Sunday, March 30, 2008

Simplicity

August 2007

Sometimes I wonder whether KP ever thinks of me. I mean he must do sometimes? Just like I did a moment ago, when I saw “Staying Alive – real poems for real times” on the table. He bought it for me. I think I’d read about it in the Sunday Times and he sent off for it and proudly presented it to me. He knew he’d “done good”, even though he didn’t understand the impulse to read such matter. He was like that. He aimed to please. The first weekend he came down to stay with me, by the time I’d showered, he’d moved the kitchen table outside into the Springtime sun complete with tulips in a vase and two lots of scrambled eggs and tea. So I’m trying to think what he might still have as a reminder of me. He won’t look at the photo albums of course, they are probably gathering dust in a white drawer in the spare bedroom of his parents house. But he loved two photos that I framed of him and a close friend chatting at dusk in the Bejan sea. I’m sure he’ll still have those and he won’t think of me every time he looks at them…but maybe sometimes, he will.

I try not to think like this any more. But this has been prompted by something else. My first love…the one with whom I listened to Chopin when falling asleep. Our relationship was never easy. We’re too similar, too complex, too in tune with each other. We fought. Vicious attacks taking chunks out of eachother; if I swiped he would swipe harder until we were both a sodden, bloody, mess. But we did love eachother, possibly more than either of us will ever love anyone. But it was painful, all four years of it. And being back in touch and older and wiser, we still have to fight this urge to swipe at eachother. He’s sent me an email. We must decide if we want to be together, to get married, to live happily ever after. Except he knows as I do, that happily ever after would be hard work for us. It could be brilliant, a relationship whereby you are so in tune, you know the other’s thoughts at a precise moment in time. We know why the other swipes, we understand eachother’s reactions, to everything… pretty much… so if we understand, can we learn to behave differently? “Tell me when you have felt most loved by me” he says in his email. This is difficult, because I know he loves me, more than anyone ever has. But I can’t remember a time when that physically manifested itself without any pain. Maybe it’s just too long ago. I remember one time coiled in a ball on his lap after we had split up but were still living together. He was chatting to our flatmate, I was zoned out in my own little world, loved by his long arms wrapped around me and sad because I knew I wanted him to leave nonetheless. Every holiday, every night out… I remember the love but I remember the fights spoiling it time after time after time. And whilst trying to remember when I felt most loved, my mind wondered to KP, and the scrambled eggs. A simple gesture, probably not given with half as much love but certainly given without any pain. And of course it was simpler, because KP didn’t feel any pain, that’s why he didn’t understand me and why my first love does.

But I guess, I want love without pain. I want simplicity. I want scrambled eggs in springtime sunshine and I don’t want rainy clouds destroying it half way through.

The question I can’t answer is “are my first love and I capable of achieving this together?”