intimate walk with Roger

We took the ferry to Amsterdam North. I wanted to show him the cute, little Dutch houses on the Nieuwendijk and the other dijk-villages facing the Ijsselmeer. I was in a very good mood despite the greyness of the day. I found myself bubbly and entertaining. Roger seemed to be feeling pleasant as well. He told me he had gotten drunk the night before at Melkorka’s birthday party and needed to pee a lot. He had peed in a bottle earlier that morning since he didn’t want to go down to Ria’s flat. He lives in her attic. Sometimes he also goes out on the roof and pees there. But that morning he filled up the whole bottle with his pee.
Now thinking back, I wonder if all this entertaining, light-hearted energy was really genuine for both of us, or if it was partly forced. There is also a shyness and fragility between us which I don’t think I’m completely comfortable with. My guess is that my jovial, fun mood was an attempt at covering up this vulnerable state underneath.
Eventually the atmosphere turned more existential. He told me about some complex theories by Kristeva they have to read for Elisabeth’s philosophy class. He was wondering a lot about the meaning of words. In fact he seemed to distrust words. He remembered Aparna and how she often talked about the loss of meaning. What if the ground under our feet was just a concept? And what if we stopped believing in that concept? Would we fall through the floor? I think he misses Aparna a lot. They were very close. I miss her too. I still remember the day when Roger and Aparna both stopped talking for 24 hours. There was a time when I also distrusted words very much and even hated them. But lately I have regained trust in words. They allow me to get to know someone and to reveal myself to someone. I don’t question words so much anymore. I take them at face value. Of course they are confusing and there will always be misunderstandings. But actually that day with Roger I was more into sensory experience. It was very windy. I liked that despite the cold. Roger was wearing two hoods, a red one of his sweater and a blue-grey one of his windbreaker. It made me think of his poem about a hoody he recited in Noha’s second year piece. This poem really touched me because I knew the hoody it was talking about was Rodrigo’s hoody and they were in an intimate relationship.
Roger told me about a time when he was about 17 and lived in a caravan while picking fruit in Great Britain. He planned to go traveling with a friend, but somehow ended up alone and stayed in England for almost half a year picking apples and later working in a factory. He said that part of the time he lived with a Romanian guy he was falling in love with. To Roger intimacy is about sharing. He also talked about a warm feeling. We passed by an old tractor with a whole family of big teddy bears and other toy animals sitting next to and on top of the tractor. I asked Roger if he thought they shared intimacy.
He had picked up a small branch or stick and was talking about the loss of meaning and his sadness that creeps up on him unexpectedly. I called him the melancholic man in the wind. I could imagine the reason of his sadness but was too shy to ask. He also talked about laughing and crying and that he felt they are very connected. I think so too. We had done some laughing meditation sessions together before yoga class. I was very happy that he joined me for laughing. I had proposed to lead laughing meditation at 9am before yoga. Most days I ended up laughing alone. Yurie joined me during the holiday because she is working on emotions and laughing in her third year piece. Roger joined some mornings. Laughing with him felt intimate. It felt as though this laughter was washing away all the tension and shyness and vulnerable, hard feelings that had built up between us. It was cold and windy. Roger didn’t have any gloves. Only two hoodies. Sometimes the wind makes me teary-eyed. It happens a lot on my bike. I like it. We rode our bikes back to the ferry. I wanted to take him to my favorite café, Star Bikes, to drink a hot power chai. The place was empty except for the tall Dutch woman behind the counter. The cat was there too and I wanted to pet him but he didn’t like it. Maybe my hands were too cold. When Roger petted him he liked it. Roger told me about his cat at home in Barcelona. He got very excited talking about his cat and did a whole little performance for me in that café showing me how they play, fight and chase each other around the house. It made me smile and laugh. Roger had a blueberry muffin and I had a brownie. The tall Dutch woman made us two very nice power chais. I should ask her what her name is. I like her a lot. Her husband or brother came to sit in the café too and did some work on his laptop.
At one point Roger asked me out of the blue: What about love? It was tender and careful but also quite determined the way he asked. I was relieved he asked the question. So I told him honestly that I was still in love with Rodrigo - still attached, hoping, longing, wanting to let go but not able to. And he told me about his attachment too – about his conflict between head and heart. He had decided to finish this relationship but was still very much wishing and desiring. Wanting to let go but not able to. Whatever had made us fall in love with the same guy - it felt good to talk about this. I think we both had wanted to talk about it that whole afternoon, but had circled around it as though it was a taboo too delicate to be touched. It was like confessing our love, struggle and jealousy to each other and saying “Yes, I can relate to that! I know how it feels or I can imagine.” I was so absorbed and touched by this intimate talk with Roger I could feel tears coming to my eyes almost – without the cold wind. The tall Dutch woman was reading her book on the couch with her back to us. I realized that this was one of the most intimate talks in public space I had ever had. It felt slightly inappropriate and I was wondering if the tall Dutch woman and her husband were feeling uncomfortable. They could have been our parents on a lazy Sunday afternoon and the Star Bikes café our living room.