Life was getting better and better... but of course, he can not get around telling her that he is in the process of moving out of the country. Inside, deep inside he is waiting for a miracle to happen, he doesnt want to leave and he knows that she will run away the moment he is not any more around. He has no idea how but he knows.
She is spending more time with him, he is moving in lots of his new cloths. They went shopping, that was a new experience for him. He has never tolerated the long shopping "marathons". Not even for himself, he buys new cloths by trying one model and then buying different colors of the same design. That way he doesn't have to try anything.
They went to a large mall in the outskirts of Toronto. They have a big discussion about where to buy something for her. She is having all these interviews and He has convinced her that she neds to dress like the people that are doing the job she wants.
She wants to move to a new Her current job is driving her crazy. WE will never know how much is her own fault, she tends to trust everybody and has the ability to "share" secrets of her personal life with other people. She believes people is in essence good, and of course, she is finding that most people will use that information against you later.
They have had many conversations about she moving to a new job, he is convinced that she has not spend enough time in her current job to be thinking on a new one.
But of course he has to admit that he is not the best example of this. He has jump from one job to another, always up the ladder. He knows he can do more than whatever he was doing and then he just moved. The difference is he has always created an environment that helps him do this. HE was always ask to stay, begged in many cases.
She has created an animosity against her that is difficult to understand, other than she is straight and direct to the point, but she is missing lots of experience and formal education.
He has to assume that what she calls "college" was really something near a major after high school. She doesn't seem to understand lots of numbers, or even when she mastered the reports, doesn't seem to see what those numbers mean.
So he need sto find a place where she can thrive but by what she does better : she can build relationships in minutes, most of them tend to be with the wrong people, and she is a "chameleon". She will acquire the colors of what is around her. She brings very fast her music and she gets excited by small details and most of the time by lies. In her lifestyle, the people that she meets tend to live a double life.
So this time he needs to really apply himself to think the best for her...
He has been thinking of this, watching her in front fo the computer, she lvoes her Mac. Another gift from him. She couldn't access the computer most of the time because the one she had was old and needed an upgrade to be able to connect to the WEB, plus it doesnt has a wireless capability, so now that she doesn't have a connection to the WEB, she can not make use of a neighbor's wireless network. Many people, just like he does it, leaves their wireless systems open. It is just a way to demonstrate against the power of cable companies. She lvoes the idea of taking something away from the "powerful devil corporations". She reads all kind of articles, blogs and other sites that write against the large corporations, but at the same time she likes working for one. Go figure...
Her fingers fly all over the keyboard, she is fast at writing specially when she is lookin gfor new "connections" .
She looks so lovely, she is amazing and she is not for him...
He keeps thinking hwo and when he will help her move out of her current job...
It will take some good luck and then he realizes that one of his best friends just move to a new position that involves the posibility that he has been looking for.
We'll see what develops...
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
- The sensuality of a massage...
He had been trying to convince himself that he was never going to fall in love again.
But he was falling. It seemed like getting drunk, something they do often, slow motion effect but you were totally aware of the falling, just seem that nothing could be done to avoid it.
He loved to go to places where people will turn to them. She is so pretty that will cause most men to turn when she walks by. She will go ballistic just to the mention of this, she consider herself with no possibility of beauty, that she cannot convey this type of passion to men. Something in her past force a devaluation of herself at a level he has never seen it before.
This became an issue; he loved the idea of finding out what it is all about. This will have to go into what he usually calls the “parking lot”. Ideas left for later, because it was not the right time to ask the right questions or because she will just not go there. The parking lot was getting full especially in the last months, when they have been spending so much time together.
Nevertheless he has been able to find some details, one piece at a time, small bits of information, mostly said when she was careless. He put some dots together trying to get the whole picture. He has always been very good at that. Politics for him were easy because of the ability he had to build full scenarios just connecting dots. He remember the time in Mexico, when by doing this, got the head of a very large corporation and his competition, fired. He knew only small details and with the help a reporter, he build a stroty that made so much sense that the reporter actually published. It turn out that most of the “story” was true. Guy got fired.
He knew that she will probably never really fall in love with him, he was just a “leverage” in her life for her to move the world. She was meant for much larger things, she just didn’t know about it.
OR she may never get there… He was a tool to get her to focus on what she really wanted, at the beginning was for him just to prove if he could actually do it. Bring somebody smart enough with an opportunity, open some doors that willnever open otherwise, and see what happen. And he had been looking for some time, tried in some other ways. Mostly women but he also did it for men. There was his French friend and the greek one. They both were excelling. The only problem is this time he fall in love with the subject… that sounds creepy and stupid, research, and lab stuff.
And he will pay dearly for it.
They used to drink and have dinner and talk and talk.
This time it was different, what about a massage, he ask her?
It will be amazing, one of the other senses to come alive. In Asia he became so used to the massage therapy. Went through it 3 or 4 times a week, as much as possible. He believed it was one of the best preventive mechanisms he had found. That and meditating. So, they went for their first massage together. He ask her to do al the arrangements, she found a perfect place, new for him, downtown Toronto.
Everything started with him giving her a massage at his place. Nothing funny, like they used to say in Hong Kong. It was a real massage, with all the right moves and the right pressure at the right places. He found that he enjoyit as much as her. She fall asleep and he had no heart to wake her up.
Nex thing is they were making reservations for a couples massage at one of the best SPA’s in Toronto. They will have a great experience. She had never been really at a SPA like this one, so it was a learning curve for her, and definitely a totally different experience for him. Since his time in China, he had never had massage this way. Even in China it was usually a male therapist for a male customer, and vice versa.
And they went to it, they shower and they enjoy their massage. It was funny , only in Canada they will call a massage a therapy and even it got paid by the insurance company.
Way to go. The went to have dinner and then went to his place where they fall asleep, same bed, no sex as usual, but this time he hold her inside his arms. She didn’t complaint or run away from him as usual. This may be a turn around in all their relationship.
But he was falling. It seemed like getting drunk, something they do often, slow motion effect but you were totally aware of the falling, just seem that nothing could be done to avoid it.
He loved to go to places where people will turn to them. She is so pretty that will cause most men to turn when she walks by. She will go ballistic just to the mention of this, she consider herself with no possibility of beauty, that she cannot convey this type of passion to men. Something in her past force a devaluation of herself at a level he has never seen it before.
This became an issue; he loved the idea of finding out what it is all about. This will have to go into what he usually calls the “parking lot”. Ideas left for later, because it was not the right time to ask the right questions or because she will just not go there. The parking lot was getting full especially in the last months, when they have been spending so much time together.
Nevertheless he has been able to find some details, one piece at a time, small bits of information, mostly said when she was careless. He put some dots together trying to get the whole picture. He has always been very good at that. Politics for him were easy because of the ability he had to build full scenarios just connecting dots. He remember the time in Mexico, when by doing this, got the head of a very large corporation and his competition, fired. He knew only small details and with the help a reporter, he build a stroty that made so much sense that the reporter actually published. It turn out that most of the “story” was true. Guy got fired.
He knew that she will probably never really fall in love with him, he was just a “leverage” in her life for her to move the world. She was meant for much larger things, she just didn’t know about it.
OR she may never get there… He was a tool to get her to focus on what she really wanted, at the beginning was for him just to prove if he could actually do it. Bring somebody smart enough with an opportunity, open some doors that willnever open otherwise, and see what happen. And he had been looking for some time, tried in some other ways. Mostly women but he also did it for men. There was his French friend and the greek one. They both were excelling. The only problem is this time he fall in love with the subject… that sounds creepy and stupid, research, and lab stuff.
And he will pay dearly for it.
They used to drink and have dinner and talk and talk.
This time it was different, what about a massage, he ask her?
It will be amazing, one of the other senses to come alive. In Asia he became so used to the massage therapy. Went through it 3 or 4 times a week, as much as possible. He believed it was one of the best preventive mechanisms he had found. That and meditating. So, they went for their first massage together. He ask her to do al the arrangements, she found a perfect place, new for him, downtown Toronto.
Everything started with him giving her a massage at his place. Nothing funny, like they used to say in Hong Kong. It was a real massage, with all the right moves and the right pressure at the right places. He found that he enjoyit as much as her. She fall asleep and he had no heart to wake her up.
Nex thing is they were making reservations for a couples massage at one of the best SPA’s in Toronto. They will have a great experience. She had never been really at a SPA like this one, so it was a learning curve for her, and definitely a totally different experience for him. Since his time in China, he had never had massage this way. Even in China it was usually a male therapist for a male customer, and vice versa.
And they went to it, they shower and they enjoy their massage. It was funny , only in Canada they will call a massage a therapy and even it got paid by the insurance company.
Way to go. The went to have dinner and then went to his place where they fall asleep, same bed, no sex as usual, but this time he hold her inside his arms. She didn’t complaint or run away from him as usual. This may be a turn around in all their relationship.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
- Fish, cooking and life goes on...
He told her that she could always use her place for anything, just hang around, or use it as a refugee. She just told him that she was going to need to move out of her new place. But news were good, her best friend has ask her to share a house. Yes that was incredible, a semidetached that the two of them and maybe a third friend could share, costs, etc. but mostly it was the concept that she will have a porch, some front yard and even a full blown kitchen. Not that she cooked that much. She promised him she would prepare dinner one of these days. They went to the new supermarket, upscale, all organic. A concept that she liked, but considered a waste of money. She has all these small shops where she would buy things at better prices. An of course, she will know every single person, she will know by heart, their problems, their dreams and sometimes more than that. He was also uncomfortable with all that exchange of information. He was a magician of that at work, he used it to outrank everybody to the higher positions in ever company he had been working. But he never went over the personal pieces.
She was really good at that. He even considered she went to far, too intense communication in a very short period of time. Examples of them going to a restaurant or other places, where she suddenly became a confident and friend of waiters, attendants, etc. were numerous. But, nothing you could do, packages don’t change, you take it or leave it.
Ann has a policy of “no questions ask”. She doesn’t ask anything, but she really doesn’t want to be ask a single thing related to who she really is, who hurt her, who came into her life and inflicted so deep cuts, that she can only lick by herself and doesn’t allow anybody to touch them or to get near it. Any type of inquiry not related to very superficial subjects turns her away and then she wont return for days.
But here she was offering to do something he knew was extraordinary, she will actually go all the way and get into the kitchen for something more complex than microwaves or some fried vegetables.
Even today, after all this time, He is able to remember perfectly what happen with that first, and to his recollection only, dinner prepared by her. He can close his eyes and go back to that experience.
He gave her a key to his place, access to the building, even gave her name to the concierge, so she can go in an out at will. She was there when he arrived. She had brought some things from home, especial herbs and other condiments that were so unique and she didn’t want him to spend on buying more. She was convinced that there will never be another one. He knew it, and accepted it.
Fish, of course, she is a vegetarian, no red or white meat. Vegetables in a very unique way, half done fried, half oven, and the kitchen was really a mess. But he was so amazed at how she had grown inside him, how much she was becoming part of his daily life. And the most amazing thing was that for the first time in his life, it was really a very intense relationship with no physical contact. She will run out of his arms if he tried to hug her. No touching, pls. Just an occasional kiss from time to time, but never anything more.
They started to meet every other afternoon when he was in town. This came with some very intense weeks, with no show ones. He travel a lot and she had her way of going MIA that it was impossible to track down. Turn the phone off when you are not at work that was actually her motto. No drinking and dialing. And She had a need to drink every night, she call it “market research”, that was her career, her connection to the real world that she craved so much, the music, the life events that bring people together in a spiritual communion difficult to express and understand unless you are into it. She went intothis world, different friends and people that she cherished for many years, some her former partners, some just friends, women, men, mostly what she called “her boys”.
And in all this convergence of traditional family values, Midwestern education, frustrated continuing to higher education, she was a unique gem, she bright, sparkles in the middle of a very obscure scene. Her love for arts, but non conventional art, music that is never finished, DJ’s that decompose other’s people music, graffiti that means more bands and gangs than art, expressions of underground rebellion are her favorites.
The need to be straight, no lies rule, but then she lives a total lie, she can live two worlds, without them touching each other. He has never met all these people she talks about. They are like characters in another novel of life. They exist as long as she talks about them. Every one of them, plus the new one of the week, are really extraordinary people that is not fully developed, not yet quite rich or famous, events that happen to them had trunk their success. He guesses if it is not a way to claim the same for her.
She always complaints about how tired she is, she can go into a deep sleep just sitting at his living room. He can contemplate her for hours, no need for more. She calls that creepy. He really doesn’t understand the meaning of many of her words. He doesn’t really speak that well the day to day lingo of the people her age, and she speaks very fast. He will tell her that her brain was much faster than her mouth. Too much processing power and very small output bus. For him, everything is related to systems. Life is a full system, composed by small subsystems, interconnected all of them. Ecosystems that explains what happen in life. Nothing happens outside a system. She doesn’t agree. Ann is convinced that it is all about breaking those systems, work outside them, surround them, push them.
She was really good at that. He even considered she went to far, too intense communication in a very short period of time. Examples of them going to a restaurant or other places, where she suddenly became a confident and friend of waiters, attendants, etc. were numerous. But, nothing you could do, packages don’t change, you take it or leave it.
Ann has a policy of “no questions ask”. She doesn’t ask anything, but she really doesn’t want to be ask a single thing related to who she really is, who hurt her, who came into her life and inflicted so deep cuts, that she can only lick by herself and doesn’t allow anybody to touch them or to get near it. Any type of inquiry not related to very superficial subjects turns her away and then she wont return for days.
But here she was offering to do something he knew was extraordinary, she will actually go all the way and get into the kitchen for something more complex than microwaves or some fried vegetables.
Even today, after all this time, He is able to remember perfectly what happen with that first, and to his recollection only, dinner prepared by her. He can close his eyes and go back to that experience.
He gave her a key to his place, access to the building, even gave her name to the concierge, so she can go in an out at will. She was there when he arrived. She had brought some things from home, especial herbs and other condiments that were so unique and she didn’t want him to spend on buying more. She was convinced that there will never be another one. He knew it, and accepted it.
Fish, of course, she is a vegetarian, no red or white meat. Vegetables in a very unique way, half done fried, half oven, and the kitchen was really a mess. But he was so amazed at how she had grown inside him, how much she was becoming part of his daily life. And the most amazing thing was that for the first time in his life, it was really a very intense relationship with no physical contact. She will run out of his arms if he tried to hug her. No touching, pls. Just an occasional kiss from time to time, but never anything more.
They started to meet every other afternoon when he was in town. This came with some very intense weeks, with no show ones. He travel a lot and she had her way of going MIA that it was impossible to track down. Turn the phone off when you are not at work that was actually her motto. No drinking and dialing. And She had a need to drink every night, she call it “market research”, that was her career, her connection to the real world that she craved so much, the music, the life events that bring people together in a spiritual communion difficult to express and understand unless you are into it. She went intothis world, different friends and people that she cherished for many years, some her former partners, some just friends, women, men, mostly what she called “her boys”.
And in all this convergence of traditional family values, Midwestern education, frustrated continuing to higher education, she was a unique gem, she bright, sparkles in the middle of a very obscure scene. Her love for arts, but non conventional art, music that is never finished, DJ’s that decompose other’s people music, graffiti that means more bands and gangs than art, expressions of underground rebellion are her favorites.
The need to be straight, no lies rule, but then she lives a total lie, she can live two worlds, without them touching each other. He has never met all these people she talks about. They are like characters in another novel of life. They exist as long as she talks about them. Every one of them, plus the new one of the week, are really extraordinary people that is not fully developed, not yet quite rich or famous, events that happen to them had trunk their success. He guesses if it is not a way to claim the same for her.
She always complaints about how tired she is, she can go into a deep sleep just sitting at his living room. He can contemplate her for hours, no need for more. She calls that creepy. He really doesn’t understand the meaning of many of her words. He doesn’t really speak that well the day to day lingo of the people her age, and she speaks very fast. He will tell her that her brain was much faster than her mouth. Too much processing power and very small output bus. For him, everything is related to systems. Life is a full system, composed by small subsystems, interconnected all of them. Ecosystems that explains what happen in life. Nothing happens outside a system. She doesn’t agree. Ann is convinced that it is all about breaking those systems, work outside them, surround them, push them.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
- Confucius, chinese inside-out balls and a kiss...
As usual, she trembled; she always did that whenever he touched her. This wasn’t a real “touching” just hold hands, or the occasional caress that went a little far than the just friends stuff. Maybe out of the “appropriate”. She never complaint, she only trembled. He gave her a kiss that went more than the usual touching lips. They went to have a nightcap next door to her place. He was never going to understand what was happening in her mind, she is not really a crystal person; there is so much that she hides.
He keep learning from her, but it all was superficial, every time he tried to get deeper, she will move away, it was just like the famous “Toreros” in Spain. They perfected to a form of art evading the bull, which was the art that people praised; it is a practice, though brutal and inhumane in many senses, that was the nearest thing to real life. He was the bull trying to get more from her, trying to get inside her, know her at a point that her DNA was no more a secret. She was proving to be a master of the fight; no way she was gong to get caught.
Last kiss goodbye and then he went alone, to his small world, empty, cold, but filled with his memories and this time he had some physical object that she gave him, things that he can cherish and touch whenever he had a need for her skin and the elusive contact of her lips. She said that every part of his B’day gift was a representation of a place he had lived. So that meant she had been listening to him all this time. One object was especially interesting and of course, became his instant favorite. He will touch it, cold but it will warm inside his hands. I t was made of stone, a perfect definition of Ann. Concentric spheres, one inside the other, Chinese philosophic view of the world, there is a finite number of worlds that live inside the one we present outside, each one of them is completely free in movements, as long as it follows the rules : has to contain the more deeper ones and has to keep the space limitation of only moving inside the external one.
He thought that it was probably not intended this way, but it came to explain many things of her behavior. He felt the urge of having her next to him, just to hug her, be there for her. Today was a revelation, he took a decision. It didn’t matter what happen between them, he will always be there for her. He will not allow anything or anybody to hurt her again, he will try to uncover her inner spheres and bring them out into the open. According to Chinese, the best of every human being was at your birth, yes, you guess it right, and that is the first small one, completely non-carved, sparkling, perfect. Time is the carver, it start building difference between all of us, it starts leaving scars, small, big ones, witness of its pass. Like rolling through the snow or mud, you start getting a thicker cover. Must people will just keep going through it without understanding that it is not in the outside (you cant change the size of the outside) but inside…
Time goes, and you start looking for your inner piece. Emotions, spiritual, gets you inside, material bring you back to the outside. The best tool to carve inside and start looking for the core of you is meditation.
Every human has to find its own way to meditation, some use music, some use breathing, yoga, tai chi, arts crafts, drugs and the most common search for your inner is alcohol.
He doesn’t drink that much, and drugs were out of question. He had done it all at the right time. Most of it before or during college.
Ann seems to be connected through musical notes, she likes music even he has never seen her listening to it. Maybe at her desk, from time to time, but never outside. Now that he thinks of it, she has never turn on the radio during their numerous escapades around Toronto, and he had never seen her touch the Bose system at his apartment.
But definitely she knows a lot about it. Does she? Question to parking lot with so many others, that still today he has not been able to get answers for.
Music seems to be a connection to a world that she really breathes. And she takes care of building relationships into it, mostly what she will call “underground” music that it is in his mind a way of telling the world that you are not yet famous, but you may be one day.
He decided it was not time to go to sleep, hell, it was his birthday, he deserve it.. He has work very hard all his life. He took his iPod and went directly to his favourite songs, of course, all his songs are about life and how people get hurt during love, or falls in love , it is always about some kind of conflict between two and around emotions that are not expressed in full motion. From Toni Braxton, Bryan Adams, and that is just the beginning, if he starts going into his Mexican boleros and some other romantic stuff, that the younger singers have taken as part of their heritage and bring to new generations.
He is a classic romantic, a looser in his own terms, for him, romantics can only loose, and there is no way to win. Even you get hurt or you hurt somebody, it is the worst piece of human games, you can start being a dominant in the relationship and then suddenly, without even noticing it, became the victim. And of course, there is no limitation of the number of times this game can go on and on. He loved doing this: rationalize what in due true has no way to be rational. Heart matters are nothing that can be explained with DNA or algorithms. That is his passion, numbers, he feels so comfortable with them, and they are so predictable.
The heart is never predictable, you are supposed to be free and let your heart roam around until it find the soul that will go with you for ever. But you have to play so many times the game; you become “tainted” like the bulls of his infancy. You can never bring twice a bull to the Fiesta. The animal is sacrificed and will never go back again, he prepares all his life for just one time. Love should be like that; you get you chance at it, and then no more.
But of course, things are never the way it makes sense from a rational perspective. Human beings are part of the equation and that makes things impossible, they actually had created a full-blown science out of it: chaos theory.
And, he realized that all those thoughts were just to make a case in his head; it will not happen this time, he could manage the relationship with Anne.
The problem is, love is like any other drug. When you are addicted, when you are a “romantic” you need to be very careful. A never again, will not fly. Unless you are so busy that your mind can’t get you there, then you have to be moving. Constant movement means no possibility of building relationship that will drag you into the realm of romantics. And really romantics were not the danger : it was the predators. Predators are all those men and women that take advantage, conscious or not, of the romantics. They enjoyed watching them do stupid things, like master playing with their marionettes and when they are tired of them , they just exchange them for new ones.
Now music was getting into Cat Stevens, Rolling Stones and of course The Beatles… he was tired, left it where it was and decided he was not going to solve a fundamental problem of human beings (at least his problem and some other people he had talk to) in one night.
Next day came very fast, parties all over the place for him, his B’day is big thing. He went to New York that weekend, spend time with his daughters and have some fun with old friends. He could not keep her out of his mind. Something will have to be done.
It was time for him to do something, so he went and got her a new computer. She moving by herself has left her without a connection to the WEB. Her face when she saw the iMac could have won any contest. They set it up and went into getting her to regain her way around Mac’s. Too many years of PC have slower her understanding of the magic word of Apple. He also got her an iPod. That was a complete gear for her soul.
It was the end of the year, Christmas was coming and the new years parties. He was gone with the family almost all December, skiing, not that far away from her, but he enjoy so much when family comes from down south. They love the snow, mostly because they can have fun with it and they don’t have to live with it for many months.
He took her out of her mind, and he bet she did the same. Not a lot of messages going back and forward, he didn’t have access to a full service on the web, just the bb, and he tended to spend most of his time at the top of the mountain or going down as fast as possible. He learnt to ski in California, northern, he used to spend lots of time in San Francisco. During winter, he learned that during winter the moment it started raining in San Fran, it was time to hit the road all the way to Tahoe. Snow was perfect. He learn from the pro’s and very soon he was doing it like a natural. It was easy for him, at a very young age he learn how to do water-ski, and even this is different in essence it conveys the same skills. His legs were always the strongest part of his body. He was never too good with anything that had to do with his arms, and especially he had to remind himself several times that after the accident many years ago, during his honey moon, when a speed boat drag him for several miles, with a rope around his left arm and all his tendons were severed. At a small town in a Mexican northwest resort, a great intern doctor, doing his social service, went over doing one of the greatest jobs seen, he tied almost everything so perfect that when he went back to the big city and ask to be checked by all kind of specialists, none of them said they could have done or do anything better.
He kept skiing, did some Tennis later, and finally end up in the golf thing: business plus a bonus. Golf was the only sport where it is ok to talk, smoke and drink. It played perfect to his strengths and sins. While the drinking piece he could go without it, the talking and smoking came perfect. Also he was a walker, that is why he loved big cities. Places he could walk. He didn’t like Texas and California for that matter, he couldn’t walk any place. He was probably the only person that actually was thinking on buying a place downtown LA so he can walk to work everyday.
This year there was not enough snow during December, so skiing was bad, but then in the mountains, with his daughters, family from hometown and other friends, it went really fast. Small commute for one day to sign the famous suit: me against the government.
January came and things became hectic for him. It really started with a sense that he was wasting his time, that he was not going anywhere, not that it really mater for him. Hi slife was being wasted in an environment that wouldn’t produce the next generation of anything, much less something that he could be proud of.
Politics has become so frustrating that he decided to go for all or nothing.
He was brought to this company, with a “super” team of other 5 top executives, to fix the company. It was a weird process. They contact him 4 years ago and told him about a very large corporation that decided that the only way to get themselves out of their current paradigm that predicted they will disappear in less than 10 years if they didn’t change their course. Very typical corporations that cant turn the ship without external help. Sometimes you need the famous “tug boats” to turn the largest ship when it comes to change directions.
So here he came to do this “once in a lifetime” trip. Back to the cold north, with its marvelous people, its small town community and where nobody seemed to be local, everybody came from some other place in the world.
And things were amazing for almost one year, then his boss left and environment start a deteriorating process that by this January was almost unbearable. He was supposed to go every year to the largest show in Vegas, Consumer electronics. He has done it every year since its inception, it is kind of tradition. This year he was forced to cancel, but for the first time he was happy. He was going to be able to spend some time with she.
She was unaware as him that he was falling in love, step by step, by the book. It was feeling so good… he has not done this in long time, so he is afraid, but she makes it seem so natural, everything is so comfortable. She doesn’t ask for anything, neither he. They just seem to build an impenetrable cocoon around them when they are together, nothing seems to be able to penetrate it and less disrupts it.
He keep learning from her, but it all was superficial, every time he tried to get deeper, she will move away, it was just like the famous “Toreros” in Spain. They perfected to a form of art evading the bull, which was the art that people praised; it is a practice, though brutal and inhumane in many senses, that was the nearest thing to real life. He was the bull trying to get more from her, trying to get inside her, know her at a point that her DNA was no more a secret. She was proving to be a master of the fight; no way she was gong to get caught.
Last kiss goodbye and then he went alone, to his small world, empty, cold, but filled with his memories and this time he had some physical object that she gave him, things that he can cherish and touch whenever he had a need for her skin and the elusive contact of her lips. She said that every part of his B’day gift was a representation of a place he had lived. So that meant she had been listening to him all this time. One object was especially interesting and of course, became his instant favorite. He will touch it, cold but it will warm inside his hands. I t was made of stone, a perfect definition of Ann. Concentric spheres, one inside the other, Chinese philosophic view of the world, there is a finite number of worlds that live inside the one we present outside, each one of them is completely free in movements, as long as it follows the rules : has to contain the more deeper ones and has to keep the space limitation of only moving inside the external one.
He thought that it was probably not intended this way, but it came to explain many things of her behavior. He felt the urge of having her next to him, just to hug her, be there for her. Today was a revelation, he took a decision. It didn’t matter what happen between them, he will always be there for her. He will not allow anything or anybody to hurt her again, he will try to uncover her inner spheres and bring them out into the open. According to Chinese, the best of every human being was at your birth, yes, you guess it right, and that is the first small one, completely non-carved, sparkling, perfect. Time is the carver, it start building difference between all of us, it starts leaving scars, small, big ones, witness of its pass. Like rolling through the snow or mud, you start getting a thicker cover. Must people will just keep going through it without understanding that it is not in the outside (you cant change the size of the outside) but inside…
Time goes, and you start looking for your inner piece. Emotions, spiritual, gets you inside, material bring you back to the outside. The best tool to carve inside and start looking for the core of you is meditation.
Every human has to find its own way to meditation, some use music, some use breathing, yoga, tai chi, arts crafts, drugs and the most common search for your inner is alcohol.
He doesn’t drink that much, and drugs were out of question. He had done it all at the right time. Most of it before or during college.
Ann seems to be connected through musical notes, she likes music even he has never seen her listening to it. Maybe at her desk, from time to time, but never outside. Now that he thinks of it, she has never turn on the radio during their numerous escapades around Toronto, and he had never seen her touch the Bose system at his apartment.
But definitely she knows a lot about it. Does she? Question to parking lot with so many others, that still today he has not been able to get answers for.
Music seems to be a connection to a world that she really breathes. And she takes care of building relationships into it, mostly what she will call “underground” music that it is in his mind a way of telling the world that you are not yet famous, but you may be one day.
He decided it was not time to go to sleep, hell, it was his birthday, he deserve it.. He has work very hard all his life. He took his iPod and went directly to his favourite songs, of course, all his songs are about life and how people get hurt during love, or falls in love , it is always about some kind of conflict between two and around emotions that are not expressed in full motion. From Toni Braxton, Bryan Adams, and that is just the beginning, if he starts going into his Mexican boleros and some other romantic stuff, that the younger singers have taken as part of their heritage and bring to new generations.
He is a classic romantic, a looser in his own terms, for him, romantics can only loose, and there is no way to win. Even you get hurt or you hurt somebody, it is the worst piece of human games, you can start being a dominant in the relationship and then suddenly, without even noticing it, became the victim. And of course, there is no limitation of the number of times this game can go on and on. He loved doing this: rationalize what in due true has no way to be rational. Heart matters are nothing that can be explained with DNA or algorithms. That is his passion, numbers, he feels so comfortable with them, and they are so predictable.
The heart is never predictable, you are supposed to be free and let your heart roam around until it find the soul that will go with you for ever. But you have to play so many times the game; you become “tainted” like the bulls of his infancy. You can never bring twice a bull to the Fiesta. The animal is sacrificed and will never go back again, he prepares all his life for just one time. Love should be like that; you get you chance at it, and then no more.
But of course, things are never the way it makes sense from a rational perspective. Human beings are part of the equation and that makes things impossible, they actually had created a full-blown science out of it: chaos theory.
And, he realized that all those thoughts were just to make a case in his head; it will not happen this time, he could manage the relationship with Anne.
The problem is, love is like any other drug. When you are addicted, when you are a “romantic” you need to be very careful. A never again, will not fly. Unless you are so busy that your mind can’t get you there, then you have to be moving. Constant movement means no possibility of building relationship that will drag you into the realm of romantics. And really romantics were not the danger : it was the predators. Predators are all those men and women that take advantage, conscious or not, of the romantics. They enjoyed watching them do stupid things, like master playing with their marionettes and when they are tired of them , they just exchange them for new ones.
Now music was getting into Cat Stevens, Rolling Stones and of course The Beatles… he was tired, left it where it was and decided he was not going to solve a fundamental problem of human beings (at least his problem and some other people he had talk to) in one night.
Next day came very fast, parties all over the place for him, his B’day is big thing. He went to New York that weekend, spend time with his daughters and have some fun with old friends. He could not keep her out of his mind. Something will have to be done.
It was time for him to do something, so he went and got her a new computer. She moving by herself has left her without a connection to the WEB. Her face when she saw the iMac could have won any contest. They set it up and went into getting her to regain her way around Mac’s. Too many years of PC have slower her understanding of the magic word of Apple. He also got her an iPod. That was a complete gear for her soul.
It was the end of the year, Christmas was coming and the new years parties. He was gone with the family almost all December, skiing, not that far away from her, but he enjoy so much when family comes from down south. They love the snow, mostly because they can have fun with it and they don’t have to live with it for many months.
He took her out of her mind, and he bet she did the same. Not a lot of messages going back and forward, he didn’t have access to a full service on the web, just the bb, and he tended to spend most of his time at the top of the mountain or going down as fast as possible. He learnt to ski in California, northern, he used to spend lots of time in San Francisco. During winter, he learned that during winter the moment it started raining in San Fran, it was time to hit the road all the way to Tahoe. Snow was perfect. He learn from the pro’s and very soon he was doing it like a natural. It was easy for him, at a very young age he learn how to do water-ski, and even this is different in essence it conveys the same skills. His legs were always the strongest part of his body. He was never too good with anything that had to do with his arms, and especially he had to remind himself several times that after the accident many years ago, during his honey moon, when a speed boat drag him for several miles, with a rope around his left arm and all his tendons were severed. At a small town in a Mexican northwest resort, a great intern doctor, doing his social service, went over doing one of the greatest jobs seen, he tied almost everything so perfect that when he went back to the big city and ask to be checked by all kind of specialists, none of them said they could have done or do anything better.
He kept skiing, did some Tennis later, and finally end up in the golf thing: business plus a bonus. Golf was the only sport where it is ok to talk, smoke and drink. It played perfect to his strengths and sins. While the drinking piece he could go without it, the talking and smoking came perfect. Also he was a walker, that is why he loved big cities. Places he could walk. He didn’t like Texas and California for that matter, he couldn’t walk any place. He was probably the only person that actually was thinking on buying a place downtown LA so he can walk to work everyday.
This year there was not enough snow during December, so skiing was bad, but then in the mountains, with his daughters, family from hometown and other friends, it went really fast. Small commute for one day to sign the famous suit: me against the government.
January came and things became hectic for him. It really started with a sense that he was wasting his time, that he was not going anywhere, not that it really mater for him. Hi slife was being wasted in an environment that wouldn’t produce the next generation of anything, much less something that he could be proud of.
Politics has become so frustrating that he decided to go for all or nothing.
He was brought to this company, with a “super” team of other 5 top executives, to fix the company. It was a weird process. They contact him 4 years ago and told him about a very large corporation that decided that the only way to get themselves out of their current paradigm that predicted they will disappear in less than 10 years if they didn’t change their course. Very typical corporations that cant turn the ship without external help. Sometimes you need the famous “tug boats” to turn the largest ship when it comes to change directions.
So here he came to do this “once in a lifetime” trip. Back to the cold north, with its marvelous people, its small town community and where nobody seemed to be local, everybody came from some other place in the world.
And things were amazing for almost one year, then his boss left and environment start a deteriorating process that by this January was almost unbearable. He was supposed to go every year to the largest show in Vegas, Consumer electronics. He has done it every year since its inception, it is kind of tradition. This year he was forced to cancel, but for the first time he was happy. He was going to be able to spend some time with she.
She was unaware as him that he was falling in love, step by step, by the book. It was feeling so good… he has not done this in long time, so he is afraid, but she makes it seem so natural, everything is so comfortable. She doesn’t ask for anything, neither he. They just seem to build an impenetrable cocoon around them when they are together, nothing seems to be able to penetrate it and less disrupts it.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
- No touching , please....
Circumstances weren’t really in their favour, now they work together, he was forced to see her everyday and couldn’t even approach her in any other way that was not professionally. They started going out for dinner, they discover the same special food affection: celiac. No wheat or anything containing gluten in their food. That created a great challenge every time they went out for dinner, find restaurants that will serve their favorite dishes without gluten. At the same time, they both seem to have a great food affinity, same taste for wine and of course a love for fish. She doesn’t eat red meat, so that was a point of disagreement but they enjoyed Japanese food like no one else. She can drink much more than him. The most exciting thing is that even there was evidently a physical attraction, nothing ever happen more than holding hands to cross the street or a momentary touch. Also she was involved in a relationship, he was never get in the middle of something like that, he was afraid of himself, so that served as a great reason not to make any advance or even tried anything more than the usual hi and bye.
She talked about her relationship as something that was sinking, like a boat that wouldn’t give her anymore the peace of mind that she needed. But she never volunteered more information. He like that of her, she was so discreet with her own
One night, out of the blue it came a kiss. Nervous, he is out of practice, have not been in this way with a woman in 12 years. He remembered well how much he suffered at the end of that relationship, the eternal nights of no sleep, the need of hearing her voice, her skin missing next to him. He has promised not ever again.
No more crying on planes, or by himself in a lonely hotel, he doesn’t need that much, but he tends to give it all, piece by piece, he doesn’t believe in fast one stand relationships, he believes in building a relationship. He is unaware that something is building or is he?
And then he ends in a tough position, his emotions are very vulnerable, he doesn’t believe in lies or second thoughts, you give or not. The world is black and white in the love arena.
Sex hasn’t been a priority for him. Years of onanism have convinced him that while it was a physical need, you really didn’t need it to survive. He learn that in China, conversation with so many Buddhist monks, many weekends spent inside monasteries where you came in Friday afternoon and then doors to the monastery were closed until Monday morning, convince him that with his mind he could actually control that function and the more mundane of being fit could be done by other means. He spend most of his late teen years in so many different beds, that he was in no more need of it. And at the end, after one of his best friends died from AIDS, he decided that he preferred to be out of that game than being worried about the possibilities every single time you were with a woman.
So in essence this was a perfect relationship for him, they will go out for dinner and then he will leave her at her place, no more than a good night kiss and a hug. They seem to enjoy themselves that way. He thought all the time that she was actually relieved that things work that way. He didn’t push neither she.
On the other hand, he traveled extensively, every weekend he goes down to New York or Boston, some times even to D.C. He has two daughters that he tries to see every weekend, and also some other pieces of his life, the most important at this time was his friend sick in Boston, it became a routine for him to have dinner Saturday night with his friend.
Life was simple that way, but of course humans cannot live simple lives, we have to complicate them as we move along. He has never been a simple person. He is complex in his way of thinking, in his way of living, in his relationships, and his brain works totally different from others. He is wired different. He doesn’t seem to be moved by the same strings that most human beings, he goes around and he doesn’t stop when he wants or needs something. He tends to be very good mentor, he likes people, but he seldom lets anybody inside his inner person. He is always afraid to be hurt. It took him long time to recognize this weakness. He has master a compartmentalization of his feelings so he doesn’t gives away his weak side. But she was bringing these walls apart, she was going steady but firm inside his most secret parts and she was doing it day by day, with an intensity that he admire and that sometimes makes him uncomfortable.
It came his birthday, and she prepare special things for him. Some of the ones he kept now near him, he remembers every single moment of it.
He pick her at her apartment, the new one. She just moved out of a relationship and her old place.
She told him one day that she was moving out of her place and just find one for her alone, small but will be hers. She was so excited, she talk about the convenience of the place, best corner in town, great restaurants, the subway, a big park in the back, etc. She is always in the process of starting exercise, she is not constant but he has never seen her do it. He could picture her doing some yoga and maybe some tai-chi but something else? no way, she would get stop at every corner by somebody trying to hit on her. And she is shy, even when she tries to overcome it. She can talk to anybody if she feels like she can have a one on one conversation around some subject, especially if it is one of her favorite ones, music or events. But she doesn’t like big groups, unless she can be in the middle of them, multitudes that give you the safety of being anonymous are ok.
She is complex in this way, she may be totally disorganized in some tings, but is really focus on others, she believes in the need for resources but it is not about that her life. She is in a desperate search for her identity, for what she is her role in the world, for what she should become. Like she wasn’t already.
Full woman, child sometimes, she looked at him with those eyes that seem so alive, that seem so eager to give and take.
They had a perfect dinner: all vegetarian food, no meat and no gluten. He started to understand that she has a connection with food, it is a sensual thing in her, like that movie, Like Water, Like Chocolate; where the food takes the emotions of the daughter that obviously is cooking Mexican food, with all its richness and full of flavors. So people felt in love when she was in love and food was wasted when she was mad.
Ann is a balloon of emotions, just about to explode. She really doesn’t know how to say thanks, but at the same, she has a restrain on herself that is very peculiar. She doesn’t seem to be willing to share, so he doesn’t dig deeper. Her emotion seem to be in a lethargic state that is more like when you get hit by a truck and you really don’t feel any pain, because the it is so deep the damage, that there is no more pain to go further…
It is like a dwell that went dry, like a womb that cannot produce more life, but even that is the impression; it is always those eyes that get you back to her. She seems to have inside so much life that it is about to explode.
They talk about everything, life, music, family, values, it was a great night. It seemed like life has gone into a stop and there was nothing that will move it.
He went through all and realized it was more than midnight.
She talked about her relationship as something that was sinking, like a boat that wouldn’t give her anymore the peace of mind that she needed. But she never volunteered more information. He like that of her, she was so discreet with her own
One night, out of the blue it came a kiss. Nervous, he is out of practice, have not been in this way with a woman in 12 years. He remembered well how much he suffered at the end of that relationship, the eternal nights of no sleep, the need of hearing her voice, her skin missing next to him. He has promised not ever again.
No more crying on planes, or by himself in a lonely hotel, he doesn’t need that much, but he tends to give it all, piece by piece, he doesn’t believe in fast one stand relationships, he believes in building a relationship. He is unaware that something is building or is he?
And then he ends in a tough position, his emotions are very vulnerable, he doesn’t believe in lies or second thoughts, you give or not. The world is black and white in the love arena.
Sex hasn’t been a priority for him. Years of onanism have convinced him that while it was a physical need, you really didn’t need it to survive. He learn that in China, conversation with so many Buddhist monks, many weekends spent inside monasteries where you came in Friday afternoon and then doors to the monastery were closed until Monday morning, convince him that with his mind he could actually control that function and the more mundane of being fit could be done by other means. He spend most of his late teen years in so many different beds, that he was in no more need of it. And at the end, after one of his best friends died from AIDS, he decided that he preferred to be out of that game than being worried about the possibilities every single time you were with a woman.
So in essence this was a perfect relationship for him, they will go out for dinner and then he will leave her at her place, no more than a good night kiss and a hug. They seem to enjoy themselves that way. He thought all the time that she was actually relieved that things work that way. He didn’t push neither she.
On the other hand, he traveled extensively, every weekend he goes down to New York or Boston, some times even to D.C. He has two daughters that he tries to see every weekend, and also some other pieces of his life, the most important at this time was his friend sick in Boston, it became a routine for him to have dinner Saturday night with his friend.
Life was simple that way, but of course humans cannot live simple lives, we have to complicate them as we move along. He has never been a simple person. He is complex in his way of thinking, in his way of living, in his relationships, and his brain works totally different from others. He is wired different. He doesn’t seem to be moved by the same strings that most human beings, he goes around and he doesn’t stop when he wants or needs something. He tends to be very good mentor, he likes people, but he seldom lets anybody inside his inner person. He is always afraid to be hurt. It took him long time to recognize this weakness. He has master a compartmentalization of his feelings so he doesn’t gives away his weak side. But she was bringing these walls apart, she was going steady but firm inside his most secret parts and she was doing it day by day, with an intensity that he admire and that sometimes makes him uncomfortable.
It came his birthday, and she prepare special things for him. Some of the ones he kept now near him, he remembers every single moment of it.
He pick her at her apartment, the new one. She just moved out of a relationship and her old place.
She told him one day that she was moving out of her place and just find one for her alone, small but will be hers. She was so excited, she talk about the convenience of the place, best corner in town, great restaurants, the subway, a big park in the back, etc. She is always in the process of starting exercise, she is not constant but he has never seen her do it. He could picture her doing some yoga and maybe some tai-chi but something else? no way, she would get stop at every corner by somebody trying to hit on her. And she is shy, even when she tries to overcome it. She can talk to anybody if she feels like she can have a one on one conversation around some subject, especially if it is one of her favorite ones, music or events. But she doesn’t like big groups, unless she can be in the middle of them, multitudes that give you the safety of being anonymous are ok.
She is complex in this way, she may be totally disorganized in some tings, but is really focus on others, she believes in the need for resources but it is not about that her life. She is in a desperate search for her identity, for what she is her role in the world, for what she should become. Like she wasn’t already.
Full woman, child sometimes, she looked at him with those eyes that seem so alive, that seem so eager to give and take.
They had a perfect dinner: all vegetarian food, no meat and no gluten. He started to understand that she has a connection with food, it is a sensual thing in her, like that movie, Like Water, Like Chocolate; where the food takes the emotions of the daughter that obviously is cooking Mexican food, with all its richness and full of flavors. So people felt in love when she was in love and food was wasted when she was mad.
Ann is a balloon of emotions, just about to explode. She really doesn’t know how to say thanks, but at the same, she has a restrain on herself that is very peculiar. She doesn’t seem to be willing to share, so he doesn’t dig deeper. Her emotion seem to be in a lethargic state that is more like when you get hit by a truck and you really don’t feel any pain, because the it is so deep the damage, that there is no more pain to go further…
It is like a dwell that went dry, like a womb that cannot produce more life, but even that is the impression; it is always those eyes that get you back to her. She seems to have inside so much life that it is about to explode.
They talk about everything, life, music, family, values, it was a great night. It seemed like life has gone into a stop and there was nothing that will move it.
He went through all and realized it was more than midnight.
Monday, August 20, 2007
- And finally they met
But of course, I just got diverted in what I do, not what I really am or for that effect what I really want. Is there any difference between those ?
Let’s get back to the real story, he felt good, he had no idea why, but felt like he could do anything today. HE could not stop thinking on the girl at the bar, Ann. She came in as ‘sightings” in many different ways during that infamous dinner. Somehow, he thought seen her coming to the restaurant, then get out of the ladies room. It was funny he thought, haven’t had that in long, long time.
Forgot about the incidents and went on with the plot planning.
He decided to leave early, and let the group getting drunk and ff to whatever they were planning to. He has never been a friend of nightclubs and other “only men” entertainment. He has stop all kind of relationships 12 years before, when he got so hurt, that he decided to kill that emotion inside him, but tonight was different.
HE went back home, or what he called home in Toronto, he really had no home. He felt sometimes like going back to his gypsy background, carrying “home” wherever he went.
His father was born in Spain, but really his grandmother was the one that came from a gypsy family, even with ties to the Rumanians.
On his way home he forced his route to go by the bar where he had met her. HE tried picking through the windows at a very slow pace, but nothing came and he just accelerated and took off. Home it is tonight, he thought.
Sleep has never been a problem for him, he can do it almost any place, and no needs for his own pillow or a special anything. Mostly a cup of coffee before bed. And of course a cigarette.. He found himself enjoying this tonight. He could hear the TV in the back; he got this habit when h was in China. At the end of a day of only listening to mandarin, he wanted to listen a language he could understand, in the background.
So he turned the TV on, even when he never really listens to it. Got his coffee and went on with his “go to sleep routine” : teeth first, then pajama, then turn on the mac, check some sites, order didn’t matter, facebook, linkedin, gmail, aol mail, finally hotmail. Sometimes even the office mail, but since the blackberry actually give him instant access to the office mail, he seldom check it form the computer.
Once all these was done, go to bed, start the unloading process, a book – he always has to read something before falling asleep – but this time was different. He never touched his book, closed his eyes and went practicing something he has not done in long time: remembering a face and a voice, putting together pieces of information, and then he went on a meditation stage.
When he was 10 years old, his family went through real tough times, father lost his business, then lost his job and they were living on selling stuff form the house. He was the only one that will go with his father every other day to the pawn house, and try to get some cash for the next two days survival. He was at that time, honors student, the best of his class and randomly went to play or do anything else that was not helping. But at night, he dreamed with something different. He got a book from a friend’s house, explaining something about a silver string that attached the “soul” (soul defined as the non material being) to the body and how your mind can control this string so you can actually got to places of see people when you learn how to let your “soul” travel.
He got into meditation, got more books on it, became a real believer in all the Lopsang Rampa theories and at that age, he lived all the novels he will read using this method. By the age of 12 he had read every single Jules Verne novel, almost all the material that he could found on WWII and several novels on Roman Empire leaders (his favourite was always Cicero, who became the most famous speaker of the Roman Senate).
Meditation served him a purpose; it was his escape from the environment he didn’t like at all.
He has not done this “traveling” in long time. He tried many times along the years and it always work, something he called “reconstruction”. It was a way for him to regain control over every single detail that happen during an event where he wasn’t able to focus, because there was “noise” around him at the moment when it passed.
He first went over “recognizing” the place, seats, table, other people around, then went directly to her. Her hair was with what look like natural lights, some place between blond and light brown, went down in a very simple way. Amazing were her lips. She tended to bite them after every sentence, in a way that you felt she was stopping more words to come out, sexy in a way, but most of all intriguing, wanting to know more. Then a pair of light blue eyes, surrounded by great “infrastructure”, no blinking, that was weird for somebody her age, sadness came out of them, but a force that have not seen in long time. Her aura, was definitely that of a red colour with blue tones that showed he was right.
She walk like she was floating, not really sexy again, but with a peace of mind, with the kind that shows the world you know what you are doing, but again, all that just seemed to be part of an act.
He went to sleep with that image, he used to be able to control his dreams, almost every single night, he will decide what to dream of. This time, he decided, that was it; he won’t allow her into his dreams. It was probably just a again that feeling, fear.
It happen so many times in his life, it follows him around the world. He has never been good at loving, he always gave too much too fast or simply walk away. Happen to him for the first time when he was only 12 years old, he finally talks to that girl, got her first kiss and then he was removed from his native city to live in Paris. He actually decided after a year living abroad, that he was becoming a priest. Started attending Mass every day at 6 am, helping with the catholic groups in the afternoon, etc. for more than a year. He was only 14 by then and starting looking at girls again. But now he tended to be careful, no going deeper into anything. Also, his family situation didn’t help. His father was dragging the family again into one of his bad business decisions and there was never money for anything. So he learned to create a world of his own. Alfonso’s world.
He felt in love with his teachers, that way, by pretending the impossible he was never going to get hurt again.
He felt asleep, while going through all these memories…
Next morning, his usual routine, read several newspapers and then prepare for another day at work. He loved his work, it was exciting to see how things have been building momentum during the last year, even against all odds, he was still at the helm of the division and the master plan was going ahead. One news came as a terrible bald of cold water, when his best friend and long time travel and work companion, was told by doctors that he was sick with cancer in the pancreas.
For the next coupled of months he dedicated his efforts to find some cure for his friend. There was only one thing that came to alleviate this. Ann finally one day sent him an email asking for any opportunity to work at his company.
So that brings us back to where we start.
He decided that he couldn’t really do anything without first meeting her in a more professional environment. A lunch meeting was set up at one of the top restaurants in town.
She came almost on time, very nervous and seemed to be exactly what he had pictured in some many dreams: her aura couldn’t be bigger.
The talk about everything, her life, his life, work and many other subjects, by the time dessert came, he was convinced that she was something especial, with what it takes to make it in the right environment. He gave her many pieces of advice on her resume, how to present it to be a perfect candidate for a position in the marketing department. She wanted to explore this avenue and she had the formal education for this. She didn’t have the experience and that was somehow a concern for her. But as he always said, somehow nobody was born with experience, one person in your life is going to give you the little push, the opportunity, to get ahead and then you need to be prepared to take it. He didn’t need to elaborate a theory around this. His own life had been all about this, positioning himself at the right place at the right time and then have the necessary guts to take the challenge, never say no to a task, doesn’t matter how odd it seemed to be. There was always a way to learn and create your own luck down the road. Just needed somebody to open the door.
The next weeks, they talk over the phone and she had many interviews until she got finally a firm offer. You should had seen her smile, her eyes could give live even to dead people. He had not seen a look that gave so much life in many years. Obviously he had made the right decision. She was going to make it.
Time went by, she started working, asking many questions and they developed a great relationship, he really enjoyed her company, her lively attitude and her unique sense of humour. She has a very unique way of confronting life, her views on the world were totally different, but at the same time, many of the ends were so similar. He had been like that one day, no long time ago.
Let’s get back to the real story, he felt good, he had no idea why, but felt like he could do anything today. HE could not stop thinking on the girl at the bar, Ann. She came in as ‘sightings” in many different ways during that infamous dinner. Somehow, he thought seen her coming to the restaurant, then get out of the ladies room. It was funny he thought, haven’t had that in long, long time.
Forgot about the incidents and went on with the plot planning.
He decided to leave early, and let the group getting drunk and ff to whatever they were planning to. He has never been a friend of nightclubs and other “only men” entertainment. He has stop all kind of relationships 12 years before, when he got so hurt, that he decided to kill that emotion inside him, but tonight was different.
HE went back home, or what he called home in Toronto, he really had no home. He felt sometimes like going back to his gypsy background, carrying “home” wherever he went.
His father was born in Spain, but really his grandmother was the one that came from a gypsy family, even with ties to the Rumanians.
On his way home he forced his route to go by the bar where he had met her. HE tried picking through the windows at a very slow pace, but nothing came and he just accelerated and took off. Home it is tonight, he thought.
Sleep has never been a problem for him, he can do it almost any place, and no needs for his own pillow or a special anything. Mostly a cup of coffee before bed. And of course a cigarette.. He found himself enjoying this tonight. He could hear the TV in the back; he got this habit when h was in China. At the end of a day of only listening to mandarin, he wanted to listen a language he could understand, in the background.
So he turned the TV on, even when he never really listens to it. Got his coffee and went on with his “go to sleep routine” : teeth first, then pajama, then turn on the mac, check some sites, order didn’t matter, facebook, linkedin, gmail, aol mail, finally hotmail. Sometimes even the office mail, but since the blackberry actually give him instant access to the office mail, he seldom check it form the computer.
Once all these was done, go to bed, start the unloading process, a book – he always has to read something before falling asleep – but this time was different. He never touched his book, closed his eyes and went practicing something he has not done in long time: remembering a face and a voice, putting together pieces of information, and then he went on a meditation stage.
When he was 10 years old, his family went through real tough times, father lost his business, then lost his job and they were living on selling stuff form the house. He was the only one that will go with his father every other day to the pawn house, and try to get some cash for the next two days survival. He was at that time, honors student, the best of his class and randomly went to play or do anything else that was not helping. But at night, he dreamed with something different. He got a book from a friend’s house, explaining something about a silver string that attached the “soul” (soul defined as the non material being) to the body and how your mind can control this string so you can actually got to places of see people when you learn how to let your “soul” travel.
He got into meditation, got more books on it, became a real believer in all the Lopsang Rampa theories and at that age, he lived all the novels he will read using this method. By the age of 12 he had read every single Jules Verne novel, almost all the material that he could found on WWII and several novels on Roman Empire leaders (his favourite was always Cicero, who became the most famous speaker of the Roman Senate).
Meditation served him a purpose; it was his escape from the environment he didn’t like at all.
He has not done this “traveling” in long time. He tried many times along the years and it always work, something he called “reconstruction”. It was a way for him to regain control over every single detail that happen during an event where he wasn’t able to focus, because there was “noise” around him at the moment when it passed.
He first went over “recognizing” the place, seats, table, other people around, then went directly to her. Her hair was with what look like natural lights, some place between blond and light brown, went down in a very simple way. Amazing were her lips. She tended to bite them after every sentence, in a way that you felt she was stopping more words to come out, sexy in a way, but most of all intriguing, wanting to know more. Then a pair of light blue eyes, surrounded by great “infrastructure”, no blinking, that was weird for somebody her age, sadness came out of them, but a force that have not seen in long time. Her aura, was definitely that of a red colour with blue tones that showed he was right.
She walk like she was floating, not really sexy again, but with a peace of mind, with the kind that shows the world you know what you are doing, but again, all that just seemed to be part of an act.
He went to sleep with that image, he used to be able to control his dreams, almost every single night, he will decide what to dream of. This time, he decided, that was it; he won’t allow her into his dreams. It was probably just a again that feeling, fear.
It happen so many times in his life, it follows him around the world. He has never been good at loving, he always gave too much too fast or simply walk away. Happen to him for the first time when he was only 12 years old, he finally talks to that girl, got her first kiss and then he was removed from his native city to live in Paris. He actually decided after a year living abroad, that he was becoming a priest. Started attending Mass every day at 6 am, helping with the catholic groups in the afternoon, etc. for more than a year. He was only 14 by then and starting looking at girls again. But now he tended to be careful, no going deeper into anything. Also, his family situation didn’t help. His father was dragging the family again into one of his bad business decisions and there was never money for anything. So he learned to create a world of his own. Alfonso’s world.
He felt in love with his teachers, that way, by pretending the impossible he was never going to get hurt again.
He felt asleep, while going through all these memories…
Next morning, his usual routine, read several newspapers and then prepare for another day at work. He loved his work, it was exciting to see how things have been building momentum during the last year, even against all odds, he was still at the helm of the division and the master plan was going ahead. One news came as a terrible bald of cold water, when his best friend and long time travel and work companion, was told by doctors that he was sick with cancer in the pancreas.
For the next coupled of months he dedicated his efforts to find some cure for his friend. There was only one thing that came to alleviate this. Ann finally one day sent him an email asking for any opportunity to work at his company.
So that brings us back to where we start.
He decided that he couldn’t really do anything without first meeting her in a more professional environment. A lunch meeting was set up at one of the top restaurants in town.
She came almost on time, very nervous and seemed to be exactly what he had pictured in some many dreams: her aura couldn’t be bigger.
The talk about everything, her life, his life, work and many other subjects, by the time dessert came, he was convinced that she was something especial, with what it takes to make it in the right environment. He gave her many pieces of advice on her resume, how to present it to be a perfect candidate for a position in the marketing department. She wanted to explore this avenue and she had the formal education for this. She didn’t have the experience and that was somehow a concern for her. But as he always said, somehow nobody was born with experience, one person in your life is going to give you the little push, the opportunity, to get ahead and then you need to be prepared to take it. He didn’t need to elaborate a theory around this. His own life had been all about this, positioning himself at the right place at the right time and then have the necessary guts to take the challenge, never say no to a task, doesn’t matter how odd it seemed to be. There was always a way to learn and create your own luck down the road. Just needed somebody to open the door.
The next weeks, they talk over the phone and she had many interviews until she got finally a firm offer. You should had seen her smile, her eyes could give live even to dead people. He had not seen a look that gave so much life in many years. Obviously he had made the right decision. She was going to make it.
Time went by, she started working, asking many questions and they developed a great relationship, he really enjoyed her company, her lively attitude and her unique sense of humour. She has a very unique way of confronting life, her views on the world were totally different, but at the same time, many of the ends were so similar. He had been like that one day, no long time ago.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
- It was only a problem of language…
the begginig....
They seemed to get along, but that afternoon, something trigger the a reaction that sent him into a spiral that was going to be just the beginning of a storm…
It has been almost 13 months since they met, “a casual meeting” at a bar. He was supposed to be in a Restaurant, having dinner with some of the top lawyers in Toronto. Just happen that one of his best informants, Droma Lavian, insisted in a face to face meeting ASAP.. . He was convinced that most of the times Droma called, was because he felt alone or abandoned by the world and needed company, the one that his personal fortune and charm couldn’t provide that often: brain food.
He has come to this country by mistake, he open his mouth at the wrong time in the wrong place. When his former boss ask who could speak French, he had to be the first to stand up and launch a full dissertation about the French culture and the origins of the International law inside the Napoleon legal system. But at the same time, it has been a re-discovery of him. This time it has been different; he had the inner peace to see things in a different way. Life had been good with him, but also he had been very good at taken advantage at each step. He had taken all the short cuts that he was given with; he had never damage anybody over the course of business or friendship. At some point he tried to remember how many he had brought up with him, because he believed in the “forward god” theory, even before it made it to the movies. But at the end, he had come to the realization that he had also taken a lot from many of them. He had converted too many into different people, into shadows of himself. Mostly for good, they had all come to realize that they were doing great by following his steps or his advice. Most had not realize what finally sank in the last year : he had not build anything for him, there seem to be no destination, no harbor after years and years of moving.
His life was done between work, lots of “friendly” motives to eat together, any one , but preferable dinner. People liked the idea of having dinner with him. He always get them into the best restaurants and knew all the nice waiters and hostess and the best food at each place. He had this effect in people, he may meet them once, but they will never forget. Sweet operator or charmer, or just a natural? He always treated people fairly; never get into arguments with people that cannot defense themselves, everybody is as important as anyone else, and all women are pretty. These were some of the “rules of life” that he learned early in life from his grandfather. Actually it was from both of them. Somehow he was the favorite of the “paterfamilias” on each side of the family. But at the same time he learn to be tough with himself, he would work first then al kind of friend commitments, then fun. He always joke about how much he loved his work, that it really was a lot of fun for him. He believed it, he was convinced that you never work for money, that you work for a cause that you believe in, for something that was greater than you. A job was nothing if you didn’t enjoy it, if you didn’t learn every day something new, if you couldn’t meet people.
At the end, it work for him in many different ways, he seemed to always be at the right place at the right time. Things worked for him. He never was a real cute guy, not as a teenager, not later, but he had that “angel” that will always get him where he wanted.
This time it was no different. Droma was making jokes and seemed to be harassing the very beautiful waiter that was serving them. The place was famous for having all kind of young women serving; most of them, college students that really had a different level of education and could manage almost any kind of customer.
Ann was different; she had an aura that could be seen from miles away. She was different; she had not even talk to him, and he could feel her. When he turn to see her, it was a unique sense of finding something lost.
She had a voice that could match any angel, listening to her he could go back to his early years at the catholic school, where sometimes at mass he will close his eyes and could listen the choir so neat, he could made one voice over the other, and of course, there was this girl from the “sister school only girls” that will join the only boys school that he attended, once a month for the “first Friday of the month mass”. That voice he could never forget. Of course years went by and he moved to Europe and never saw back the
She ask her name, but she just mumble it, then turn and left. IT was obvious that Droma has been the usual jerk. HE will have to do much better this time if he wanted to ust call her attention. But he knew there was something; this was more than just a “coincidence” : things happen for a reason….
It was getting late, and he tried almost everything to get her to talk. Droma kept being a jerk until I force him to be gentle or leave, or I would leave. Droma had seen me before doing stuff like that, so he knew I was talking serious.
He decided that the lawyers were not going to wait for much longer and he really needed to talk to them about the future of some lawsuit that he was planning.
He pay and one of his business cards felt, she took it and gave it back to him, not before reading it. He decided a long shot, he will just leave the card inside the bill folder and wait for results.
Left and went direct to his car. Music came and Toni Braxton came alive, Breath Again went into all its magnitude. To be fair the system of this car was amazing, so it created a sense of floating. Let it Flow was coming in, when he finally got into the Italian restaurant where the lawyers were waiting for him.
“Good night, Mr. Davila , welcome” it seemed that during the last 2 years he was able to create a full integrated image inside the local society. People seemed to recognize him almost any place he went.
The whole idea was to start a controversial suit against the prohibition for companies to advertising certain medical products direct to consumer.
Of course, the American companies have come to find a way to do it in a much more easier way for them : include the spill over on the US publications and TV that crossed over the border.
Well this time, He was trying to get finally something solved, in a country famous for never solving anything : this is the only place of all the ones he had lived in the last 20 years that had a highway that ended in a stop light before accomplishing its objective of crossing in a fast way the whole city. The reason was at the time they have too many arguments by some of the inhabitants of the one of the areas, that dcided they didn’t want the highway to go through their small ecosystem, so they were able to stop the project of Allen Road for more than 10 years, and still waiting.
They seemed to get along, but that afternoon, something trigger the a reaction that sent him into a spiral that was going to be just the beginning of a storm…
It has been almost 13 months since they met, “a casual meeting” at a bar. He was supposed to be in a Restaurant, having dinner with some of the top lawyers in Toronto. Just happen that one of his best informants, Droma Lavian, insisted in a face to face meeting ASAP.. . He was convinced that most of the times Droma called, was because he felt alone or abandoned by the world and needed company, the one that his personal fortune and charm couldn’t provide that often: brain food.
He has come to this country by mistake, he open his mouth at the wrong time in the wrong place. When his former boss ask who could speak French, he had to be the first to stand up and launch a full dissertation about the French culture and the origins of the International law inside the Napoleon legal system. But at the same time, it has been a re-discovery of him. This time it has been different; he had the inner peace to see things in a different way. Life had been good with him, but also he had been very good at taken advantage at each step. He had taken all the short cuts that he was given with; he had never damage anybody over the course of business or friendship. At some point he tried to remember how many he had brought up with him, because he believed in the “forward god” theory, even before it made it to the movies. But at the end, he had come to the realization that he had also taken a lot from many of them. He had converted too many into different people, into shadows of himself. Mostly for good, they had all come to realize that they were doing great by following his steps or his advice. Most had not realize what finally sank in the last year : he had not build anything for him, there seem to be no destination, no harbor after years and years of moving.
His life was done between work, lots of “friendly” motives to eat together, any one , but preferable dinner. People liked the idea of having dinner with him. He always get them into the best restaurants and knew all the nice waiters and hostess and the best food at each place. He had this effect in people, he may meet them once, but they will never forget. Sweet operator or charmer, or just a natural? He always treated people fairly; never get into arguments with people that cannot defense themselves, everybody is as important as anyone else, and all women are pretty. These were some of the “rules of life” that he learned early in life from his grandfather. Actually it was from both of them. Somehow he was the favorite of the “paterfamilias” on each side of the family. But at the same time he learn to be tough with himself, he would work first then al kind of friend commitments, then fun. He always joke about how much he loved his work, that it really was a lot of fun for him. He believed it, he was convinced that you never work for money, that you work for a cause that you believe in, for something that was greater than you. A job was nothing if you didn’t enjoy it, if you didn’t learn every day something new, if you couldn’t meet people.
At the end, it work for him in many different ways, he seemed to always be at the right place at the right time. Things worked for him. He never was a real cute guy, not as a teenager, not later, but he had that “angel” that will always get him where he wanted.
This time it was no different. Droma was making jokes and seemed to be harassing the very beautiful waiter that was serving them. The place was famous for having all kind of young women serving; most of them, college students that really had a different level of education and could manage almost any kind of customer.
Ann was different; she had an aura that could be seen from miles away. She was different; she had not even talk to him, and he could feel her. When he turn to see her, it was a unique sense of finding something lost.
She had a voice that could match any angel, listening to her he could go back to his early years at the catholic school, where sometimes at mass he will close his eyes and could listen the choir so neat, he could made one voice over the other, and of course, there was this girl from the “sister school only girls” that will join the only boys school that he attended, once a month for the “first Friday of the month mass”. That voice he could never forget. Of course years went by and he moved to Europe and never saw back the
She ask her name, but she just mumble it, then turn and left. IT was obvious that Droma has been the usual jerk. HE will have to do much better this time if he wanted to ust call her attention. But he knew there was something; this was more than just a “coincidence” : things happen for a reason….
It was getting late, and he tried almost everything to get her to talk. Droma kept being a jerk until I force him to be gentle or leave, or I would leave. Droma had seen me before doing stuff like that, so he knew I was talking serious.
He decided that the lawyers were not going to wait for much longer and he really needed to talk to them about the future of some lawsuit that he was planning.
He pay and one of his business cards felt, she took it and gave it back to him, not before reading it. He decided a long shot, he will just leave the card inside the bill folder and wait for results.
Left and went direct to his car. Music came and Toni Braxton came alive, Breath Again went into all its magnitude. To be fair the system of this car was amazing, so it created a sense of floating. Let it Flow was coming in, when he finally got into the Italian restaurant where the lawyers were waiting for him.
“Good night, Mr. Davila , welcome” it seemed that during the last 2 years he was able to create a full integrated image inside the local society. People seemed to recognize him almost any place he went.
The whole idea was to start a controversial suit against the prohibition for companies to advertising certain medical products direct to consumer.
Of course, the American companies have come to find a way to do it in a much more easier way for them : include the spill over on the US publications and TV that crossed over the border.
Well this time, He was trying to get finally something solved, in a country famous for never solving anything : this is the only place of all the ones he had lived in the last 20 years that had a highway that ended in a stop light before accomplishing its objective of crossing in a fast way the whole city. The reason was at the time they have too many arguments by some of the inhabitants of the one of the areas, that dcided they didn’t want the highway to go through their small ecosystem, so they were able to stop the project of Allen Road for more than 10 years, and still waiting.
- Reasons
There has to be a reason why somebody, one day decides to start to write...
Writting is about dumping emotions into a big bucket, that becomes a place holder for one day, domebody be able to understand the process in your mind.
I am not a writer, never pretended to be one, I write in spanish, in english and sometimes in french. It all depends my mood.
I learn those languages by cultural inheritance, born in Mexico (even I hold a psanish passport); raised inside a french family and went to a typical catholic US school.
Young in politics, one day decided it was not for me t change the world and the alternative of being changed by politics was too scary. Also, yonger relationships, that brought me too fast into the world of responsibilities, forced me to take a new path. Use all my "people" charm and knowledge and go and put it in to the service of the owners of capital.
And then finally, I wanted to see the world, wanted to meet new people, new cultures, so the best way was to do it with others people money : go international.
That way, I end up living in the US, in Brasil, in Argentina, in China, in France, in Spain, in Korea, in Indonesia and went to so many other places. I am pretty good at it.
Found love so few times, that it became part of me (not been loved...), and decided to work harder and harder. Not rich, but with enough capital to almost do anything I want, I was frustrated with my heart, until one day I found somebody.
The most incredible, weird relationship was born out of the blue, no sex, lots of laughing, magnetic attracton, vsion of the world so blurry, that we both feel abandoned by the future,
This blog is dedicated to she. It is never intended to be read by anybody (if you are reading it means you really got me drunk ( hey, but I dont drink that much, not been out of control in many, many years...) or you are the person it is intended to be written for.. any how, here are some of my most inner emotions, my real self. Hope that as you go by word by word, you will be able to understand what it is to be so affraid of love...
me, orutra
Writting is about dumping emotions into a big bucket, that becomes a place holder for one day, domebody be able to understand the process in your mind.
I am not a writer, never pretended to be one, I write in spanish, in english and sometimes in french. It all depends my mood.
I learn those languages by cultural inheritance, born in Mexico (even I hold a psanish passport); raised inside a french family and went to a typical catholic US school.
Young in politics, one day decided it was not for me t change the world and the alternative of being changed by politics was too scary. Also, yonger relationships, that brought me too fast into the world of responsibilities, forced me to take a new path. Use all my "people" charm and knowledge and go and put it in to the service of the owners of capital.
And then finally, I wanted to see the world, wanted to meet new people, new cultures, so the best way was to do it with others people money : go international.
That way, I end up living in the US, in Brasil, in Argentina, in China, in France, in Spain, in Korea, in Indonesia and went to so many other places. I am pretty good at it.
Found love so few times, that it became part of me (not been loved...), and decided to work harder and harder. Not rich, but with enough capital to almost do anything I want, I was frustrated with my heart, until one day I found somebody.
The most incredible, weird relationship was born out of the blue, no sex, lots of laughing, magnetic attracton, vsion of the world so blurry, that we both feel abandoned by the future,
This blog is dedicated to she. It is never intended to be read by anybody (if you are reading it means you really got me drunk ( hey, but I dont drink that much, not been out of control in many, many years...) or you are the person it is intended to be written for.. any how, here are some of my most inner emotions, my real self. Hope that as you go by word by word, you will be able to understand what it is to be so affraid of love...
me, orutra
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