It doesn't matter what he falls in love with. It can be the sunset over the Pacific Ocean on a breezy evening the first night. It can be a color painted on a house that looks like it's falling apart, but he knows is still alive because someone who lives there paid for the paint and painted it that color for a reason. It can be a phrase in a language that he may or may not understand; his first words in that language, or slang that doesn't exist anywhere else but in that town at that very moment. It can be a song that repeats again and again on the radio, or even only once, that is so loved he remembers it days later, is still humming its tune without knowing the words or name. It can be a friend he makes, a woman on the street who shows him the way, a father who mixes strong drinks for recent arrivals, a maid who squeezes fresh juice and kills the spiders in his bedroom.
He can fall in love with a woman. It doesn't matter if she falls for him in return, he needn't even know her--her name, her favorite color--for he can be in love with her smile or her walk or her mere presence. He can fall in love with a night, or with a fantasy. He can fall in love with a smell, a dance, an old blind man sitting on the street corner playing the accordian with a smile on his face because, even though he is blind, there is no real reason to frown. He can fall in love with the strange bed he sleeps in every night. He can fall in love without knowing what he's fallen in love with.
To love a country, one must fall in love with it. He cannot reach every part, he doesn't have time to reflect and weigh those things he likes with those things he doesn't. No, the happy traveler is soaring on love--it is love that makes him stay, keep returning. He must return to his sunset, his song, his woman, that maid, or something like it. He is in love, and thus yearns without his lover near him, dreams of it, fantasizes. Perhaps it is the only bit of ridiculousness he allows himself, and so it exists always like a euphoric drug that he thinks of sipping everyday.
He must be in love afterall, for leaving is heartbreak.
posted by iliza @ 10:35 PM
1 Comments:
Hey I came across the link for your blog and I really like the way you write... and this piece is so true... especially about the breeze and sunset and paint color of a house...reminded me of old san juan puerto rico...even that's not really a country i guess...but anyways : )
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