Nostalgia

Some days are better and some days are worse, but most days I find that, for at least a few brief moments, I am lost in a river of nostalgia... yesterday, (after spending a few hours on the continuing story) we spent the evening at a Tapas party in the Goleta hills (and we jammed with part of a local blues band... singing Dylan and the Eagles -snarf-, the Beatles, a trip of its own), which sent me back, of course, clara in hand (that's beer and 7-Up or its likeness, for the uninitiated), to a time when life was simpler and to a day when my main goal was communicating my amazement and terror and sheer joy of this world to a man, in a language that was not my own. I believe his name was Gonzálo, and he had a receding hair-line... I was 14 and with my tía Loli in Benidorm, he must have been 25 or so, but he did ask permission of my chaperone to take me out for a drink, and permission was granted. We walked the three or four blocks down the hill, in the heat of the afternoon and we sat across from one another, shelling peanuts, and drinking, of course, a clara (I still don't like the bitterness of beer, am I forever trapped as a teenage girl, just like my buddy J.?) I remember very little of the conversation that we had, but I recall that he patiently sat, as I struggled, undoubtedly mangling his language in many unseemly ways, as I tried to discuss international politics and the relatively young AIDS pandemic (I recall he taught me the word SIDA) from my extremely unsophisticated point-of-view. He sat with me for several hours, and several drinks, ok, 2, which were enough to make me a little dizzy even then. Or was it the midday heat? We walked back up the hill to the high-rise hotel where we both were staying, his friends were there waiting in the game-room for him, Loli, by the pool for me. I don't believe we touched, or if we did, it made no notable impact on my psyche, but the next day, as we were checking-out, his friends saw me and called up to their room for him to come down. He wanted to say good-bye, he asked for my address to write to me. All this time, it never occurred to me that he could want anything but pure friendship, but much like would later happen with Gabriel (who is too dear to be disected in a few mere brush strokes) I received, shortly upon returning to Pennsylvania, a letter so saturated with longing that I was thrown for a loop. What is in the power of an afternoon's conversation?

Last night, before we went out, I decided (as evidenced by subsequent photos) to put on make-up. I haven't done so more than once or twice in the last six years, I think, my wedding was the last time... but these españolas always look so clever and poised, and I. was so convincing that I decided to pull out a bag of tricks (unfortunately, not much can be done in my case). Among the blood red lipsticks and half-dry mascaras I discovered one, single, solitary condom. Also a vestige. I think... It had an expiration date, coincidentally, of 05/05... what happens, I wonder, to latex that expires? Does it go to condomnation? or for its earthly chastity, does it ascend to celestial spheres? Sadly, I stuck it back in the pouch, just so I can have a laugh next time I decide to put make-up on...

I was reminded of a me, age 18, intrigued by the University's policy of supplying condoms in every bathroom of every dorm (this is at a women's college, mind you)... now most of the girls, were too busy reading late into the night on Saturdays, or maybe that was just me avoiding the trials of a social life? Although, Jenny, do you still have the pictures we took when we decided to shed the bras at the bra dance? That would be good for a laugh, too... Needless to say, I had a whole strip of 5 stashed in my desk drawer, "just in case" from the first week of school as a freshman, until the last week of school, before Jenny's graduation, my sophomore year, just in case, my ass... What was I thinking? Even Cyntia, my Boricua buddy, was convinced that, as she crassly put it... "wait... what are you talking about?, I thought you didn't like dick..." Who knew...

There was that time that my friend Anita's ghostly-pale hippie boyfriend "missed" the last train and convinced me to let him crash on my floor for the night, only to sleep naked in the sleeping bag I provided him, and to mysteriously make it into my bed, sans sleeping bag, halfway through the night... That could have been a "just in case" moment, I suppose, had I not drop kicked him back onto the floor, that is...

So the real question is... if I am getting older, why am I still transported by the words of the rock-philosopher in leather pants, Bono, when he croons "You say you'll give me/ Eyes in a moon of blindness/ A river in a time of dryness/ A harbour in the tempest/ But all the promises we make/ From the cradle to the grave/ When all I want is you"?

Does this melancholy just get worse as we age?