unfolding into the present, i wrote you in the very core of the instant.

to begin means to start

A large quantity of my being takes place in the liminal space between innateness and projection. Within these states of mind is a progression of time—a time destined for clarity but which seems to circle itself, arriving somewhere no time soon—a time I would go so far to qualify as unproductive decision-making. Of course, this space is an interior landscape, and refers to my self and the mind and how we work together, in a rubbing motion, to spark thoughts into being. I can sit minute upon minute, hours falling upon the other, waiting for a want to overtake me—to startle me into action and move me into a series of thoughts. Other times, I don’t have to wait at all. There is an immediacy that sets my mind in motion, my fingers burning, trying to stomp their selves out on the keyboard. I wonder whether the stagnant moments is the result of my heart not being ambitious—my eyes being unable to focus in on what I am trying to see, even make myself see! (But why the rush?—the urgency to become?—why not just start from where I am?) In my moments of idleness could it be that I do not care?—care enough?—or maybe I care more and I am intimidated by the intensity of my feelings. Perhaps I struggle most to speak (even to a computer screen) when my mind, heart and body can feel the fragility of the subject—the value and significance I am responsible for imbuing it with—can tell how in this situation I treat the act of writing: my fingers stringing letters as if they were pearls, sentences as if they were strings—with such delicacy, I try to make meaning—so often looking within myself, and yet having to simultaneously master the art of seeing through opaqueness. But I cannot leave any traces of this difficulty—this struggle to make caring tangible, materialized. No one would trust my authenticity, the genuineness of my writing gestures, if they knew the process it takes to begin and end. I am not sure everything was meant to be discussed, developed, framed. I suppose this digression is a glance at how, at times, I begin: by forcing myself to concentrate on my thoughts, settle down to my thinking and produce something that comes out of the awareness of my being in relation to those separate and innately marvelous in their otherness from myself, (I exist singularly). I have to pull the external inward. I have to. Perception makes it so there is no other way. And if there is, I am so far from seeing its sign—from feeling the difference.

When illuminating the presence of another, I cannot just begin anywhere, as I can with myself. I feel I have to be careful—precise. I have to know more of what I want from them, more of what I see. Whereas, I can blindly go searching within myself, and I will still end up with parts of me—it is not the same process with another. I cannot be as fearless. I would not want to mistake them. Yet, when I think of some other whom I appreciate—when I look closely at what appeals to me—I still find fragments. I am sure it says something about me, having only sketches of characters distinct from myself. Perhaps very simply, it shows that I have not, yet, been dedicated enough to the luminosity of other subjects—that I still am unclear about the absoluteness of any of us. Words are my attempt at making those written more whole. And myself always slides in to be included, for who is the narrator, but another me.

this is me to you

I admire your calling me. I think of it as the most telling gesture you could have made within the circumstance. I imagine you had to reason before making the call—the negatives being my having not returned your past attempts, my elusiveness and most harmful, the ego and how it advises us to go against our want so we think we are superior even though we know we feel otherwise. I admire your out-stepping the above. I think your decision to make a gesture to me speaks over the silence (so often a byproduct of distance). This, too, is attractive because it is evidence that you are smarter than the ego. To use a cliché, you followed your heart—you listened inwardly, not outwardly—and its intention was to have us speak. Try, try and you will succeed. Your message was not anything other than the feeling it aroused in me—a feeling of comfort inspired by your consistency of character. Leaving a message—as you always had—a touch so small, but vital for communication. I don’t think you were thinking about your own embarrassment or even the potential of creating mystery for yourself. You thought about the other, who you were calling for and the significance of someone else provoked you to carry out the reason of your call. You let me experience how you wanted me to feel—special, memorable—at the time. I frame this moment because I think it is an important example of choices—and I wish you could know I recognize these times, the chances one takes and what each gesture says about one’s character. When I didn’t pick up for the third time, you did not shy away from the instinct that moved you to act. You let me remember you as I had you: personally and with no intentions other than the one that was being made. Reminding me how everything is easier when you let yourself be.

Talking, I tried picturing you not as you were but as you are. Although, undeniably, I hoped they were one and of the same. I hoped you hadn’t changed—even though I broke up with you wishing you would, probably even telling you to. I guess this means I want to recognize you when you speak—feel as though you are coming from the same place, but just seeing out from a better vantage point. I have always thought you are memorable for who you are, and I hope during our distance you have only become more strong, assertive and driven. I hope you have changed by becoming more of who are, and that you have not changed what you are. And whispering, I admit, I hope you don’t change into what you imagine a female will love and/or want more. Because that is when I remember you stopped being yourself—when you stopped being who I could be, unwilling and willingly, in love with. Inventing yourself changes everything. The process and outcome feels fraudulent—the sight, transparent.

Weaving through the village, sounds breaking sentences, dissolving details of words I loved how it never seemed to bother you. My hurried pace…cell phone balancing between ear and shoulder…minds of our own—how informal I made it—as if the pulsations of Manhattan could be my own crutch in the possibility of a paralyzing conversation—as if I used the chaos of city life as an excuse for the quivering tones of my voice. All these things mere protectors against all I did not know—who could say I would want to speak to you?—who could know what any of it would all mean?

But it was almost tragic—how easy it was to fall back into a causality of being. And I give you so much of the credit. The ability to admire me for my hysterical way of being…shirt falling off my shoulders on the street…listening to conversations that interrupted our own…it never seems like external conditions have to be perfect for or controlled by you, like you—still—derive the best from everything, as if everything is perfect in its being present. I think it is impossible not to acknowledge how our thoughts weave themselves with one another. How you can begin my train of thinking and finish my sentence. But I suppose that is all more about us—and not uniquely about you—and I have to remember that is what this is all about: you!—what I admire about you.

I admire your stories—how they seem to hang off everything. You create memorable moments. And is that not what it is all about? Living—not waiting to finally live—but to be involved in doing it. People that see situations with all their eyes—can make a story out of simplicity, not wait for it to be made for them—how honorable…and that person is you.

You tell me about your travels…two weeks off and on trains on your own. You said you chose not to bring music or novels—claimed another’s words would detract from the production of your own. I think you are on to something. But I cannot imagine being empty handed…a train, destined down a line, ridden into the unknown. While you tell me all this, I remember wandering in foreign countries and feeling alone, unknown, fearful that I did not have a voice anyone could hear. I admire your theory on travels—you take off and go. You don’t need anything but yourself on scene. You live the life you are in—the life you are amongst. You do not bring your life there; you assume the life that the culture identifies with. And I believe this is the secret to becoming, to learning, to understanding the other—by becoming them, by forgetting the preoccupations of yourself, how your body is affected by living elsewhere as other.

“I laid in a hammock…smoked hash...hung with the hippies…they played classic music…I was one of them,” and aided by your words I imagine you, just hangin’. A toe in sand, eyes dreaming, your head of curls absorbing all the light. And as soon as I imagine you, you become an image on a screen before me. I feel like I have nothing to say, that I can’t react soon enough—it all seems like make believe—you on a hammock hanging in the space between cares and the world, where the two never touch. “I drank all fresh fruit juices.” I can see you there, your hands cupped, sipping, like a child taking a break from running around in the backyard. I have my problems with this, but I have to give it to you—you have the heart of a child, and I cannot not love you for it, for I feel I did not let myself be one long enough. You tell me the flavours of the juices, and I receive pleasure knowing just how good you are at tasting the world, not holding yourself back, savoring the richness that is so readily available. I always loved the way you derived such intangible moments of being from the overwhelming pleasures of food. While I use to watch you and listen as you talked about your meals, I know somewhere within me, I vicariously lived through you. And all of me benefited from witnessing you let yourself go—to reason so very much like a child: impulsively, internally, with heart and without societal distraction. I hoped you hadn’t lost any weight…hated how you had become thinner…I thought it showed less security in you, than otherwise. And if I could take one thing from our conversation it would be the knowingness that your wants are not superficial, that underneath all the stories of your travels is the heart of the story—that you are confronting the deepest part of yourself.

I spoke indirectly about men you knew and that I had been with. Somehow and in someway I applaud you for not letting your voice divulge that you knew. I commend you for saying their names before even I—again it shows that you are smart and not choosing to avoid the true intention behind my words. I feel for you when you put up with my meaningless banter over fragmented stories of them. Regardless of my being vague and indirect, you are strong and it does show. I guess beneath it all, you know I am just connecting myself to them—trying to tie myself to someone apart from you. But importantly, you know me well enough to know how I feel, that they are stories while you were the event.

No mention of your girlfriend. If I didn’t know on my own, there is nothing in your voice or in the words you use to speak to me that would even hint at her. I know I could still think you were being deceiving, but now I wonder whether you are being smart. I tell you I have to go…I’m late to class…what would I have done if your voice didn’t keep me company on my walk to campus? A moment before I let the dialogue end, you tell me I had always been your best friend…you wonder what has happened…insist I call, anytime for no reason at all.

there is no end to end on

Of course, between these paragraphs are the gaps that speak of “us”—why, when, where, how. I tried to leave the feelings out, but even the mind knows to sneak them in. Moments glue us together. And as I said before, you have always been the best at them. You know that is what you do, make moments memorable. I could say more, just as I could have said less, but where I end will never be enough. It is true, I could go on forever—there is always more to reveal in love and on loss.

Perhaps revealing is indulgent on both behalves—teller and listener, writer and reader—you learn more about what I feel for you and how I think of you and I learn what it means to me, how much I know and have to learn. Thinking of an individual I admire was difficult. I wanted to find someone—perhaps even someone I hadn’t thought of in awhile, someone who wasn’t obvious—that embodied everything special and significant to me in life. But almost immediately, I found how impossible that was—and therefore, I began seeing others in fragments, in hidden places that they perhaps don’t see themselves. They moved me within spaces of a vignette. I don’t know yet entirely what it means, but I think it conveys how we all contain a gift—a secret some know and some may learn. But most importantly, I believe it signifies that we don’t—and are not expected to—have everything. Instead, we embody some thing, which seems to mean much more.

Writing about ‘you’ began unconsciously as a gesture to reach out and continue our dialogue. You told me to call—and you are right, I should, could and can—but some how I won’t let myself, not yet, not so freely. This, of course, helped me look kindly upon your behavior. And it also made me wonder whether we admire what we want and don’t have. Do we inject outsiders with praise—internally reward them with thoughtfulness—because we respond to them as if they were our other? An other we have an insatiable curiosity for?—reasoning that if we can know them better, than we can know who we could be and even who we may want to be more fully? I think my decision to write about ‘you’ was a sincere desire to make you glow and stand on your own. But the more I wrote thoughtfully, the more I saw that I also had been attracted to taking the time and using it to clarify us. So much of the time I took to describe you, was me thinking of you—it was not you giving yourself to me, but me projecting my idea of you on to you. When I imagined you, you became an image. And I wonder if this is a fault of my own or a result that is impossible to avoid. Perhaps, there is another way of seeing subjects and another way of having one’s mind think of them. Perhaps there is a point where I fall away and I let them be as they are. Perhaps at that point, the subject has more clarity and I won’t need to think of them to have them exist for me. If these things are possible and goals I am unconsciously working towards, than they are also nothing I have experienced yet. It is very well that had you not called, I would not have chosen to write about you, because so much of the moment that instigated the writing involved the inclusion of us. I wish I could separate myself, but once two people experience each other, I don’t think they can faithfully go back to the time when their being was not a result of their duality. One cannot judge that place of being because how one reasons now is a result of past experience. The mind that came before us, is something I will never be able to attain again—it will be absent forever. So, who knows, maybe I am wrong, self-involved, but I cannot help loving you for the ways you have made me feel—since you letting me feel is what added to my life and made me come alive in ways unknown to me prior to the moment.

I can say that I admire you for not judging others and for being accepting of their imperfections. But that would only be half of the truth. I am not sure I would know about how you affect others because that does not involve me. I can only hope you are consistent across the board. Therefore, what I entirely meant was I admire you for not judging me when everyone felt they had to. I admire you for letting me keep my imperfections, for being smart in knowing ridding ourselves of every flaw is impossible. I admire you for helping me accept where I wanted so desperately to be perfect, but felt I wasn’t. I admire you for your patience while inspiring me to judge less of myself, judge myself differently and to not judge myself through the imperfect gaze. I admire you for letting me fall asleep even though I was youthful and had the energy to stay up. I admire you for holding my hand beneath the table on Thanksgiving dinner. I admire you for smiling at me when I took my first bite out of a dinner you knew I did not want, but which most everyone truly can’t resist. I admire you for loving me through my difficulty—dragging you to different bodegas to find the perfect papaya because I was hungry for digestive aids. I admire you for taking pictures of me, as if I had nothing to be ashamed of, as I spoon-fed myself fruit with orange skin palms and you devoured Belgian fries. I admire you for taking pictures, for documenting love, so I have something from that time to always hold. I admire you for being careless, for being free, for feeling safe.

Although, one can say that the above all entails me, all reflects what I need, those qualities have everything to do with you. I believe they are the most difficult qualities to have, which is—without fail—why we all in our hearts to hearts aspire to attain them. I hope through all my tangents I was able to illuminate your rarity—a gift even the most gifted would admit is too involved to explain. I admire you from beginning to end—of this story and our own, separate and secret—for being my best friend, for revealing your interior hope with me (the hope that I will have not forgotten us). I admire you for appreciating the small gestures in life that mean everything. I admire you for speaking of that.