L'amour

"I love him." She says. And she says it over and over and day in and day out.

Makes me think of the lyrics from a song I used to sing a long time ago: "Where is love? Does it fall from skies above?"

I've been accused of not understanding it. To scoff with disdain at the futility of dates and silly simpering stares in coffee shops. Guilty as charged. Dating is not love. Setting a date to meet up and then going frantic waiting for the day to arrive when you wash your hair with the good shampoo that makes it bounce, and then turn up in something you think you look good in but which the guy will barely notice is not love! It is however, one hell of an effort!

What I think love means...

Time. It means having all the time in the world to give and waste. To count hours. To count minutes or even seconds before you get to see them. To ponder over days or weeks or months. To spend together countless years and decades perhaps. To live in moments big and small when everything seems to unfold as if only for the two of you.

It means long walks in absolute silence on lost roads and warm hands with entwined fingers. When you stop looking for stops and signs and transport and conversation.

It means caterpillars, moths and butterflies, the works! It means a warm fuzzy feeling at the goofiness and the intimacy and the hugs and scents.

It means pain. It means heart wrenching sobs which tear you up on the inside and which you still do for that one person. It means an ache which grows and smoulders within.

Love lasts. It's as simple as that. You either know that feeling or you don't. It's not a story or a fairytale. It doesn't always have happy endings. It's as simple as the feeling of warmth.

Us, Girls

Quick to judge and quicker to love. That's what we are, us carefree girls. Careworn too sometimes. Seemingly innocent, with shadows of doubts beneath our eyes, we get lost in our own various defences.
My trail of charm is different than hers and hers and hers. Maybe someone picked up the wrong scent and traced it back to the wrong girl. We hold our heads high in our fathomless mistakes made for and by others and secretly flounder.
I know I am always slightly confused and secretly alert. As I watch the others I know that they are too. All of us are on the lookout for the signs from each other about our own trails and travails.
Sometimes the most innocuous of words become infested with a plethora of meanings and then we ponder and think and construe.

Praha

I miss Prague. Some things more than most.

- Snow outside. A few hares on the football field. All of us in Mr. Ackerman's stifling hot room strumming away on our guitars. Blueberry muffins on the table and hot steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Me, the expert in taking picks out of guitar cavities and the seniors always wanting to attempt "Smells like Teen Spirit" even though we're meant to be perfecting "Scarborough Fair" (Simon and Garfunkel).

- Grossetos. This amazing restaurant off of Dejvice where we'd land up after school and order a pizza each. Followed by grape ice cream with whipped cream. Begimai, the scatterbrain, Ayla, the GAP wearing artist and Eileen, the prim and proper Singaporean with the numerous music lessons. We were so oblivious to everything else but us. I miss them.

- The tennis tournament. Where he turned up to watch and promptly got escorted off the courts for yelling at someone in Russian for dissing on me.

- Phys. Ed. Class and softball. A spectacular catch by anyone's standards ruined by the fact that I threw the ball straight at Sharkey's head in an attempt to get another out. Him lying sprawled on the ground while I sprint for an ice pack and come back to find a frantic Begimai trying to get him to count her fingers.

- The architecture. Beautiful.

Romantic at Heart

To Alex.
You're so far away. And I never told you. I never told you that I cared. That you mattered. That you made me smile and still do. I never told you that those roses I left in a lonely bush on my way home from school were the most beautiful flowers I have ever received. I never told you that I was scared that it would go away. That perhaps you'd finally see me properly and realise something I never wanted you to. I never told you that you made me happy. And now, when you sit oceans away and cultures apart, now when I know that we will never meet, I feel that you should know what I never told you. I never told you that I think I always loved you too.

And So It Begins

I stare at my lap. Look out of the window. Stare at my lap again. Look out of the window again. I have never been this nervous. Or perhaps I have and don't remember.
He seems fine. Drives. Smokes. Drives.
I wonder if he's smoking because he's nervous too.
"Is it the music?" he asks.
"No." I am mortified. I curse every single Western musician silently under my breath and then myself for never having been able to understand or appreciate it!
I'm actually very proud of myself for keeping so quiet! I guess he notices as well.
"What's with the silence?"
I smile. I feel like a retard but I smile.
He gives me this huge grin and I realise I'm fine.
It begins to rain and I gather up the courage to fiddle with the radio. I give him a sideways look to see if he minds. It doesn't look like he does. I feel myself suddenly relaxing. I smile again.
A long drive and a bit of rain and a little bit of music.