27. What Is Love?
What might love be? Yesterday as I walked through Plaza del Angel, toward Sol and eventually Opera, where I would give two conversation classes at Cafe del Real, I tried to feel what it might be like to be another person, really feel the world from within another person’s skin. I’d gotten this idea from Willow on Sunday night, when I went to her place and she fed me dinner. No one ever makes her dinner, she said, often because her cooking intimidates others. Well, the puttanesca I was rapturously chewing certainly did not contradict the possibility of this notion.
I tried to feel Willow’s feelings for a moment, walking toward Sol in the mild Madrid night. I concentrated on nourishment for her, and peace. Peace was a theme.
Next I thought of Porter. What struggles has this world thrown her way? I think that she has had many. I imagined holding her heart in my hands, an idea I’d gotten from Claire, who had meditated on holding the heart of her beloved in her hands. That was before he slept with another woman while both of them were staying at his place in Granada.
Porter, though: what does she have to teach me? I’ve run into her twice, out walking. The first time, I was accompanying Alexander back to my place from Belgian beer and tapas followed by hot chocolate and churros. Porter was on her way to Maoz, the falafel place. She had been to a reggae show.
It was midnight on a Saturday. More people were popping through Sol than kernels in a microwaved bag. Porter appeared from beneath a streetlamp at the edge of Calle Mayor.
We called each other’s names in the same shockwave of joy. I hugged her strongly and tenderly, then stepped back as we continued our exclamations over the coincidence. As always she glowed with beauty. To the side of her head she had pinned a large orange flower, which set off her cafe-con-leche skin. A print scarf joined the usual slender chains slung around her neck, and gleaming against her chest. What a vision she was, coming out of the semi-darkened crowded plaza and meeting us under the light, as if she meant to all along.
I introduced her to Alexander and she said, “How do you guys know each other?”
Alexander and I both smiled. “We’ve been friends a long time… ”
“… met at a dance… ”
“1999 -”
I was the one who mentioned the year. I should stop doing that.