For Lack of Better Words, This! ...

Willing Exile: And the Word Is ... Love

I wish this could be easier, but I am way past adolescence to agonize over it. So here goes (sigh).

I’m way deep into what I’d like to say intense infatuation. Yeah, I won’t kid myself about it. I’m in love.

Who is she? That’s not important. At least to you, Constant Reader, would it really matter if she’s just the girl who bandaged my knee at the hospital the other week or the woman whom I’ve helped with her remittance back home at Western Union? What she does is less important than who she is.

Who is she? No, she isn’t the girl in the billboard commercial, or the girl swaying her hips at some reality show. She isn’t a voyeuristic fantasy, though it may feel that way after these months of enforced solitude.

I’m in love with this girl, this woman, not because she has some ethereal beauty that would take one’s breath away. Well, maybe to other people, but to me, she does. She has the fluid grace that fills my soul my heart just wants to stop and be forever overwhelmed. But even then, that’s not the reason why I feel for her the way I do.

I’ve always longed for connection, where there is a true meeting of minds that eclipses the idea of physical intimacy. It’s been long in coming here in Saudi Arabia, mainly because I have been reluctant to allow myself the opportunity, no, the beauty of finding someone. Is she the one? Maybe.

It really seems unfair to you, Constant Reader, not to let you in on the details of this. But that is where suggestion and perception will do their part --- I will pretend I am making a suggestion to this effect, and you will pretend that you have perceived my actual meaning. In that way we can lie to one another that I have actually achieved my goal and you truly understand what I intend to say.

Anyhow, I’m stalling since I have not reached into the true heart of the matter.

WHO…

(Do you really have to know?)

IS…

(Well, if I’m actually going to admit…)

SHE?

If you know your Kevin Costner movies, her first name is the same as the true name of Mary McDonnell’s character in “Dances with Wolves.” Okay, that’s a dead giveaway, unless you don’t know your Google. If you want another giveaway, try the name of Arnie Cunningham’s best friend. It’s a name that was very popular in the 1960’s, or so I’m told. It’s one of my favorite names as well, as far as the girls I have had relationships go --- once during high school and another during that short time I taught in Pampanga.

But anyhow, I let her onto the secret and she turned me down. I asked her permission to proceed, and she shot me down.

I’m sure she has her own reasons, valid in her own mind, and since I asked her stand on it, I’ll have to let it be and respect her decision.

Sure, I was devastated. I still am. I was one of those idiots who said being good friends is enough. Hell, no! Nobody says that thing with any certainty unless he isn’t really invested in having a relationship. Oh yeah, I lied, or better yet, I wasn’t really thinking straight at that time. Being in love turns my brain to mush.

But hey, a few months ago I almost broke my leg and it still hurts like hell. I’m still alive. (Side note: when she and I danced, I budged my knee a little --- TWICE --- and the pain was excruciating. Yeah, I’m not kidding about that kind of pain). I was about to play Lennon-McCartney’s “I’m A Loser” but then again, it wasn’t ALL that bad. It’s not as if I put my heart through a wringer pining for her affections.

(Small voice: By the way, don’t believe any word of good humor here. I’m a sore loser.)

It’s funny --- in a different way --- that we get along so well even when we agreed to disagree. I don’t know what about having a relationship with me makes it “uncomfortable” for her… maybe she has some secret thing that I am completely unaware of, or that she has some unbreakable commitment. I honestly don’t know, and at this point, I don’t want to ask because I don’t want to know the answer.

I hope it’s not the last of these things, and until she tells me differently, I am waiting for her to change her mind. Scratch that, I’m praying for her to change her mind (and if she happens to read this, well, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).

Sure, in this place and time I’ll manage to find someone else. It’s not impossible, but it sure feels like it. And I’m not about to lie about my heart. It stays broken until a true love comes to fix it.

BAKIT BA GANYAN? (Male Version)
(Marvic Sotto)

Bakit ba ganyan?
Ang ibig ko'y lagi kang pagmasdan
Umula't umaraw ay hindi pagsasawaan
Ang iyong kagandahan.
Damdamin ko'y ibang-iba
Kapag kapiling ka, sinta.

Ewan ko, kung bakit ba ganyan
Damdamin ay di maintindihan . . .
Kailangan ang pag-ibig mo
Dahil sa ako'y nagmamahal sa 'yo
Magmula nang kita'y makilala.

Bakit ba ganyan
Kung minsan ay nauutal sa kaba
Kapag ika'y kausap na?
Ngunit lumalakas ang loob
Kung ikaw ay nakatawa.

Ewan ko kung bakit ba ganyan
Damdamin ay di maintindihan . . .
Kailangan ang pag-ibig mo
Dahil sa ako'y nagmamahal sa 'yo
Magmula nang kita ay makilala (oh)

Ewan ko kung bakit ba ganyan
Damdamin ay di maintindihan . . .
Kailangan ang pag-ibig mo
Dahil sa ako'y nagmamahal sa 'yo
Magmula nang kita ay makilala.

Postscript: This song brings back memories of 1979 and the year Dina Bonnevie first broke out into the Philippine entertainment scene. Sure, she's a mother twice over and all that, but nothing changes that first flush of awareness that females are an altogether interesting subject. Naturally, I can't use her version --- the duet version with Vic Sotto is the definitive one, though in the late '80s Melissa Gibbs, during her peak hottie days, released a version that is widely available on the 'Net. It's not my song for HER, not until there is some sort of affirmation, but the song does leave a positive touch to an otherwise dreary post, don't you think?