Whole

I woke up this morning
I could barely breathe
Just an empty impression
In the bed where you used to be
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning
To an empty sky

"Lonely" is not the word I would choose to describe how I feel when Luca is away. It's more caustic than that. It's a gnawing, a crawling, a primal contraction, unclassifiable. It's closer to fear than to isolation.

It was on Luca's latest business trip that I finally realized this sentiment is ridiculous. Not because I love him any less (never) but because love demands that you be better for it. But it’s hard to shoot for personal improvement when you are focused on trying to breathe.

So I went back to the most basic truth: for all my shortcomings (higher than average), I was created whole. Nobody's absence can possibly render me incomplete.

My life is enriched by the fact that I share it with Luca but on my deathbed I would regret the waste of wanting to skip the parts where he is not with me.

So he went to Australia, and I stayed behind. I rediscovered how much I like being alone. I enjoyed the silence, beauty and symmetric order of my house. I slept in the middle of the bed, diagonally. (Eureka - the antidote for imprints left on mattresses). I went on long hikes, read far into the night, discovered a spellbinding new author (and bookmooched all her work after reading that brilliant first one), went to lunch and coffee and visits with friends I hadn't seen (one in eleven months), attended a cozy housewarming/birthday party, bought flowers and plants for my yard and cooked elaborate meals for myself. I'd never bothered to cook for one, but, you know what? I'd be hard pressed to find a more appreciative audience.

This might be nothing to you, but when I woke up on Sunday morning and lay still to feel the cadence of my heartbeats and knew I had a beautiful day stretched out before me, I wanted to tell Bruce Springsteen that my sky is blue and crisp and anything but empty.

Drunk under the lamppost

My friend Nikhil recently told me the following joke:

A drunk loses the keys to his house and is looking for them under a lamppost. A policeman comes over and asks what he’s doing.

“I’m looking for my keys” he says. “I lost them over there”.

The policeman looks puzzled. “Then why are you looking for them all the way over here?”

“Because the light is so much better”.

We all look for things where the light is better, rather than where we’re more likely to find them. In words of Anais Nin, “we don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are”.

If this is true - and, who am I kidding? of course it is - I worry that we all stagger around, destined to be misunderstood. Or, worse. We’re all methodically, apocalyptically misunderstood, and it’s too dark to notice.

The instant karma of bookmooching

Bookmooch is a simple to use book swapping site. You register and give away books and in exchange mooch books from other people. You only pay for the price of shipping a book when you send one, which is how you collect points. In this way, receiving a book you’ve chosen is free.

I’ve commented before that books deserve a better life than to live on a cold shelf. Most of us read a book once, and then abandon it. In this way, a book fulfills its destiny: it’s held, appreciated and read by one, then passed on to be held and read again, indefinitely.

Sharing books also saves resources. Why buy a new book when what you want is lying around somewhere, unused?

I can’t promise I’ll never visit another bookstore, but I’ll definitely go less often now that I can mooch.

It's not about the wait

There is this balding, red haired guy in a building that I frequent. He's short and has a potbelly, red, wind burned cheeks and bloodshot eyes. He's missing a few teeth and usually has a two-day beard and a wrinkled uniform.

He's the guard on duty in the morning, and likes to stand with his hands behind his back against the elevator button. As I rush in, I can't push it at will. I have to wait instead until he decides to summon the elevator for me.

If, as I enter the lobby, one of the doors is closing, my impulse is to rush to push the button and stop the elevator, but, (you guessed it) with his body as an obstacle, my reflex must be suppressed. I have to stand there while he lets the car in question go, waits a couple of beats and then invisibly, so that I can’t be sure if he's done it at all, calls the next one.

I know what you're thinking, and I've openly admitted that patience is not one of my strongest characteristics. But this has only a little bit to do with the wait. This man relishes the fact that he alone dictates the rhythm of the people who venture into his territory.

We all trot in, clueless, out of breath, holding our briefcases and gym bags, balancing coffee cups and Blackberries, phones and Bluetooth headsets, and as he stops us in our tracks I turn and catch in that sad, haggard face an oh-so-slight lilt in the corner of his mouth, the faintest hint of a smile.

Photo from www.industry.org.il

What I should do

I live in a constant, heated battle between what I fall into doing and what I think I should do, which doesn't get done even when what I think I should do is something I like.

I'll illustrate my point with a series of examples organized chronologically.

I should get up early every day, even on weekends. Instead, I hit the snooze button during the week and on weekends I wake up early and invariably go back to sleep, even as I think get up get up get up you'd have more weekend time if you started your day now.

I should eat only extremely, supremely good-for-me food because I like how it makes me feel (not just healthy, but virtuous), but drinking coffee, having sugary, crispy things and white flour is...well, I don't have to tell you what it is.

I should take a multivitamin but I only manage to do so two times a week, despite the fact the big bottle sits between me and my computer at work (meaning, I stare at it about 9 hours a day.)

I should take better care of myself now that I'm pushing 40. Regular facials and visits to the salon. But, there are so many other things I'd rather do with my time (and my money). I suspect that when I'm old I'll be well traveled and wrinkly.

I should be better about updating my wardrobe, knowing what looks good on me, and using make-up. My younger sister even knows how to make purple eye shadow look totally cool.

I should be more patient. It's just that I'm surrounded by completely exasperating situations. You try calling United.

I should exercise every day. Not only that, but do a variety of exercise, such as aerobic, weights and stretching. I'm doing pretty well on the aerobic part but I usually only manage to do weights twice a week because I don't like to exercise indoors. And, for some reason I can't even come close to understanding in myself, I never stretch, even though I find it delicious. Ever.

I should have less stuff. I'm clutterphobic.

I should worry less. It's not like it's effective in warding off what I worry about. (...Or is it?)

I should write in my blog like Miguel does. Frequently, generously, outpouringly. I manage a pretty consistent entry a week but I wish I was more like my prolific friend.

I should read more - which I definitely love -and watch less TV. In fact, I should read the classics. But TV is so darn entertaining, particularly when I'm watching it with all the things listed above that I shouldn't be eating. American Idol and ice cream, anyone?

La Nonna Pina

My husband’s grandmother is 98 years old. She says she doesn’t know “why God has kept her here for so long”. She’s tired of living. She’s outlived so many people she loved, in particular her husband Carlo, Luca’s grandfather, who died 15 years ago.

As luck would have it, she’s healthy as a horse. She’s rail thin. She never gets sick. She lives alone in an apartment one floor below Luca’s parents, keeps it clean and organized, cooks for herself and walks to the grocery store and the hairdresser.

She’s proud, independent, rigid, frugal, an introvert, set in her ways. She spends most of the day in her apartment, refusing to “invade” her son’s life. She usually eats by herself, despite daily invitations, and was often found sitting in a chair with her arms folded on her lap, looking out the window.

It wasn’t until recently that she began to concern Luca’s parents. She’d leave the house and forget why she had done so. She’d show signs of not remembering recent conversations. (Both symptoms I frequently experience, but I’ll stick to the original subject.)

They began to worry that they couldn’t risk leaving her alone. What if she left the stove on? What if she went somewhere and forgot how to get back? A visit to the doctor revealed initial signs of senile dementia, which, although normal for her age, placed an enormous burden on her caretakers.

Luca’s parents decided to hire someone who could stay with her a couple of times a week, to give them some freedom and less cause for apprehension. She was furious. She said she preferred to go to a home rather than have someone in her house. At first, this was received with horror and guilt, but gradually it was decided that this was indeed what needed to happen. The event was so traumatic that Luca flew to Italy for two days to lend an ear.

A home was found outside Milan where she’d have a beautiful room with high ceilings and a view of the park. When the day arrived that they had to pack her things and drop her off they were sad, anxious and wracked with guilt. Stories abound about how these homes are where people leave their family members to die.

Instead, Luca’s grandmother took to it like a fish to water. On her first morning, upon waking up, she took a fitness class. She now shares meals with people who are much younger than her (80), watches movies, plays bingo – a far cry from sitting on a chair and looking out into empty space, waiting for death to finally arrive. She goes to the chapel, and then takes tea every day at 5:00 p.m.

Luca’s parents drop by twice a week, and have reported she has put on a couple of pounds. On their last visit, they noticed she was tan – she had spent the day in the park with her new friends.

I know she speaks with Carlo every day. I know he hides in the shadows where only she can see him, and that she yearns to be with him again. I know too he is happier now that time will go much faster for both of them.

Whispers

In my (inexpert) opinion, there are two types of archeological sites. The first one is rigid, monumental, imposing, interesting, reconstructed. It’s become a contemporary statement of a past civilization, largely zapped of its whispers. Chichen Itza, gorgeous, grand, trampled, is a good illustration of this, my first category.

The second is crumbling piles of rocks under dense vegetation. Due to a perpetual lack of government funds, reconstruction is minimal, so that it still stands, but barely, a defiant example of time’s utter lack of mercy.

Tall trees grow on the pyramids, the tangle of centenary roots proof that the elements that destroy a structure are often also what hold it together.

During a visit, as you scramble up hundreds of steps, you silently refute the guide’s explanations because you have your own secret hypothesis of what that room was once used for.

In this second category, you feel a gust of fresh breeze on a hot, humid day and hear, beneath the rustling of leaves, the faint echo of footsteps, the unintelligible whispers of former inhabitants.

Campeche is, inexplicably, the least visited of the Yucatan states. Among other things (fantastic food, lovely people and a town so beautiful it’s considered a World Heritage Site), it holds perhaps hundreds of Maya ruins that belong squarely in my second category, which Luca and I explored in utter, complete, absolute solitude.

Calakmul, the largest of the sites (a 72 square km expanse that has been minimally restored due to ecological regulations), is found a few miles into Mexico’s largest biosphere reserve, in the middle of the low jungle.

Maybe you can go visit one day, and hear for yourself the whispers I speak of. With any luck, you'll make out the words and come back and tell me what they are saying.


Photo by Luca
Calakmul