Sunday, May 6, 2012

Observations

This probably isn't the right place for an entry of this nature, but so be it.  'Observations and musings', right?

I have been in love exactly 3 times in my life.  I have also had 3 girls who were confirmed to be in love with me.  Sadly, those situations did not completely mirror each other.  Life is a funny thing that way.

Love has never been something I've had a great handle on.  Feelings like jealousy, anger, admiration, and embarrassment often work to subvert any deeper feelings which may underwrite a given situation, and it becomes easy to mistake the forest for the trees.  Often it becomes easier to think about what just happened, rather than the big picture.  Often it becomes easier to react to one specific action, rather than acknowledge the volatility of human emotion.  People have good days, and people have bad days.  And for those of us (almost everyone) who have trouble reading other people, miscommunications can often lead us down some very dark and undesired paths.

But as I've aged, and accumulated experiences and memories along the trail I've bivouacked, I've found that both the devil and the angels reside in the details.  It is what you can notice when nobody thinks you're looking that give you the answers that you may be searching for.  For your consideration, here are two examples.

Recently, I was seeing a fellow extranjera in Santiago.  She was a sweet girl, a native English speaker with a flair for the sarcastic and biting.  I was immediately drawn to her sense of humor and her intelligence.  It also helped that we were both these islands, afloat in a sea of latin culture and looking for a sounding board for our inner dialogues.  We immediately connected.  But after a while, it became clear that our chemistry was largely based upon circumstance and superficialities, rather than a personal connection.  I was able to notice things like this only rarely, but it became obvious that she would not internalize comments I made, just as I would forget things she would tell me about her situation or things that happened to her.  Slowly we drifted apart, and things came to an unceremonious end.

Around the same time things were unraveling with my extranjera, I met a Chilean girl.  She was incredibly reserved, quiet, and initially unimpressive.  We ran in mutual circles, and over time we shared a few constipated conversations about mundane things.  Things between us were always congenial, and her disposition was never short of saccharine.  But things never seemed to click.  We would dance together, smile, and share snippets of humor across the language barrier, but things seemed to stall out there.  I was convinced that nothing could ever breach the wall set before us, and so things stayed.  Then one day we had lunch together.  And while the two of us ate, I picked up on something.  When we talked in our constipated unnative dialects, there was something resonating beneath the surface.  As she talked, I found myself drawn to every word she uttered, entranced by her mannerisms and expressions.  And I noticed when I was talking, no matter how stupid the things exiting my brain were, she hung on every word.  There was a look in her eyes - a look of admiration, affection, and (dare I say) love.  The words almost seemed unimportant.

The moral of the story is, anybody can put a good foot forward.  People can look you in the eyes and lie, people can tell you one thing and think another, and people can logically explain away almost anything.  But nobody can be 'on' all the time.  Over time, everybody flashes you a view of the cards they are holding, it's only up to you to look for them.  It's when they think you are not looking that they tell you everything you need to know.

Funny, the things you learn thousands of miles from home.