Those Eyes...
Kosta,
After my Abuelita died, all the advice I read about the grieving process hazarded against making any rash decisions or large changes in your life for the next year or so. "Give your emotions time to reach an even keel again," my therapist said, implying that the turbulence of my grief would find reprieve with time. I didn't believe her then - and the nights I spent curled in a ball, wrapped around her memory seemed as if they'd never end.
But the tear-soaked nights did end, and this fall my decision to get engaged, to start a family, to move away... the epic changes that these would bring started to come into focus as if I was awakening from a long, drawn-out dream: a dream where I clung to family, to safety, to security just to know I wasn't falling apart. The meaning of these decisions cleared; like polaroid pictures, a future started to materialize - Jason and I with children on bikes in the drive way. I saw me, wiping my hands on an apron, looking out the kitchen window at him playing with them.
...and although I knew these images should be happy, I could feel the "self" in the polaroid had a great heavy sadness--the sadness of settling, the sadness of knowing there could be more, should be more...
When I met you that night in the club, I had been quarrelling with him again. Arguments are never quite as enjoyable on a cell phone. Instead of a satisfying slam of the phone on its receiver or a door in his face, all I had was the push of a button. He just couldn't hear me - when I said I was unhappy, he came back at me with logic and reasoning and 100 different explanations for why I should be contented.
I think it was also the magic of the night - you know I felt like a superstar on that stage in the lights. Your brother's eyes analytically grazing my body. I looked at him and the crowd below with ownership. I earned this, my mind said. I belong to this moment, here on this stage, more than I've belonged to anything or anyone ever before. I finally found myself after a year of desperate searching in my grief, and here I was--powerful, sexy, real.
I knew then that I didn't want to go home afterwards. I didn't want to pack up my costumes, my Ayperi-face, my glitter, and tricks and stage magic just to face an empty apartment, a long-distance phone call, a beer alone. I wanted to dig my fingertips into that moment of self discovery and its exultation--just for a few songs, a few drinks.
And then, manically, I wanted more than that. Like an addict, I sought increased pleasure; I wanted to feel myself feeling someone else discovering me. I wanted to dance, covered in sweat, filled with sweet intoxication of the moment and the music reverberating through me. In that way, I suppose you were a puzzle piece. You were the hands I wanted on my hips. You were the bobbing body behind mine, throbbing to the beat as well. You were another animal of the night, sweating the same sweat and feeling the same tug and pull of the music.
But then, succeeding nights, you were more than that. You were excitement; you were wildness. You were forbidden as the apple, and available as the sun to a vampire. I could wax poetically (but don't worry--I'll stop now!) about how intensely you made me feel--like first love's blush on my cheek once again!
And then, there was the heat... perhaps forbidden pleasures are the best, because your every touch, your every kiss was like fire on my spine.
But Kosta, this is not why I am writing. You were there. You know all that... and I hope that you remember it too. I hope that on long nights you seek release as you think about our bodies. I know I will.
What I DO want to tell you about was this singular look that you'd give me. I think I first saw it when I was dancing for you in your little living room in the morning after your brother had long gone, and we were alone there having breakfast together in the cold autumn sun. I put down my food and started dancing for you--not just in front of you but FOR you. I moved my body like you were there with me in the music. I sang the lyrics with my low, dusky voice; my feet skimmed the floor; my back curved and arched; my hands twirled above my head and reached for you... All the while, your eyes had this look like I was the only woman ever to live. You gave me your full attention, unthinkingly setting down your cereal bowl on the computer desk, turning towards me with limp arms and a slouch. You looked tortured, but captivated--captured.
Now, I have to be honest (not vain), other lovers have given me looks with such longing. Rather, it was the quality of the connection between us that really struck me. You, in that one moment (and several others when you gave me this stolen gaze), reminded me of who I really am. You reminded me of my power and of THE power of love.
A coworker and I were going mountain bike riding yesterday, and in the car on the way there, he asked me why I left my fiancé. I struggled at first to articulate the reasons, "Oh, I felt that he didn't understand me anymore. I felt like he wasn't listening to me." Then it just hit me.
"I am waiting for that one great love," I said, "A love that makes you keep a lock of hair in your wallet for 40 years or write a greeting card to an old flame just because you could never let go."
And that, Kostas, is what you reminded me of. The intoxicating infatuation between us reminded me that LOVE should be and MUST BE just that sweet.
So, (I wanted to tell you that face to face, but it just didn’t work out that way, which is for the better I’m sure because you stir up all these emotions in this little body!) what it is that I wanted to tell you Kostas is that you're special and some amazing woman will someday take you how you are and love you just that way. You won't hurt her -- and you don't hurt the people you are TRULY close to -- because you will be drawn to the way she makes you see yourself too.
Tomorrow night, I am going to get that tattoo. And this time, for the first time, I am going alone. And it is good, to go alone. I really need it--this time to fully remember who I am: powerful, sexy, real.