Sep 2016
You were 2,937 miles away
white water rafting in a native equatorial 33 degree heat in a foreign land I've never even been close to or know much about,
(except of course the stereotypical facts that this country is overflowing with moose and is abundant in trees dripping with the most golden maple syrup leaves)
when it was 6pm here and 2pm there and ahead of your time I was trying to make sense of the mess of missing you in my head by embodying it in the mountain of clothes on my bedroom floor
accompanied by the local mainstream music radio station blasting from my neglected 3 year old speakers
(I couldn't find my aux cord at the time and desperate times call for desperate measures)
after all, background noise helps to block out the overhanging realisation that what I am physically doing is actually work, no matter how musically unappealing it may be.
Among the 4 chord formulaic chart tunes on repeat suddenly came an acoustic guitar and husky lyrics too personal to be relatable with an obliviousness to who the artist or what the song was and the fact that I didn't really care
but how all at once I froze in my 4 hours ahead future and my focus was replaced by the overwhelming wave of the feeling
of missing you.
Missing the one piece of my patchwork heart that stitched all the seams in the first place, and all that filled me in that moment was what writers and word enthusiasts would call Saudade; a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent someone that one loves, often carrying a repressed knowledge that the person of longing might never return. "The Love That Remains" permeated my heart and soul and you were 2,937 miles too far away to put my mind at ease,
white water rafting beneath halcyon skies the same colour turquoise as the oceans separating us, and
I know how much you love flying and I never told you at the time,
you know I had to hide that inside I was dying
when that message came through about the engine subsiding,
my life and breath were in my mouth while your flight was taken off the runway at 1am Eastern Time,
2,937 miles away you were cornered in an airport terminal
(there were complications involving an escalator and your luggage)
and all I could do was read your ongoing commentary from my room through a 6 by 10 centimetre phone screen and be the reassuring soulmate I am but
Sweetheart I was scared shitless of the possibility that you might not come home because of a thunderstorm at 1am on the other side of the world that I wouldn't even get to be afraid of while you would have loved every second of it.
I'm still trying to stop being scared of thunderstorms. So that maybe someday I can sit with you and watch all the different bursts of beautiful and terrifying shapes the lightning makes
-without stopping all the blood rushing to your hand from how hard I am squeezing it.
But contrary to my subconscious paranoia
You came back safe,
with more freckles for me to fall in love with and the abrupt addition of "eh"'s trailing off the ends of your sentences
along with the ability to allow my worn-out heart to finally resume it's steady beat the moment your feet touched down and at least we were looking at the same expanse of sky again.
Although it might take a while in our time zone with our clocks caught up before we make our ends meet again,
I will allow myself to take refuge in that knowledge that we are walking on the same stretch of soil under the same moon and
the constellations of stars you find comfort in talking to when you can't sleep.
Only 93 miles away this time.
white water rafting in a native equatorial 33 degree heat in a foreign land I've never even been close to or know much about,
(except of course the stereotypical facts that this country is overflowing with moose and is abundant in trees dripping with the most golden maple syrup leaves)
when it was 6pm here and 2pm there and ahead of your time I was trying to make sense of the mess of missing you in my head by embodying it in the mountain of clothes on my bedroom floor
accompanied by the local mainstream music radio station blasting from my neglected 3 year old speakers
(I couldn't find my aux cord at the time and desperate times call for desperate measures)
after all, background noise helps to block out the overhanging realisation that what I am physically doing is actually work, no matter how musically unappealing it may be.
Among the 4 chord formulaic chart tunes on repeat suddenly came an acoustic guitar and husky lyrics too personal to be relatable with an obliviousness to who the artist or what the song was and the fact that I didn't really care
but how all at once I froze in my 4 hours ahead future and my focus was replaced by the overwhelming wave of the feeling
of missing you.
Missing the one piece of my patchwork heart that stitched all the seams in the first place, and all that filled me in that moment was what writers and word enthusiasts would call Saudade; a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent someone that one loves, often carrying a repressed knowledge that the person of longing might never return. "The Love That Remains" permeated my heart and soul and you were 2,937 miles too far away to put my mind at ease,
white water rafting beneath halcyon skies the same colour turquoise as the oceans separating us, and
I know how much you love flying and I never told you at the time,
you know I had to hide that inside I was dying
when that message came through about the engine subsiding,
my life and breath were in my mouth while your flight was taken off the runway at 1am Eastern Time,
2,937 miles away you were cornered in an airport terminal
(there were complications involving an escalator and your luggage)
and all I could do was read your ongoing commentary from my room through a 6 by 10 centimetre phone screen and be the reassuring soulmate I am but
Sweetheart I was scared shitless of the possibility that you might not come home because of a thunderstorm at 1am on the other side of the world that I wouldn't even get to be afraid of while you would have loved every second of it.
I'm still trying to stop being scared of thunderstorms. So that maybe someday I can sit with you and watch all the different bursts of beautiful and terrifying shapes the lightning makes
-without stopping all the blood rushing to your hand from how hard I am squeezing it.
But contrary to my subconscious paranoia
You came back safe,
with more freckles for me to fall in love with and the abrupt addition of "eh"'s trailing off the ends of your sentences
along with the ability to allow my worn-out heart to finally resume it's steady beat the moment your feet touched down and at least we were looking at the same expanse of sky again.
Although it might take a while in our time zone with our clocks caught up before we make our ends meet again,
I will allow myself to take refuge in that knowledge that we are walking on the same stretch of soil under the same moon and
the constellations of stars you find comfort in talking to when you can't sleep.
Only 93 miles away this time.
