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Of winters and fogs and romances

With winters come fog and sudden thunder showers and a slowly coiling mist that envelopes us in swirls, as if some giant out of a Nordic myth was blowing smoke rings, resting on a moss leaden Hereafter, listening to god shifting furniture and creating peals of clashes and crashes and sighs. With winters come woolen scarves that remind you, in their stitching, of the loving hands that had held the noodles and unraveled the ball of yarn to weave magic and prayers and love in those stitches, to keep you warm and safe, like the magical scabbard of Avalon for Excalibur. With winters come long nights where, if you speak, you see your words rolled up in a joint, smoked by invisible hands all around you, drifting, as if with a jet lag, lingering a while before they hit somebody into meaning. With winters, come the need to feel the reassurance of another body – something warm and breathing and alive, to let you know that your blood rushes through your pulses, not in vain but to love and to be loved.

 Star Gatherer, Not Angelina Jolie and I, were sipping hot chocolate, huddled over the faint steam from the gleaming cups, feeling like three witches pouring over a cauldron, deciphering the portents of fates and things to come. ‘I am a romantic’ Not Angelina Jolie said, in a voice that quivered with desire and wistfulness all at once. ‘A Romantic.’ She repeated. We waited, our hands hugging the warm cups, our eyes unblinking, waiting for her to say more.

 ‘I don’t mean romance like red roses and poetry and violins, you know. I mean romance as something deeper. For me, it is about opening eyes every morning and to know that I am who I am.’ She shook her long dark brown hair like a mare and sipped some chocolate. ‘I am a romantic. When I was small… little…in the small Italian village, where the Church looks over you and everybody knows everybody else, and everybody is a little insane… dreams were looked as the work of devil. There was no time for dreaming. The men were busy earning money and the women were busy looking after the house, the food, the children or each other. Marriages were not made in heaven but around fires, where a lot of old women gathered, with wool in their hands, and decided that he should marry her, you know. When I told my mother that I have dreams – of flying away to new lands, to new people to meet somebody I loved, my mother, she told me that those are dreams for little children. You can dream them when you are sleeping but one day you must wake up. When you are little children, you are allowed to dream those dreams but when you grow up, you must grow up.’

 She paused as we both nodded. When you grow up, you must grow up. And there is no more to that line. ‘But I knew that I wanted my dreams. I loved them. I believed in them. And so I ran away… I ran away from that village, that church, that god, those people. And I am here now. And I am living my dreams. And so I am a romantic. Because I dream and I don’t live in my dreams but I live them.’ She said and smiled and threw her fey head to the heavens and smiled. ‘So it is good. Because even if I wake up, I will still be living my dreams.’

There was a well rounded silence that rustled through the winter air like leaves in an enchanted forest whispering secrets that they dreamed of. In the foggy silence, a single pine cone plopped into the lake we were sitting by. Far away, on the to of a building now hidden under the veils of winter, a red light blinked in an urgent sort of a way, flirting with the stars that twinkled back at it.

 Star Gatherer gathered himself and smiled his slow smile that starts around his mouth and gradually reaches his eyes. ‘I used to think I am a romantic. Once upon a time, there was a young boy who lived on the wrong side of everything. The wrong side of the country, the wrong side of the poverty line, the wrong side of sexuality. And he always dreamed, dreamed, dreamed that one day he will cross over and get to the right side. And all his life people told him that he was a romantic. Because things never change. Things are the way they are.’ He lay his head on my shoulder. Not Angelina Jolie took his hand in her lap and pressed it close in hers. ‘And for a long time…’ he said, in a voice that quivered with nostalgia, ‘And for a long time, the boy dreamt of being on the right side. He tried so hard to be what he was not. He worked so much at being on the right side, the better side, the other side. And then one day, he met somebody else. Somebody who made him realize that he is who he is and it is the best side to be on – the side that you are on, the way that you are. And so now I don’t dream of being something else or somebody else. I am me. The way I am. I no longer need romance. Reality is enough. And there is no space for romance in reality.’ And he smiled his smile again.

 The hot chocolate was now more a cold chocolate and the night was slowly staining into a deeper inky blue. There was an expectant silence. We worked in threesomes, the three of us. It was my turn to tell them. But somehow words didn’t flow out. I looked around and lied… ‘I am not a romantic. I don’t believe in it any more. I used to be romantic once and dream of finding love, happiness, a life long partner, a home, a family… but not any more. Now I am a grown up. I am just happy with the things that I have and grateful for the people who love me. I used to be romantic once and cry at candle lit nothings and poetry and melodramatic soap operas and Disney cartoons and happily ever afters. But I don’t any more. ‘ and shrugged my shoulders and looked around for more comfort caffeine.

 Not Angelina Jolie got up and hugged placed her head on my shoulder so that our cheeks touched. Star Gatherer came and huddled next to me, and wrapped me in his long arms. We were all silent for a few instances and then Not Angelina Jolie pinched me on the cheek and Star Gatherer trussed me harder in a hug and both of them exclaimed at the same time, ‘Liar…!’ and we all broke into giggles and laughter. They know me too well to trust my words.