Transatlanticism

I feel like I’m watching everything from space.

It doesn’t feel real, this wind that blows my hair into unintelligible masses of dark entwined curls. It doesn’t feel real, this twilight sky that dyes my hands a different colour with every passing instant. It doesn’t feel real, that as I sit here, no one walks into interrupt this solitude that I would normally despise.

Each breath feels like I’m intruding upon a stranger’s body – it feels like this is someone else’s skin, someone else’s hands upon the smooth stone, someone’s else voice that I speak with, someone else’s mind that I think this with. And as I look around, I almost feel as if I should chance upon myself, perhaps sitting on the other side of the rock, maybe leaning against it with headphones plugged in and drumming imaginarily. But that won’t happen anytime soon, because this situation is one of misplaced, mistaken identity.

Somewhere far behind, there is a cacophony of voices as children play in the street, arguing over trivial matters, solely for the sake of argument, because the fading light has suspended play, and it cannot resume till the streetlights switch themselves on; besides, arguing is a much better way to while away the interim, as opposed to the other option of returning home and coming back later. Somewhere in the same beyond, a young boy learns to ride the bicycle, and he wears a triumphant look on his face because he hasn’t fallen down yet. It will be years until her realizes that with training wheels, it is impossible to fall down. But until then, he rejoices in his own little head. He is his own Superman today.

Clearer is the voice of a fifteen-year-old, ringing with laughter and spite, as she excitedly talks on the phone and giggles meanly at the romantic plight of the person on the line. But they are best friends, and she will be the first to grin broadly when her friend’s dilemma solves itself.

And the trees talk to themselves, rustling slowly in an arboreal baritone. The wind, rain-soaked from its many travels, whips around them - whips around all of them, and whips around me, and then spirals away. And the first drop of rain falls on the parched ground, and the ground engulfs the drop in sultry summer dust. And a second drop falls on the stone, courses its way slowly down the rock face and disappears.

Third.

Fourth.

Fifth.

And it was impossible to count after that.

So it rained and I sat there on the rock like I was part of it, dripping wet. Like little shards the drops fell as if exacting revenge, cold and minuscule, and as they reached the ground they stripped me of my warmth. And as sheet after sheet of this rain fell down it left each cold layer of me exposed to further battery. The ground protested, sending up earthy puffs of scent and little mists, but the rain washed it all away.

Feet slid into the ground; the ground that was still surprisingly warm and hard in spite of the rain that tried to change it. And as the water made little pools around my feet, a queer warmth engulfed my toes, and the water rushed into little crevices it still hadn’t found. Sticky, muddy heat mixed between my fingers, swirled around and submitted to the wrath of the rain.

And just as suddenly as the assault had begun, it ended.

The earth was left looking rather shamefaced for giving in so soon, and it retaliated by throwing up the warm, humid transparent fog of its scent again, and the grass clung on to little droplets like they were prisoners of war.

The rock with a single smooth sheet of shellacked water gleamed mutely in the orange streetlight.

The children were hustled home and toweled well, and then made to do their homework.

The romantic dilemma had not yet solved itself, but the sight of the ‘romantic, even sexy! Weather had left the talkers spellbound.

The Superman rode his cycle home in the rain, feeling altogether heroic.

And I started walking back home.

I had had enough of introspection for the day.

And there we stood huddled under a striped awning, too close for comfort

While our misty breath swirled over our heads in little animated patterns

A dim yellow light cast a gloomy pool of light on our dripping backs

And the soles of our shoes grew steadily moist

You gazed at the gray-black sky you said

You had never walked home in the rain and I laughed

Because I didn’t believe you

Because most of my childhood colds were a direct consequence of

Romantic lonely walks in the park with no umbrella for company

But you was serious

And I was too

So we took that first trembling step awkwardly

Flinching as the concrete mingled with the soggy mud squelched under our shoes

Looking up quivering as if afraid the lightning would strike us down

Because we had dared to step out from the protective awning embryo

With the steps of a newborn you slid and slithered and stumbled in to

The road we had often walked before but never walked before under a sky like this

And the mud that so graciously allowed itself to be trodden upon in the shining daytime

Took gasping revenge during the rain and the wind that whooshed so kindly on hot summer nights

That wind was a cruel force that turned rounded raindrops into little stinging marquees

And it rained and it poured and we trudged in the cold with

Warm rivulets of water flowing from my head down to my face dripping off my fingers to form puddles

Puddles in which we jumped in

Who cares how much these shoes cost?

And the wind even felt friendly after a while the way it whisked your umbrella it seemed like an invitation

To take a detour and so we did

Our clothes stuck to our skin and it made walking a little bit difficult

But I didn’t notice because you were just telling me

How the grass underneath our feet looked so neon green against the blue-gray-black-prussian sky

And how I told you I almost felt sorry for bedraggled crows that squawked helplessly on telegraph poles

But even detours end and we reached far too early far too late

The neighbours shook their heads

Young Love they said

It will all die down some day

The day she finds stacks of dirty magazines or traces of another woman behind the sofa or he finds out what she really looks like in the morning or how old she really is

But for now it’s all good

Just like summer rain.

So, random thank-you-post-its, because SGpt tagged on Facebook, and I publicly announce them on this limited-readership blog. (Not a good thing.)
Thank You:
For the word Cabrao, which is very useful, and means two very conveniently useful things.
For Rui, who told me what Cabrao meant. And what Cabrao also meant.
For All Dat We Dun, Luk Watchu Dun!
For the Purging Power of Music.
For Western Music which has made me sick of Matthew Bellamy.
For SGpt, who writes tremendously incoherent, seventeen-ish syllable haikus.
For Saccharine, that makes Sugar-free lives so easy and accessible.
For the little thing that allows me to hide Offline even when I'm actually Online.
For Jet Jetski Jetschkei Gidlew Gupta, the most-unkiller ibbly-gibbly-pootie-dog that I am still not afraid of.
For Forrest Gump, a pwner of a movie.
For Female-Ireland, who let us review it.
And for Ireland, who gave us Mr. Lightbody.

Amen.

I love Wolves.
My favourite kind of wolves live in the Iberian Peninsula, which is the Spain-Portugal area along the coast.
They are called Iberian Wolves, aka Canis Lupus Signatus.
I must save them.
And if you find them pretty and conservable, GoEco has a very amazing plan. Which I would LOVE to be a part of, but the biological conspiracy that I am a part of renders me all of sixteen-year-old for almost forever. But look at this link.
http://www.goeco.org/47169/Volunteer_in_Portugal_in_Wolves_coservation_program
And if you're still not psyched, look at the gorgeousness that you will be helping to protect: