Goodbye, Love
On our last day together she brought me a bouquet of tulips and carnations, and a Joe Hisaishi CD — a childhood memory of mine she ordered from Japan. I had mentioned it in passing on one of our walks as the only album I’ve been unable to find for download or purchase, and there it was, in my hands.
We watched Before Sunrise, and afterward, we laid next to each other on the couch, silent, unsure of what to say, because there was no comfort to be had. Soon, I was kissing the tears from her face, over and over again.
She asked what she was going to do without me. How long it was going to be before we saw each other again. Whether a simple phone call was allowed. I could say nothing, because I understood the necessity of it all.
So she said she was being reduced to an observer, and I grew cold and distant. It was the first time I had considered my own feelings, when I had felt reduced to much more than that, and she wasn’t making it any easier. With her lips on my neck and her hand through my hair, she comforted me in turn, and our passion took hold of us one last time.
Before she left, I hugged her, felt her tears grow cold on my shoulder, and kissed her once more on the cheek. Thank you, she said.
My heart has been filled with a calm sadness ever since. A struggle between the pain of being away from her, and knowing that it’s for the best. That we would be stronger, and more stable when it was all over.
In the days since, I’ve remembered the things I wanted to say to her before she left my back porch, running to car without looking back before the emotion could overwhelm her. Things that didn’t come to my head because I was too focused on keeping myself together.
Don’t stop creating. Take care of yourself. I love you.
Finding Love For Two Bachelors
The fact that my dad and I are the eligible bachelors in the family means we get a lot of advice around the dinner table. They bring up available women. Friends of friends, daughters of dance partners, or this-person-I-know.
It’s strange to come upon the sudden realization that my dad and I are at the same point in life. Does that make me old, or him young?
They ask us our tastes: Looks? Personality? Older or younger? I say, “Money”, but they know me well enough to know I’m joking. A joke to hide my answer, for to reveal myself in this way is to expose a certain vulnerability. So they sidestep the question and ask me if I’m after anyone, thinking that if I describe a person I’m interested in, they’ll be able to figure out what I’m looking for. It’s complicated, I think to myself, so only reply with a “No”. They ask me if there’s anyone after me. “No”. That’s even more complicated.
Last week, my grandmother asked me how old I was. “28”, I told her. “Already! You’re almost 30. It’s time for you to get married.” She says if I stay in Hong Kong all the girls will be after me because I have some kind of gentleman scholar look. My dad too; he’s the man’s man, who’s always been fun and popular. And we have Canadian passports. Apparently, we’re in demand.
But they also want to make sure we’re not getting involved with the wrong type of women. Someone who will take our money once we’re married, or force alimony once they trap us with children. They tell us to keep an eye on each other. I say that my dad doesn’t need my approval if he wants to get married, but I don’t need his approval either. So they tell us to bring our girls to meet them, to be sure they’re okay.
I wonder; is love this easy for other people? Something others can control, when I can’t control it myself?
Relationship Advice From Chinese People
My family always ask me if I’m dating anyone right now. They assume I prefer Caucasian girls. I tell them I don’t mind either way (the other side of “either” being Chinese girls). That’s when they warn me about mainland girls. Chinese mainlanders are commonly viewed by Hong Kong people as being low-class, crude, and provincial. It’s said that even if a girl from there is pretty, they lose all attractiveness as soon as she opens her mouth. On top of that, they’re gold-diggers, just looking for a way to get money or a green card.
They tell me I’ll be fine as long as I don’t marry a mainland girl.
My grandma used to tell me to find a Chinese girl, because Chinese girls treat their men better, or to find someone who loves me more than I love them. She’s filled with all sorts of funny aphorisms, like “Women are to be loved, not hit.”
Accepting My Baggage
Sometimes, I wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t have so much baggage. How my relationships would be different. Which ones would have worked, and which ones wouldn’t have changed at all.
Love, in all it’s multi-faceted wonder, levels, and types, is never a sure thing for me. I may feel it, but feel that it’s fleeting and conditional at the same time. Other people have the luxury of taking love for granted. They assume they’re loved. How comforting it must be. For me, it’s always been a struggle for stability. “We won’t love you if you don’t do well on this test. We won’t love you if you don’t practice piano. We won’t love you if you don’t finish your dinner. No one’s going to love you if you always stay this skinny.”
It feels like I haven’t survived my childhood yet. And I arrive at this fact so many times when trying to figure out the source of my issues that it’s starting to sound like an excuse. Therapy has helped identify my issues, but it’s still taking work on my part to resolve them, along with patience on the parts of others. I’m beginning to question why people would accept and love me. I guess it’s worth it to some, but things would be so much easier if they didn’t have to deal with my insecurities.
Love Bias
Sometimes, she reaches down and grabs a handful of my derrière. I laugh a nervous laugh, and she chides me.
It’s a reflex. None of my girlfriends have been so zealous in their pinching, or reveled in such an act. My laugh is one of surprise, and a good one at that.
This is what upsets her. But how should I react otherwise? I hardly consider this thin-framed body, a frail comparison to the physical conventions of a man, as being sexual or attractive.
Otherwise, she’d see me as the rest of the world sees me.
There Is No Such Thing As Love
Let me give it to you straight, straight like an arrow.
I’ve had these words stuck in my head for some time now. Lyrics from the titular Dears track I first heard in university, back when I would go home in the summer and watch The Wedge on Friday nights.
I know that’s awfully cynical to say, but I need proof that it is possible today.
I just wish I could accept that fact. I’m starting to wonder if that’s why I keep hearing the words in my head. It’s my subconscious reminding me, keeping me grounded.
It’s the same story, where guy sees girl, falls in love, and happily ever after. In between, there’s always the overused plot element of the guy winning over the girl by revealing himself and his feelings. After all, this alone is enough to win any girl over, regardless of whether she found him attractive or not, she was married or single, or he was the nerd and she was the cheerleader.
But love doesn’t exist in real life, as much as I want to believe that it does.
Not for me, anyway.
Missing Her Moments
I’m writing this in my head
somewhere between Belleville and Oshawa
as Leonard Cohen croons to me
on the stereo about missing something.
I’m trying to put this
together in verse;
it’s the only way that makes sense.
Maybe because the songs he sings are too good,
or I’m still affected by the last time I had
strep throat and we read
Susan Musgrave poems in bed.
So much for swearing
that I’ll never write like this again.
I wonder why she ends her phrases
the way she does,
about whether her titles come from
those clever little moments,
or vice-versa.
Maybe I can figure out how they do it
and I can express what it felt like to hug
her before leaving,
about how I didn’t realize how hard I was
doing it until I let go and felt her
breathe again.
She wouldn’t admit that she’d miss me
until I did it first. She had
said it more than me, last time, you see.
She had paid it forward,
now it was time for me to pay it back.
Eagle vs Shark
Eagle vs Shark is the new Postal Service.
The movie I can’t stop watching. The movie I can’t watch with anyone else.
Not because it’s painful in any way, but because it’s sacred. A movie where no one else would understand the way I see it. A reminder that I was adored once too, when someone loved me beyond limit or condition. (A memory that I need right now.)
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But I will leave you with this little song, if only for a short while. You need colours and candles in your room when you listen though, and an imagination will serve you well. Having a makeout partner and wearing a costume of your favourite animal is optional.
That is all you need to know, for this is all I can say.
Thinking Of Her
Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I think of her.
She’s lying on my stomach again, listening to my heart beat, hands tucked neatly under my body. Or she’s spooning me, her arm resting on the crook of my waist, with a finger drawing distracting circular lines on my chest.
Sometimes we’re in the tall grass, surrounded by colours of life with the warmth of the sun above us. A regression to a time when all I had to think about was the colour of popsicle I would have when I got home from camp. How unfair that our innocence is taken from us when we need it most.
And I lie there in bed, waiting for sleep to take me as the images lead me on.
My body telling me to let go, my mind struggling to keep her next to me a moment longer.
Your Interest In My Love
I’ve always enjoyed reading about people who are in love, but most of all when that love is unrequited. Vivid pictures painted in details about a saucy diastema, the observed ritual of walking by a certain table every day to get a cup of water for paint, an unsolicited brush against a hip. Stories about awkwardness, weakness, burning desire.
Perhaps it’s because I can relate to these experiences, or because they make me feel like I’m less alone in my own clumsy dealings with the opposite sex. Even though there are countless stories written about unrequited love, there aren’t enough. For the few of us who are “oppressed by the figures of beauty”, as Leonard Cohen calls it, nothing makes us feel better. All we can do is silently commiserate with the words of those who share themselves in this way.
When I look through my old entries, it seems like most of them are about love or a torch I carry in one way or another, and how this affects me.
And sometimes I wonder if this is the reason why people come here to read my words.
Be Still, My Heart
In the dark, our bodies fit like puzzle pieces — face in neck, crest in valley, curve in curve. I’m completely vulnerable when she lets me love her like this. She brings my guard down.
It’s the way she makes me happy without trying. The way I’m filled with tenderness every time I feel the warmth of her skin against mine. The way her existence gives me hope for the rest of the world.
If I chose to fall back on old habits and kept my distance to protect myself, I wouldn’t know this ineffable feeling. I may get hurt, but it’s worth every moment I can be next to her.
Maybe she’s right, and I’ll feel differently by the time it’s necessary. Until then, there’s no use in fighting it.
My heart never gave me a choice.
She Treads Softly
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
—He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, William Butler Yeats
She knows how much I’ve fallen for her.
And by giving her my heart in such a way, she’s sharing the burden. The last thing she wants to do is hurt me, and she thinks herself selfish for wanting to be held just so. But I know what I’m getting into. I know the risks.
There’s no point in denying ourselves the joy of what we have now. To be lying next to each other when we talk into the early hours of the day, bodies pressed against one another while the morning light washes over us, is worth any chance at being hurt. We can deal with the inevitable later.
So she treads softly, on me and my heart.
And rests her head on my chest when I hold her.