not even in fantasies...  The fantasies have evolved as has the history and our physical and biological realities...

I like this piece.  And would like to continue.  But, there are things I've gotta do...

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