I wrote this while I was in India, but I know it still applies. I've said all these things in less articulate and eloquent ways, but it's still worth it to write it down.
It’s a funny thing, loving someone from far away. After a while it’s like you’re living with this dull ache that you almost forget to notice. Like an old injury that’s always been there, but flares up right before it rains. And every time I eat a great meal or learn something new or realize something silly or interesting the air feels humid and the clouds start to gather and I can smell the moisture before it hits the earth. And it hurts. How can it be that in a place where it’s sunny all the time my bones still crack and my muscles still twinge?
And it’s frustrating, exhausting, to be in a place that I want to be able love with everything I have but just can’t manage to. Because I’ll never love a place enough to forget what it’s like to be with you. Anywhere I go I find things that you would love, that you would share, that would mean something to you. I see visions of you in the ruins of Hampi, the okra from the Mess Hall, the mosumbi juice at the juice stand, the Nilgiri Hills. In the way that I talk and in the way that I see. And it’s on days like today, when the sun is just as hot as it always is, that I feel the storm coming.
And then I start thinking. Because I want to feel like I’m something more than the mountains or the rivers, that a place isn’t really a place without me. And it’s bold to want to be more indelible than the crevices in the stone that has stood for thousands of years, than the water that has managed to cut through that stone like glass. But I think you’ll forgive me for my audacity.
It’s a funny thing, loving someone from far away. After a while it’s like you’re living with this dull ache that you almost forget to notice. Like an old injury that’s always been there, but flares up right before it rains. And every time I eat a great meal or learn something new or realize something silly or interesting the air feels humid and the clouds start to gather and I can smell the moisture before it hits the earth. And it hurts. How can it be that in a place where it’s sunny all the time my bones still crack and my muscles still twinge?
And it’s frustrating, exhausting, to be in a place that I want to be able love with everything I have but just can’t manage to. Because I’ll never love a place enough to forget what it’s like to be with you. Anywhere I go I find things that you would love, that you would share, that would mean something to you. I see visions of you in the ruins of Hampi, the okra from the Mess Hall, the mosumbi juice at the juice stand, the Nilgiri Hills. In the way that I talk and in the way that I see. And it’s on days like today, when the sun is just as hot as it always is, that I feel the storm coming.
And then I start thinking. Because I want to feel like I’m something more than the mountains or the rivers, that a place isn’t really a place without me. And it’s bold to want to be more indelible than the crevices in the stone that has stood for thousands of years, than the water that has managed to cut through that stone like glass. But I think you’ll forgive me for my audacity.
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