Armando la carpa, desarmando la carpa: 16 de marzo de 2015
Sandy Birkenstocks, tea in a thermos, children’s books en español, selling burbujeros to the tourists in the weekend market and on the beach, armando la carpa, desarmando la carpa, esperando en el sol, everything dirty and filled with salt and sand.
That ocean smell as slightly unpleasant but also addictive, bringing forth a rush of memories dimmed by the passing of time and the forever continuous procession of new experiences. Hating how I look in a swimsuit, hating when people talk to me in English, hating how I can’t be at peace with either. The sound of waves colliding with the coast while we pass into the netherworld of darkened dreams and the stars burst brightness into our wine-drunk eyes.
The tent flap doesn’t close because the zipper is broken, so cool night air slips in and tickles our toes as he caresses my spine. We are full of emotion, tenderness, ideas. The fire we built sputters and bubbles warmth, the waves of energy roll over us and disappear into the night.
Today we swam in the sea in Antofagasta, Chile. Turquoise water and crumbling shells in the midst of all that sand. If you look close enough the sand becomes an infinity of minuscule rocks, calcium shards softened by water and time. There is a concrete walking path that ends in a point overhanging the water, and I told Raúl that I would do a black-flip off of it.
Knowing he wouldn’t believe me, I pretended I didn’t know how, faking a jump but staying put. But then in a flash I’m gone, tumbling over myself into sparkling waves, surprising him by keeping my word. He’d never done it before because there are no high dives or low dives in the swimming pools of Los Andes, whereas I grew up a slippery mermaid in a hundred public pools, nervously climbing the tall ladder that led to big splashes.
On the way to that point we smelled marihuana, a solo young man in swimming trunks smoking on the steps leading into the water, and Raúl and I make a deal. I will ask the young man if he knows where we can buy flores if Raúl attempts my backflip. But all that became of that was an awkward almost-belly flop, the end of a joint, and a contact number, which we never called because the weed wasn’t that good anyway. The painful truth is that it never is, in South America.
Sometimes, for no particular reason, I wonder, “Do I love Raúl?” Because we get along quite well for being of two different elements, but is it enough? I am a fish out of water or a seagull spiraling solo, higher into enlightenment or illusion, often both at once, and he is a bear in a cave, hairy and hibernating and warm. He needs a dark space to sleep and slumber, and I need a branch in the trees to perch on, watchful and silent and thinking of nothing and everything.
Everything he loves I find dull and monotonous and tedious, and every time I ramble drunkenly (I only ramble when drunk) of cultural differences and the way our language limits us in some ways but frees us in others, his eyes glaze over like delicious sugary donuts, and when I realize he’s not even listening his lips spread into that wide, guilty smile, I laugh and say “qué culiao” and we go on.
That can’t be love! Or is love some other abstraction I haven’t thought of yet? I think if I were to love someone, we’d spiral into madness together, we’d find mary jane every time. We’d dig into every crevice. We’d bury things in the backyard and he’d remember everything I forget. But would he give me the space I’ve always needed?
How can we define love? How can we know that love exists apart from the preconceived judgments we’ve already associated with what we perceive it to be? Who cares? Why do we need to define things?