Alone at Brisas del Mar

I spent Saturday afternoon looking through my boxes of photos. Most of the photos I found in my grandmother’s wooden chest chronicled my life from the time I became a mother. I realized love is, as I suspected as young woman, truly different after one becomes a mother. For me, it felt like there was a secret bubble of emotions hidden in my soul that irreparably ruptured when I gave birth, allowing the emotions to flow out uncontrollably. I knew I could never go back to having my love neatly bundled and tucked safely inside me.

While I examined pictures of myself, looking for signs of my feelings and thoughts, I found nothing but a smiling face. I remembered feeling happy at times, but mostly unsettled and lonely. When I slept that night, these thoughts were operating in the deeper regions of my mind and wake me early in the morning. There was the unsettled feeling again, a feeling that I didn’t live on the same earth as everyone else. My father’s favorite question was, “what’s the matter with you?” and it confirmed the feeling I was defective in some way I never understood. I got up and had some tea; it was a good time to write.

Amakusa called me early in the day on Sunday and we arranged to meet at my skybox over Brisas del Mar at 10:00 pm with photos in hand. I had promised a picture of myself as a college student and he was to bring his head-shot. In searching through my photos, I had only found a few from my life before children. I posted them to my flickr to share them with him. I arrived shortly after 10:00 and spent a pleasant couple of hours in IM with some friends and creating experimental jewelry. There was no conciliatory IM from Amakusa or text message on my cell.

When midnight had come and gone, I said good night to my friend and stood looking across the deck to the gray sky. The wind chimes were making their mournful sound, like the horn of a faraway train, recalling my loneliness for him. I had fallen in love, but it’s a love that can’t be held safely within and not even close-by. Today, Amakusa will work in the field and I didn’t understand that he would return to his home at night. He may be incommunicado for days or I may never hear from him again. After finishing my work day and after chatting with my friends, I may end my day alone at Brisas del Mar.