Of Farts, Armors and Fears
People have different ways to show when they’re in love. And in some cases, it involves farts, armors and fears.
Hellen was around her thirties and didn’t go out much. The routine she created for herself by the time she studied pedagogy had taken so much of her energy, she was taking some time to breathe now.
Every single day she would wake up at 4 am, go to college, head up to work and go straight to her internship. She’d head back home around eleven every night, so she was almost never feeling like going out for parties or for meeting friends. Except to eat out with her two best friends at a snack bar near home.
The story I’m about to tell you started in middle 1995, when Hellen was at an arab snack bar with Bee and Rose, and they saw this tall blonde guy staring at her.
As soon as they realized, they pinched her, discreetly pointing and saying that he was looking at her and they should talk to each other. Hellen wasn’t shy but she did not want to, she wasn’t healed yet.
The three girls used to go there so often, the owner was already used to their presence and felt intimate enough to talk. On that day, he also noticed the gazes, and decided to check if she was aware.
“Hey Hel”, he said approaching the table.
“Hi there”, she said swallowing a piece of the sfiha.
“Have you seen that guy right behin-”
“Right behind me, kinda to the left, right?”, she interrupted.
He widened his eyes as her friends were laughing.
“Yeah, I did, but… I don’t know, he’s kinda… tall.”
“I’ve known him for years. It’s a great guy.”
She looked behind. He wasn’t looking back now, was distracted.
“Maybe you should just… let him talk to you in case he tries.”
“I don’t know…”, she said sipping her juice.
Her friends kept on talking. Hellen was feeling pressured, still overcoming her past losses. He kept on staring. Something in that situation implied that he would not let another day go by without trying to reach her.
In the end of the night, Hellen was already done when Rose asked for a portion of knéfs. She wouldn’t let her friends alone. Seeing that, his friends came along, her friends smiled as if they were actually waiting for the move, and started to talk to them. Everyone sat together, introduced themselves and eventually they started to chit chat.
Hellen was never an easy type of girl. She was very selective, reserved, and it used to take a lot of time until someone could cross the layers that protected who she really was. Handsome guys never impressed her. Intelligent ones didn’t either. They always had to show something more to her, something beyond whatever the eye may see, something you can only feel at the depths of your heart, soon, it was hard to find. And she made no efforts.
The guy’s name was Rick. He was a couple years younger than her, was still studying administration. His family came from the other hemisphere years ago. Ever since they came to Brazil he lived on the same condominium than Hellen. Both living on the 12th floor of the twin buildings, one facing the other. Still, they never talked to each other, until that moment.
He used to see her coming back home from work on the time she studied pedagogy. Sometimes coming and going to the club she used to work on during the weekends. He was even attending that club just to see her. She, in his words, was the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, so he couldn’t miss looking at her.
Uhm, he obviously didn’t told her all of that at once. It took some time too.
Her friends advised him not to tell her all the things he had in his heart at first cuz she was kinda hard to deal when it comes to love.
They started as friends, and nothing more. There was an invisible and inaudible treatise on what they could or could not do together. A pact that was signed by nothing more than looks and simple abstract gestures. And, well, a simple bunch of the facts that one knew about the other.
Everytime people ask her about them hanging out, she would deny having anything more than just friendship.
The year of 1996 came, and a bunch of new parties, meetings, snack-bar hang outs and compromises have came along with it. Everywhere they would go, they would invite each other just so they didn’t have to face life compromises alone and had someone to talk, and eventually get to know better.
Most of the events they were with the same old group of friends. They actually looked like a sitcom cast… A lot like young (blonde and super tall) Harrison Ford and a shorter version of Courteney Cox.
Another hang out invite came. The same golden six folks heading up to a stadium right after dinner. Guess what? Yeah, arab snack bar again. They went. They eat. Went to stadium and after a few minutes it started raining so hard they had to leave.
It wasn’t common for Hellen to accept rides but they were neighbors, and she was kinda enjoying going out with him, they have seen each other so many times she didn’t even minded anymore. She said “yes”.
On that stormy April friday, around eight, he stopped the car in front of her building. Hellen was already checking the seat belt to get out, when he locked the doors again and said:
“Hey Hellen… I’ve been thinking and, I never said anything cuz I never knew how you would react, but… I really like you.”
She stopped and stared at him.
The silence was getting awkward, so she felt like she should say something.
“Nice…”, she said. “I… I kinda like you too.”
“Every time we go out and I get to know more about you, the more I like you, and… I can’t stop thinking about the chance I might be missing.”
“What chance?”, she asked.
“The chance of never letting you go”, he said.
She remained silent again.
“I’ve been thinking about your lips for so long. I can’t let you go without letting you know you’re this special for me.”
She sketched a smile, unbuckled her seatbelt, and pulled herself close to his face, with her nose almost touching his.
“Tell me one thing that will make me have no doubt I might kiss you, and that you’re the one that might never let me go.”
“What if I show you… the most personal thing about myself?”, he said as she teased him with her lips. “Something I’d only let the people I trust see.”
She kept on teasing him, so he thought that was kind of a “yes”.
He stopped, started at her with the most passionated face in the world, hidden by a little sketch of a shy countenance, and…
Farted.
No, you’re not reading it wrong. He actually farted.
Loud and stinky. It was raining, the car was closed. It was 1996 and they had no good air conditioning system…
She did not kiss him.
But, even kinda uncommon and kinky, she understood what he meant.
She could run, but she didn’t.
She decided to see how far that could go, even being… unusual.
Two years later, they got married. And are still married now.
“No fucking way!”, I screamed laughing.
“Too gross of me, uh?”, my dad asked.
“Ah… yeah, but… no! Is it bad that I find it cute?”, I said leaning on the steering wheel, laughing.
“Uhm, no…”, he giggled. “Careful, this pickup truck is almost your age.”
“Sorry, I usually forget, despite the smell”, I said laughing again.
“Ok, so you always have to stop at the pedestrian lane, ok?”
“Yeah…”, I replied softly stepping the brake. “Mom told me this story so many times, I wonder why you never said anything about it before.”
“‘Cuz it’s kinda gross…”
“Not really… She asked you to show her the most intimate and personal thing about yourself and… well, you did. In your way, but you did.”
We kept on laughing as I turned the air conditionair on.
“Why don’t you ever shared that with Nick?”
“He’s already lactose intolerant, imagine my boy farting over the ladies.”
“Dear God, he wouldn’t…”
“God knows what he would do with such chat up…”
As you may have noticed, this is the story about how my parents met, and how they slowly started to gain each other’s trust. But it does not end here.
There’s one thing I learned with their story. People have different ways to show when someone is special to them, and maybe this was the starting point of how I face general relationships today with open heart and mind.
Personalities are diverse and have very particular behaviors, and there’s a huge social failure on thinking that people will deal with feelings in the same way. There are a few patterns, but they will not always be common or resemblant to something you are already used to.
Inspired by their story, I expanded the concept of opening up and sharing our experiences and intimate / personal sides to people who we want to create true connections with and I call it farts.
Of Farts
In 2016 I watched a movie on Netflix which instantly became my favorite. Swiss Army Man (commonly known as “isn’t that movie in which Harry Potter is dead?”) is an atypical, kinky, deeply meaningful movie about a man on his twenties that finds himself stranded on an island with the nearly dead corpse of someone he doesn’t know.
This movie brings to us a highly deep reflection over society and ourselves; and above that, how we deal with our inner issues and how it affects our life in society.
Most people who I have talked to after watching the movie took all the farting symbolism as nothing but a gross joke, but I see something a lot more meaningful hiding in the flatulence of Daniel Radcliffe’s corpse.
To my mind, farting is a metaphor for being free to express yourself and whatever is inside your heart and head however you want.
Most farts are spontaneous. You can try to hide them, or keep them caged inside yourself, but still, it is a natural thing that exists within humans. It is within yourself.
You need to rely a lot on a person to let her “see” (or hear, or SMELL) your fart. And even when you have such intimacy with someone you probably still won’t want them to see you fart.
It is such an intimate expression, and carries so much of the essence of the being, once it is produced right inside you, that it becomes something even unfeasible to be made in front of other people. It’s so personal that it’s embarrassing.
There’s a line on Swiss Army Man that says:
Hank: “People don’t like other people’s farts.”
Manny: “Is that why you don’t fart in front of me?”
Hank: “I just like to do it alone, or hold it in, that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Manny: “That’s so sad. If my best friend hides his farts from me then what else is he hiding from me? And why does that make me feel so alone?”
When I say someone is “farting” I generally mean they’re expressing something deeply meaningful about themselves in a carefree way, ‘cuz once people trust each other there’s no way to hide certain things.
Farting does not mean being completely unarmed or getting rid of the armor you created to yourself. But it is certainly the beginning of a “real thing” between two people.
… And honestly, farting is way harder than it looks.
Armors and Fears
There is an armor we create for us, it can be made of a multitude of materials, depending on how much we intend to protect ourselves.
When you’re little, your armor is made of lighter materials because maturity (in most cases) does not expose you to direct confrontations. Eventually, nervous bears will come, some children from other clans and tribes will find you and hit you with spears, stick and wooden weapons, but still, it will make you stronger. It will make you realize how important it will be to build a stronger armor, so when someone hits you, it hurts less.
When you get older, even getting used to the battles, eventually having fun killing big bad monsters, ripping heads of dragons and slaying goblins around, you’ll see that some confronts are harder than others, and in the end of the day, you’ll take your helmet off before bed and see you may have earned a few scars through the day, even with that heavy armor on.
One day, you’ll take it off and realize your body isn’t just scratched, it has scars too.
So when meeting someone else, you can not expect they’ll reach to you without using one, because they may have been used to earning scars just the same.
You have no way of knowing which battles someone has fought until it is time for the person, of her own free will, to disarm and show you her own scars. And this moment, to my personal understanding, is the best moment there is.
Getting unarmed is not that simple for most people. Some are actually afraid of what might happen once they take it off. Without it you’re exposed and susceptible to make your weaknesses visible. It’s tricky to trust people once you do not know the intentions of their hearts.
So, they fear.
According to Doctor Who’s episode “Listen”, “Fear is a super power. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger”, because fear will make you get prepared for something that can try to hit you while you’re off-guard. Fear can be a fuel, or it can also be your ruin, once it can also deprive you of living the greatest adventures of your life.
“God placed the best things in life on the other side of fear” — Will Smith
And that’s why while you’re looking for soldiers to compose your party, farting is often part of the process. And once in a while, is important.
Once you’re laying down on the ground, looking straight up to the stars by the melody of creeks and streams of crickets, on the side of a bonfire, after slaying all dragons that came across you through the day, you look at your side and there is someone laying on the ground with you.
After a couple farts, a few laughs, and a bunch of stories told, you feel well (and safe) enough to start living adventures together. Living adventures means creating memories. Creating memories means making someone part of your life — sometimes for a period, sometimes for life. And once you do, and both of you feel like the time has come, you unarm to each other, show your scars and see which battles you both have been through, and how you can help each other to survive the next to come.
