I imagine he is sleeping right now. Nearly 5,000 miles and an ocean apart. The sun in Seattle has just set and I have put the last of the dinner dishes away. It’s been 36 days and I have officially exhausted all of my feral fancies: dancing in the living room to Robin, feeding the sourdough starter that was gifted to me, poetry classes, ferry rides across the Puget Sound, naps on Saturday afternoons, joy rides on sunny days, trips to Target, hours spent reading in the park, and Happy Hours filled with a healthy dose of commiseration and speculation. This past month has been an experiment in solitude, singularity, and imagination.
I often return back to the memory of our first meeting. Unexpected and completely unsanctioned. I turned around to be cordial and was suddenly struck by a familiarity that transcended time and place. All I remember are his green eyes. I knew them so well. The weeks and months that followed were a blur.
Falling in love was the single best and worst experience of my life. It taught me that I am capable of things I never imagined. Like missing a rent check. And spotting the different shades of green in a $10 bill. Everything moved in slow motion. I remember the colors and sounds of every moment. That first dinner we shared still lives on my tongue: Thai-style chicken wings and sticky rice. I remember talking through the night about the nature of reality, waking the next morning to an early snow in late October. A miracle followed by a miracle, followed by a miracle. That is how I would describe it.
Right now I am sitting in our kitchen. Our cat is stretched across the table (only here when I am). Our bookshelf is bowing under the weight of our library. Our record player is resurrecting the sounds of Alice Coltrane. It does not escape me that at one point in time all of this was a dream, an unspoken secret tucked inside of my heart. Now I am sitting inside of this manifest destiny, this once unimaginable possibility.
My life has been anything but ordinary. From migration and poverty to ivy league and the metaverse. I sometimes feel like I have hit some magnificent lottery of experiences. Yet, I never once expected true love. Especially not the at-first-sight kind. I did not grow up imagining the white dress or the white picket fence. Instead, I grew up imagining Italian piazzas, Indian spice markets, Vietnamese coffee, and Florida oranges. I imagined early mornings in museums and late nights in local bars. I imagined the Northern Lights, the Grand Canyon, the Big Apple. Romance that transcended the formula of family.
It’s been 36 days since we sang together. 36 days since we talked about things like the Stoned Ape Theory or panpsychism. 36 days since we caught up on bad reality TV after stressful work days. 36 days since we planned our next camping trip and conspired to cook Korean noodles on our new Snow Peak portable stove.
I miss him. I feel it in every inch of my day. In the silence before I fall asleep. In the empty passenger seat when I drive to the supermarket. In ten days we will reunite. Outside of some dreary terminal at the local airport. In ten days I will smell him and wipe his crumbs off the kitchen counter. In ten days we will talk about what it was like to be so far apart after a lockdown spent side-by-side. In ten days, we will drink tea together, and sit on our couch, and listen to our radio, and pet our cat, and bask in the million small, quiet details that make up our shared life.
It has been eight years. Only eight years. Eight out of a lifetime. We have eaten tex-mex in the southwest, chased after express trains in the Lower East Side, danced at house parties, drunk wine in the back rooms of our friends’ restaurants, walked barefoot through the hindu temple, lived in a small bedroom with too many house-mates to name, woken up beneath starry skies curled inside of our tent, eaten fresh-picked corn, supported gallery openings, navigated immigration applications, eaten leftovers three nights in a row, roadtripped across the country, nursed each other back to health through flus and hangovers, kissed on the Brooklyn Bridge, argued about parking in the Whole Foods lot, exchanged gifts, laughed at one another’s culinary blunders, attended awful weddings and winked to each other from across the room.
I think about those who came before us. Who loved before we loved. Our parents. Our grand-parents. Our entire human lineage. They loved in times of famine and war, through bull markets and good health. They loved so that we could love. That’s the legacy we have inherited, regardless of the details. That is the great human superpower.
I imagine he will wake soon. A full night’s worth of dreams evaporating into the early morning light. 5,000 miles away I am blowing out the living room candles, fluffing the couch cushions, and turning down the bedding. I am falling asleep with gratitude in my heart. And love. So so so much love.