The Poet: pt 4
“I don’t know why airports. They all look the same. Their uncomfortable padded chairs, reflective linoleum floors, slightly localized restaurants; the long queues to get through security or get a ticket or get a cup of coffee; the bathrooms around every corner, the low-grade boredom on every frequent flyer’s face, the high-grade anxiety with every infrequent flyer. Somehow these began to define our relationship in a way that I never would have guessed a thing could.
“The time when we missed our flights and had to buy all new tickets to make it home from that little island in the Mediterranean. Or, when my flight was delayed by hours, and you had to wait outside baggage claim in Barcelona. Or when we said ‘goodbye’ in Chicago, with a promise that we’d see each other soon.
“I suppose it makes sense for two people who were separated by so many miles to have all these memories at airports. But they managed to creep their way into our lives after we got back together. Now I’m waiting for another airport moment, in a couple of months, to fly back from this continent of solitude, north, to the windy city, where we can finally be happy, and in the same place.”
Owen peered through his glasses at the computer screen. He had a strong sense of dread. He had started and stopped this letter many times, carefully weighing each word and sentence, but he sensed that it didn’t matter. There would be no response. He tried to piece together why exactly he had begun crying when he had last seen Carmen, in the airport, outside the security line, in Chicago. He just lost it. Maybe he knew that it would be over. That despite their plans to move in together and take things slow, the result would be the same as it was before: They would slide back into an uncomfortable place. And all of his work to bring them back together, everything for four years, wouldn’t matter.
He checked the time: 9 a.m. in Buenos Aires. He had to get to work. He lifted his leather bag off the ground and closed his computer. He surveyed his studio apartment one final time, the room essentially a closet in a 12-story high rise somewhere off main street, before closing then locking the door. He had taken the journalist position knowing it would be the southern hemisphere’s winter, but he didn’t think much of it, he had always associated South America with lush tropical rainforests and jungle humidity. He fantasized about the Amazon now, as he reached the front door to the building, pulling his beanie over his ears and taking a deep breath to brace himself for the cold.
The city’s architecture, old and regal, surrounded him, almost lifted its nose at him, as he walked past the kiosk and toward the city’s river. His walk would take him past three bakeries, each with delicious croissants stuffed with ham and cheese; one bank, with occasionally broken windows; and at least two electronics vendors, which promised to fix Apple products but not sell them.
He named this time in his life the year and a half of winter. He felt as though some part of him would die, would break off, so that something new could grow in its place. He stopped walking at a red light near a local bank. Within moments, his mind returned to Carmen. How did things get this bad, again? He asked himself. He thought of their first breakup, when he returned to Spain to visit her for her birthday, and despite his pleading and attempts to “be cool about this,” he found himself desperate and heartbroken. He remembered returning from that trip, seeing his friends at the airport and breaking into tears.
He tried to focus himself on a good memory. Something that could cut through the cynicism that filled him now this was inevitable he thought. He closed his eyes briefly, and tried to reconstruct the bar where they had met after he fired off that drunken email a couple of months prior. She was so thin, so frail. Her oversized sweatshirt made her look almost boyish, but with unkempt hair and no makeup — she appeared almost like an orphan. She had lost her spirit. He almost didn’t recognize her. Maybe you finally saw her for what she truly is, not with rose-colored glasses.
All this space, all this time, all this solitude. All this consideration and immense thought. It surrounded him now. He couldn’t get away from his own mind. The joy of a new place, the excitement in being a journalist in a third-world country, muddled by this person he swore he couldn’t live without, who he fantasized and built up, who he believed, at one point, could complete him in some special way. What does this mean about your decision making? What does this mean about the kind of person you are? Why else, if not for love, would you be so callous to so many people?
He took another deep breath in. His walk had brought him to a heavily trafficked brick road, with shops and bright lights and throngs of shoppers. Occasionally, the crowds would part, and from them two people — a man in a three-piece suit and a woman in a long, elegant night gown — would emerge to embrace each other in tango. Owen smiled at this. He laughed with the crowd and peered at each of their faces, looking for the most beautiful woman he could find, until his eyes rested on her. Then he turned away, allowing for a brief moment to imagine that he could sweep her off her feet, that he could experience a whole reawakening of love.
He had promised himself, regardless of how awful the relationship was, where Carmen no longer returned his emails nor phone calls nor video calls, where he could, legitimately, question their very coupledom, that he would not succumb to any urges. He would be pure hearted. The last time he allowed himself to be weak, he ended up with a shaved eyebrow and years of guilt. He took another step.
He was almost certain, as he rounded the final corner to his work, that he threw away four years of tireless effort to return to someone. That he had alienated every woman who entered and exited his life in that time (and some friends too) because he was an asshole, and not because they “just don’t get it.” That his letter, at 3 a.m., after drinking heavily, had been a mistake. And that the two of them should never have continued beyond one week, maybe one month, in Spain. That his own desire to reshape and return to the past had killed the very memories of it. That whatever beauty rested in those pure, unadulterated, and childish notions of love, had since vanished, into an ugly mess that he had contributed to. But above all, he was without a doubt that he had made this situation.
Of course, Carmen had changed. Her sister died of a heroin overdose and now she had partial responsibility over her nephew. She didn’t laugh like a child anymore because she wasn’t a child anymore. She left Spain years ago. And it had stayed in her past. Owen was the one who couldn’t deal with it. And this sip of real life, of tragedy, had crushed all his idol idealism, destroyed the world he created in his head.
He entered the elevator and pushed the button for the sixth floor.
All that remained were a few memories, some good, some painful, and the lines of poetry he had learned along the way, which resonated in his bones:
“Another. There will be another. As before from my kisses.
Her voice, her body certain. Her infinite eyes.
Already, I don’t love her, it’s clear, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short, and the memory of it so long.
“Because on nights like this, I had her between my arms,
My soul is discontent with having lost.
“Although this will be the last pain that she causes me,
And these will be the last verses that I write for her.”
~Pablo Neruda, Poema 20
