#15: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 15

Saying I love you to one another elevated our relationship; or perhaps cemented what was already there. Whichever was more accurate, maybe a combination of both, it pointed to our unassailable commitment to each other, and our legitimacy as a couple. Never mind that people here and there viewed our connection as a doomed fairy tale.

While others understood, “Yeah it’s risky, Julian, but it’s so hard to find someone in life you feel this way about. I agree. I think you should go for it” reassured Sharon, a lady I worked with at the time.

Had I conferred with a male I suspect I may have received a different perspective, at least from some males. Although not exclusively, matters of the heart – at the expense of purely physical gratification –  often find a happier home in a woman.

#14: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 14

In the short time I knew Erin my opinion had always been that she well knew her own heart. So, the day when she said those words to me I accepted their full force and the conviction with which she had uttered them.  I was sitting on a stool in my living room, only days after Erin’s return home.

“I love you, Julian”.

Still, by the time I had processed the gravity of her words – merely a split second – much had flashed through my mind. Past relationships with girls. The direction I thought my life had been heading prior to meeting Erin and the month in Australia I had just experienced with her.

It was a surprise, and those few words caused in me a whole of body experience, ending with elation and the recognition of knowing I felt the same about Erin.

“Erin, I love you!” I spilt these words into the mouthpiece without knowing I had done so; simultaneously had spoken them with the utmost purpose and awareness. This seemed like a relationship gaining momentum that I had for once not fallen into by some error, caprice or default. 

#13: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 13

We spoke by phone just as soon as possible, less than twenty four hours after the jet’s dangling rubber tyres slapped the tarmac at Dulles airport. Once again, it was a huge relief to hear Erin’s voice. We reaffirmed that although living in different countries, we would be committed to each other. That somehow, sometime we would be together.

It was so good to be on the same page.

The telephone quickly became our life-blood. Inevitably email also came into play as a quick way to reach out, to send a reminder to the other that we were thinking of or missing them – and an easy way to keep the flow of communication from falling prey to inconsistency. Within the next four weeks we had each written a letter to the other. One remained the grand total, though – a sign of the technological times. But my letter, as did Erin’s, was brimming with emotion, hope and remembrances of our brief yet seemingly eternal time together in Canberra.

We got into a lovely habit of telephoning each other at all hours. My chunky telephone – I now realise to be out-dated – would ring in the smallest of hours and before I seemed even fully conscious, I’d stick an excited arm out of bed and answer it. I couldn’t wait to get to work to see an email from Erin. Then, I couldn’t wait to be home to receive another phone call from her. When I wasn’t receiving calls or emails from Erin, I was calling or emailing her myself. It all happened around the clock, and time to us was irrelevant.

#12: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 12

Over the course of a month, Erin and I met up regularly before we reached that dreaded day. The day Erin’s study came to an end and she had to return home to the US. We shared a bitter-sweet last dinner together at Belluci’s in Manuka. At the table, after what we both agreed to be the best fried calamari we’d ever singularly eaten, I presented Erin with a black and white card depicting an elegant, romantic couple on the front. I covered almost every square inch of the inside of that card with my thoughts and emotions. Part of what I wrote expressed my sorrow for her having to leave: “…it doesn’t feel right because our flower was just starting to bloom…”

But I ended my blue-inked smothering with a borrowed quote: “The fulfilment in life lies in the beauty of the future”, because I wanted to leave Erin with a positive feeling, and for her to realise I didn’t believe that her leaving spelt the end for us.

After sips of wine and with moistened eyes, Erin then reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a mini-wad of handwritten notes on faint-ruled note paper in tatty condition. She handed me the little wad. I unfolded it and read it silently, filling up with emotions. Her words were different to mine. But the two of us had said exactly the same thing to one another. Although neither of us actually used the word or phrase itself, this was love, and we now couldn’t bear the coming separation and distance that would soon engulf us.

By the time Erin was on the plane and in the air the next day, I was in bed. Fully awake. Couldn’t sleep. Erin’s scent lingered on the spare pillow and on my bed sheets. I didn’t wash the bed linen until a week and a half later for fear of washing her away from my life completely. I pictured her high up in the sky sitting in her metal vessel. The further away the jumbo jet stole her, the emptier I became but simultaneously our experience together gained more definition and prominence.

How could we ever make this work? You can’t let this go.

#11: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 11

When the phone rang back and Erin’s voice sounded in my ear, I was so relieved and excited.

“Hi, I got your message”.

We chatted. I asked if she’d like to meet for coffee. Erin was happy to meet me where I’d suggested, at Essen – an intimate little café in the city – Tuesday evening. I hung up my chunky landline. I could still hear Erin’s sweet, eager voice ringing in my ear.

Sketchy Al as I called him (he just looked sketchy to me), Essen’s owner, wasn’t there that night. So we sat down and waited for one of the usual university students he hired to eventually fleet on over and take our order. Normally I would engage in a bit of banter with Sketchy Al upon entry, before he’d ask if I wanted my regular coffee.

Erin and I did not get on like a house on fire. No. We got on like a whole row of houses up in flames. The fire burnt for a good two or so hours, relaxed conversation its abundant fuel. I told Erin some boring story about how Russian Caravan tea had traditionally been taken with the addition of strawberry jam mixed in for sweetness. I shouldn’t have bothered but the words had irrevocably sprung forward, and it would have appeared even lamer of me to have stopped myself mid-way. I was drinking Russian Caravan tea at the time and, with the jam, so at least I had the aid of distracting props. Some nights later Erin told me that she had actually found the little story quite endearing. She was putting me at ease so early in our relationship. Either that or I had a remarkable talent for utilizing props.

#10: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 10

My car gently rolled up under a parking lot lamppost at Erin’s university residences. We were nestled in a fog and the lamppost sent out a warm glow. I felt like I was in a dream.

Below the waistline it was rock hard and throbbing, cramped and bursting under blue denim. The car windows were almost completely fogged over from our breathing together, our lips and tongues busy. As difficult as it was for me, no matter where my blood rushed to in concentration, I knew tonight was not that sort of night.

After quite some time in my car and a final goodbye, I and a belly full of butterflies and good feelings floated along the empty road home and into bed. When I awoke my stomach was still a butterfly house.

Should I call her? Is she interested in seeing me again? I’m pretty sure she’d be happy to get a call from me…

Damn answering machines...Don’t hang up! Leave a message…Oh, God, you sounded awkward – typical of you. Hope she calls back. Or I can try again…Yeah.

Sunday, 18 May, 2003. I don’t remember the time of day. I picked up my chunky landline and pressed all the digits of her phone number that I’d made sure to get on the Friday night. I left a message. After leaving a message I busied myself around the apartment, hoping that either Erin would return my call or that I would eventually catch her later during the day. Calling the very next day after we met seemed a little overly eager. Sunday was a safer bet I decided.

#9: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 9

I wasn’t sure where we’d find café-quality coffee well past midnight in ‘downtown’ or anywhere-else Canberra. But it really didn’t matter. Although, I did feel a certain amount of pressure to locate something, just to show Erin I had some idea of what was going on around the joint – that she wasn’t in the car holding hands with a loser of some sort.

We left the parking lot and headed for the trendy suburb of Manuka. No coffee located. All shut.

Tsst…bloody Canberra.

Normally such a scenario would’ve bothered me, thinking it was my fault. And I would probably have dredged up some similar memory causing me greater anxiety in the moment. Like when I took a girlfriend, Lara, to dinner for the first time. In fact, it was our first date. There was a mix up with the reservation. Although it was the restaurant’s fault, I took it on as mine and felt insecure about the whole evening.

“No, don’t you understand! What did I just say? You’re stupid. Look. First you multiply seven by…”

His father would be imposing, sitting cross-legged, speaking in explosions and frowning in his big brown armchair at the back of the living room. Julian was kneeling in front of his towering father, feeling useless, scared and sobbing, trying to understand his father’s explanations of the math homework. It all just became a blur in the end. All he could think of was his father’s angry hand gripping the pen. And the frightening voice. That angry hand and the frightening voice.

But, being with Erin I felt so much more at ease. My head was clearer and I confidently decided on an alternative to coffee – to instead swing by a bakery known for staying open late. Thinking of this alternative may seem only logical or even pathetic. Yet, it probably represents the first interaction of its kind between Erin and me – I was displaying more confidence than in years before, whereas, Erin was innocent to such change in me for now.