nelipot
“Love preserves one moment for ever, the moment of its birth. The beloved never ages.”
9:39am
Dear Simone,
A fat yellow bird is screaming on my patio. It has a gold breast and dark wings and a long beak. I tried to look up the type though my head hurts and it isn't worth it. The main yellow bird of Brazil is the Yellow Conure, and the bird on my patio is not that.
I'm sick. My throat hurts and when I swallow, my ears pop. It's been raining for over a week and the dampness is in my lungs. The forecast shows thunderstorms for the next ten days until the beginning of December. I am swollen and irritable. I keep smudging the room and the wood takes several seconds to warm and even longer to light! That's how wet it is.
My bedding felt soggy and I woke up with snot and drool on my face. My neighbors had a party last night and the music sounded until midnight. They were singing Kareoke, and as I suffered, I mouthed along with them, even though I didn't know the words.
They were all in Portuguese but I could pick up the chorus and hum along in the refrain.
There is nothing lonelier than being sick in a foreign country. Removed from convenience and convention, without close friends to take care of you. I don't like anyone enough to let them in. I wish I had digestive biscuits but all I have is pasta and fruit. I need to go shopping and the thought of moving from the floor where I am writing to you makes my head spin.
I'm consoling myself by reading a book about a man who undergoes an existential crisis and leaves his wife on their honeymoon in Italy. My friends think this is perfectly horrid, though I think it's fine. Cut the thing off before it settles in; why build a life with someone if you know it will not work? Who cares about the occasion? Break it off swiftly and move on.
The man is currently on his way up a mountain to be exorcized of his spiritual malaise. I hope I will mirror his disposition and my illness will have passed when I'm through this book. I've one roll of toilet paper left and this will be the need that drives me out of the house.
The sun is peeking through the clouds though there are pools of water everywhere and it smells like rain showers are coming. The clouds hang far too low for the day to move in any other direction.
I need to go lay down. I've used up my energy and will be back in a little while once I can be vertical again.
11:52am
I slept for a bit and took a spoonful of oregano oil. Now I am drinking camomille tea with honey. I wish I'd thought to purchase ginger and lemon. I do feel that this sickness is more spiritual than physical. I am experiencing the symptoms in my body; sore throat, stuffy sinuses, achy joints, and lethargy. I can barely stand up.
I dreamt that I was lost in Rabat. I kept ripping my contact lenses so I could not see where I was going. I've never been to Rabat, and I have no idea what it looks like, so perhaps this is why it was blurred. There was the sensation of ocean and desert, with me in the middle. The sky was purple; sunset. As the day waned, I wandered in the streets with a white bag and matching running shoes. I found the house where I was to stay; it was dark and locked. I knocked on the door and windows. It was sealed up tight. I didn't have a cell phone in the dream, so I hopped over the fence and slept on the lawn under a rose bush. The petals were pink and the ground was a bit damp. I reclined on my green and purple yak scarf and fell asleep immediately.
When I woke up, it was raining and I could hear the ocean even though it was no where near where I was. The house was still tightly sealed, so I took my bag and wandered to a coffee shop where I met a friend from high school. She had dark hair and eyes. I will leave her nameless to protect her privacy. She was making coffee at this cafe in Morocco, and neither of us commented on how utterly random the entire experience was! I had no money, and she gave me a cappuccino and a raisin scone, anyway.
I don't like raisin scones though I wasn't in any position to complain.
Neither of us inquired as to what we were doing in Morrocco. I told her about my lack of residence and she invited me to stay at her place. She gave me a set of keys and told me to walk her dog when I arrived.
'Stick out your foot so he can smell you,' she said before I walked out the door.
Her apartment was only a fifteen-minute walk from the cafe and both were along the beachfront. I could see the sand speckled with umbrellas and camels. It was Sunday, and all the families were out with bags of fruit and popcorn.
My friend's apartment was on the ground floor and had a red door. I knocked twice to warn the dog, and then opened it. The dog was barking and ran up to me and I stuck out my foot in its white shoe, as directed. The dog looked me up and down with its doleful expression. It sat and cocked its head and then pushed its head into my shin.
I dropped my bag on the floor and took the leash from the hanger against the wall. My friend said the dog would prefer a walk right away.
I latched the chain to the dog's collar and we slipped out the door and I relocked it and put the keychain in my pocket.
The dog led me down to the beach. This was its route, I imagined, and I picked up the pace to keep up with it. It started to trot so I matched it, and soon we were both running with total abandon toward the water.
We arrived at the water's edge and the dog skipped in and I quickly flipped off my shoes and waded into the water, getting my pants soaked to the knee.
They were only jogging pants and would dry quickly.
The dog was very happy and I thought to take off the leash and then decided not to. It would not suit me to lose my friend's dog.
We ran a bit back and forth from the water to the sand when I saw a man approaching us. He had long blond hair and green shorts and aimed in our direction.
I stopped the dog's course to the water and told it to sit by holding a hand. The dog obeyed, us being best friends at this point.
The man approached me and pointed at the dog; I nodded without saying a word.
Yes, it is my dog.
He nodded back.
Between the man and I there was no language spoken between us. His phone rang and when he pulled it out, he offered it to me.
The call was mine.
I answered and finally said something:
'Hello?'
'Stephanie?'
'Yes?'
'Where are you?'
'I am in Rabat; where are you?'
'You always do that.'
'Do what?'
'Turn things around when you don't want to answer.'
'I did answer!'
'Why are you there?'
'I don't know?'
'Who are you with?'
'The dog.'
'How did you get there?'
'I hadn't thought of it until now!'
'Well, start using your head, and do it quickly. We are running out of time!'
'I can't rush - you know that! Who are you anyway?'
'Answers confuse the sweetest ones; it's better you don't know.'
'Why do you get to hold all the power?'
'Because I know how to apply force when necessary.'
'What do I do?'
'You're too kind. I have to go now; I'll find you later.'
When the person hung up, I returned the phone to the man. He nodded, slipped it back in his pocket, patted the dog, and pointed to the dunes in the North.
I understood, and as the man walked away, I felt heavy with the knowledge of what the next phase would bring.
The dog and I walked back to the apartment, and it led the way. I was grateful, for after my meeting, I was very disconcerted and didn't know where we were.
I have to go now, Simone, that is all I have in me. I need to lie down.
6:13pm
A monkey visited me on the bedroom windowsill in the afternoon and no matter how I tried to sleep, it's rapping on the glass kept me away. Tap-tap-tap went its tail. I leaped up, whipped open the curtains, a dusty velvet, and peered into its furry face. It sat there stoically and kept chewing the leaf in its mouth.
Six more little monkeys were swinging in the trees below and I could not help but laugh, feigning a lightness I did not feel. I kept the blinds open and watched the monkeys move in the brush.
The jungle is like my heart, full of uninhibited, spontaneous fluctuations that I do not have any control over!
My heart's deepest desire is to write. Simone, I write every day so I am living my truth, which feeds me when I am feeling low.
I am feeling discontented and the only salve to this despair is what I drag out of the gutters within me.
I sat and wrote in my journal from bed with the pink, yellow, and purple pens. I cannot read the gold ink and it's better this way. I don't need to reflect on everything I try to hold on to. Isn't that what writing is? A way to preserve the past as it once was? Or what we make it out to be?
Or what we hope it to be?
Hope is such a desperate creature.
The yellow bird is back on the terrace- I have bookended my day with a symbol from this winged beast.
It reminds me to be hopeful and lift the shade from the cage around my heart. I am peering through each rib to see the muscle contract and expand, over and over. The bird opens its mouth and instead of shrieking, it whistles. Over and over. Singing a song as the sun fades and the clouds have been rolling all day with the rain.
I will step outside and allow myself to be fed when I am through writing to you. I will force myself to move outwards even though I crave this stillness, inside.
What is the difference between the inner and outer worlds? We design both, do we not?
Our persception propels us forward or backward, and it relies on the wisdom from within. I must read to review the words of the wise ones before me. Watching is not the same as reading; it is passive versus active and for me, passivity is death.
Time is such a silly thing- I wish to step outside and walk in the dunes of immortality. I am each grain of sand and the wind that sweeps it. Air is all pervasive and so is the earth. I am at the crux of each and the black snakes slither in circles and Sheba sits at the center. The eye of the sun, the thumb of the moon, and the subtle fire of stars.
That yellow-breasted bird has swallowed its tail and sings me the stories of dawn and dusk.
For this, I am grateful.
Photo source.
