A gentle reminder

Mid-nineties. Have just come of age and started dating the most beautiful girl around. The most spectacular one. And have fallen in love. Deeply. As first shy kisses are exchanged, I'm leaving for a while.

Staying with a bunch of promising brains in a rural hostel, completely desolated, away from anything that would remind us of civilization. There is only snow and deep forests around.

Though I terribly suffer, being parted with her, I do enjoy it there, every minute of it, hanging out, reading Catch XXII, talking to friends I've been seeing for years but am likely to lose for good soon, enjoying sleepless nights and exhausted mornings but most of all — thinking of her, thinking of her, thinking of her — being completely absorbed in bottomless desire.

I bought a postcard when I was leaving the town, Escher's Balcony — to let her know that she was there with me.

It's after midnight, I'm freezing on a lifeless terrace and wondering what to put down to make sure she would understand. Nothing too serious, nothing too luscious. Must be spot on. Poetic. Maybe foolish. At the time, I didn't know I had to stay hungry, stay foolish. I simply was.

After all those years, I cannot recall what was it I wrote; I guess it could have been either something slightly romantic or slightly reserved — and there must have been far more between the lines. Though we were only about to learn about each other, I was eager to learn and happy to teach.

I remember thinking that this was it, that — while I knew so little about the girl — this was the definite love. Well, maybe it turned out it wasn't down the track but for the time-being it surely was.

So what's the moral of the story?

The balcony — it represents the moment when I was incredibly conscious about my life, I knew exactly what was going on and I knew that life was mine to handle. For that matter, a balcony, any balcony where I get time to reflect becomes an epitome of a gentle reminder: this is my life, my life to handle and I should rule the roost.