Tag Archives: experiential learning

The written and the read.

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I received the most touching mail wishing me well with my new found love.
However, my little anecdote is not about a one love, but the discovery that I still have the capacity to throw my heart over a windmill and perhaps not worry about whether it lands in the right place. Just experience the emotion and the euphoria of doing it, without counting the cost – and most importantly the discovery that the cost is not what matters at all. It is the enjoyment of the feeling; whether it is fleeting or lasting must be left in the hands of the Gods.
I say that quite deliberately, because the moment you start to anticipate the where, what, how, what if ? It’s finished, it’s lost, the euphoria is gone. All those human things will creep in, the doubt, the uncertainty, the wanting, the needing, to have, to hold. With that dissapears the essence of that pure, soaring flight. Why would you want to do that? Also that is what prevents you from throwing that heart over in the first place. Caught for a moment, caught forever, who knows?  If one does it often enough maybe it will entwine with another such floating feeling and fly forever.
Also the learning that no matter what the age, love feels very much the same, there may not be as much angst to it with experience, because perhaps you, like me, can discover it to be a many splendoured thing, but it can be as silly, as electrifying, as embarrasing and as euphoric at 18 and at perhaps 80.
So in short, no my friend, I still have not found the man who will walk beside me and I wasn’t even looking. But now I think, if I can risk it then perhaps there is somewhere out there ‘The Passionate Shephard’ type of man who will risk saying those magic words too.

It’s raining men!

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IMG_4251Nice one’s too. I decided a time ago that the male energy does not fit in my space as a constant, it was a lovely, comfortable feeling; I would not be looking for the sharing and caring, just enjoying the fun of it. It’s been wonderful so far. Other than that decision, I also figured that after living a certain number of years one perhaps does not fall in love – or atleast not ‘fall’ like at 18. I once asked my mother, ‘so when does love and sex cease to be important?’ She said, ‘never.’ I thought, ‘sweet Mommy, what a romantic!’

So here am I, following my well laid plans and another delight rains down on me, or rather creeps up on me. We met and wandered up the mountain, delightful. So many intrinsic similarities, so much to talk about, great companionship – total support (remember we take people up mountains and that’s what we were doing) much laughter. The first wariness should have warned me, we were avoiding each other. But this awareness is coming in hindsight. Atleast I was avoiding him, I don’t know if I imagined him avoiding me. But we were still together in strategic places because it was necessary to share those things, we had a connection, it couldn’t be helped – I would wait to show him the best angle for the sunset (eeks) Did I even know I was doing it? This remembrance is wholly embarrassing. Has it started sounding like that 18 year old yet? It keeps getting better. So be together, bond and then feign indifference. Pretending that one is not feeling all the things one is actually feeling ( so comfortable and happy to be together) – know that one? Straight out of trashy romance.

Then it’s over, trip over, large goodbye party, tears and speeches all around – pour the heart out, because there is an excuse for it and you can in public forum – ‘you are like my alter ego – and – I will never forget you’ – cheese and all in the spirit of the moment and you believe it too. That’s all it is another trip, another lot of great people sharing a great time.

Go away, immersed in something completely different. Come back and realize we have a few more days together, just us. Amazing fun and those two days fly and so do I, and now all my preconceived notions have flown away.

The damn heart has a feeling in it, I don’t even want to call it a yearning or a pain, that means it gets a definition. How incomplete one is, when one is conceptualizing this wholly wise being, and you don’t want to admit that Mommy was right, you are an idiot and romance exists and no matter how long that heart has lived it still knows how to go pitter patter. Isn’t that completely exciting, just the discovery that this feeling can still happen – not just the bubbles and glee – but the angst too. Gracias mi amigo for rejuvenating a lost part of me.

IMG_4247Sorry for flawed photographs, but I only try to capture moments and know nothing about composition and the fact that an insect sat on the lens.

One last night in Spain

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Just spoke to Anjali while sitting sipping beer and listening to great old time music being played in the plaza under the floodlit Walls of the Alhambra … With a moon shining down. What does one do with so much overload?

Just figuring that I think romance is a soul thing, not necessarily a sharing thing. This night was so full of romance, it was soul searing and utterly beautiful, but you know what came to mind? I could not think of wanting to, actually, share it with anyone. Because it was so perfect to me, it may not be so for another and that would so take away from it.

I sat watching people walking up and down, across from me the plaza was full, the fountain sparkled, and beyond the river was a forested hill crowned with the food lit castle. There was a man with a guitar, another with a harmonica and one with a violin, they played besame mucho, the lambada and so many other remembered oldies. I sat there with a grin and a Jerez amontillado. Finally decided – ok enough already, let’s go home and sleep, so started walking away, just before I was to leave the plaza turned one last time and what do I see but the moon behind me shining on this whole vista, so I just sat on the parapet and soaked it all in some more, the breeze, the sound of the water, the music and the magic of the night.

I truly sat there thinking: who is the one person that I have known in my life that I could/would have  wanted to share this with. Honestly, not a one who would have enriched this more than it was. Yes for sure one of you, my old langotias or my girls would have shared it and savoured, but as in, would someone to be with have made this more, no.

Ladies, my bestest friends in the world, I missed you, a trip like this around one of these countries begs to be done with us.