Ne Sui Pas

Ne suis pas

By Isaac López

I remember that gray, melancholic afternoon of a winter in London, where it rarely snows. The streets around Leicester Square were busy and the boulevards showcased figurines of people, fully clothed in black. The Picadilly Area surrounded by buildings gave the impression the center was no more than a small universe recreated in a crystal ball. My place in this cosmos was meant to be inside one of these red cafés, leaning forward the figurine in front of me while supported by my forearms on the table. The other person who was opposite to me sat so still and so immutable that it might as well had been a Greek statue. What did I know about him other than he had the cutest face in the world and that I was obsessed with the depth of his blue eyes? There I had him in front of me, speaking in the often regarded as the most romantic language of the world; the scene would have been perfect for a love movie if he hadn’t been telling me the dreariest words that could came out of his mouth. He couldn’t. He couldn’t – he insisted. His life would be simply ruined if his mom found out he was dating me.

“What’s so bad about us?” I inquired with a stern look. I was back to my senses, but still struggling not to get lost in the fine line of his cheek. I loved when he didn’t shave for around three days, the velvet brown shadow outlining his features.

“She finds out, and my life as I know it is over! They will stop sending me money. I’ll be forced to go back and face shame. I’m not ready.”

The way he made it sound—I tried not to picture myself as a horrible monster that wouldn’t ever fit in the family. I reminded myself, not without some degree of difficulty, that it was not personal; I had been there too and understood the situation. Not for that, I approved. I couldn’t believe my ears.

I had met him not long ago, somewhere in Soho, still part of that bubble we lived in. I hadn’t had the chance of seeing his demons come out or to see the holes in his perfectly kept appearance; I was far away from using those phrases stable partners use like “I know you”! It had been some months since I felt bold enough to come to him at the bar and ask him for his number; still his motivations and fears remained a mystery to me. All but one he was voicing with distress: he couldn’t let anybody find out he was gay.

I took it as a joke first. We had spent around two months like hopelessly enamored teenagers. On our first date I had stopped him before we walked any further on Old Compton Street, the brezee making us shiver, the perfection of his body hidden underneath his black cloack and the elegance of his neck disguised under the thick woolen scarf. I stared directly at his bright blue eyes and gained the courage to refuse to move any further without having tasted the moist of his lips. He looked down and stood still. He smiled shyly and said “why not.” Then we kissed for the first time, and in the touch of my freezing hands to the cotton covering his hip I knew I had found something special. We danced all night, kissed on the dancefloor and promised to do it again. We walked holding hands all the way to Trafalgar Square, looked for the highest point and climbed it, kissing with the yellow eye of the Big Ben in witnessing our adventure. We received the only snowy days of the season with joy, fought with snowballs in Green Park at midnight, and fell on the sidewalk the time we drunkenly danced on the icy pedestrian paths. Cold struck us together on Christmas, and though we celebrated new year’s apart when his family came, we texted each other around midnight wishing the new year would help us adding new chapters to this happy novel we were writing. Once we met randomly in the center, went out for drinks and we ended up piggybacking from Soho to Picadilly at three in the morning, that part of the London warmer because of the lights. While he was riding on my back, he locked his arms around my neck and asked me “Can we stay like this forever?” I didn’t say anything then, but that same night I got home and told myself that I had been the silliest man on earth for not even whispering “yes” when I wanted to scream that I loved him on top of my lungs.

That’s when I decided I had to ask him to start a life together. That’s when he replied, in a grave, dry tone “I can’t.”

I still had a hard time following his logic. In here, you could climb the Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace and shout from the rooftops that you liked cocks. Somebody might reply “good for you” and that’s about it. It wasn’t like in Uganda, that they publish your name on a list of faggots and next thing you knew someone came to your house at night and fired a bullet in your skull. Nor were we living in the Nazi Germany, doomed to wear a stripped uniform with a pink triangle and to die gassed, discarded as scum, our names forgotten in the echo of all the voices screaming in terror before facing death. We had it really simple. We just had to stand our ground before our families and embrace who we were. I saw no complexity in achieving such goal in the western society to which we belonged. Besides, we were still protected by the London bubble. What could hurt us over here?

Still, he shook his head in terror. His image froze as he hid his face from my gaze.

The sun went down before the clock hit six in the afternoon. The gray bubble acquired the contrast of the darkness of the alleys and the lights from the garlands hanging in the air from one side of the streets to the other. Inside the red café, however, the scene lacked light. Whatever illusion had been painted in my face before was gone with the last trace of the bleak day light in winter. I asked him what the problem really was. Was it me, not worthy enough of him? He asked me not to be ridiculous. What was it then? Hadn’t he meant what he whispered to me that night of January? He promised me the words had come from his heart, but would they be enough to shield us from the world? Unlikely. The problem was not what we felt. The problem was who we were.

My mind, disturbed, tried to find the wrong in what we had lived. I was trying my best to find the mistake in the picture of his body lying next to mine in my bed while through the open window the light of the closest lamppost flickered because of the falling snowflakes; there was no flaw in such harmony. How could he not want to fight for that? The repetition of his voice saying “he couldn’t” pounded in my head like hammers hitting iron. What good was being ready to open your heart to somebody when this person couldn’t even stand for who he was?

“Let’s say your mom confronts you. She doesn’t go around the bushes and asks you ‘Are you gay, Mathieu?’ What do you reply to that”? I asked angrily, every word impregnated with consternation.

“Ne suis pas” he uttered, gesticulating as if he needed to convince me. That hurt. The deep wrinkle in my forehead might have given him a hint of what was crossing my mind.

I tried to see the boundaries, to follow the crystal dome that enclosed him –us, in such oppressive confinement. I failed to notice them; actually, I failed to see any association of the city with the crystal ball. London was now a curve that expanded and expanded to other lands. He broke the fantasy. We were exposed to all the voices condemning our feelings.

“If you can’t be yourself in London, you may not be able to be free anywhere else in the world” – I said bitterly as I pulled out a ten pound bill to pay for my Americano and his barely-sipped espresso. I left the table and walked to the entrance, waiting for him to call me in his mother tongue or in his English with the marked French accent, but none of that happened. I was waiting for his arm to reach out for mine as I passed and not let me go, but instead I found my way out with a distressful lack of difficulty.

I left the café when the picture was in black and white. I was turning my back on my lover, but it meant little now that he had turned his back on us --more importantly, on himself. He didn’t move for a while, his espresso less frozen that him. Broken hearted and all, I left, in apparent slow motion, to proudly be me. He stayed, “not being.” The picture faded away.

Life from a Small Room.

Once I thought that if I ever had to live in a small, damp room in the city, with a flickering lightbulb dangling from the roof and the annoying sound of a drop constantly falling from the faucet, I was going to be alright. The reason? In this picture of stained bed sheets, cracked walls, and an incredibly skinny me in underwear I still had my laptop plugged and a explosion of ideas, images, and colors bursting from my head.
I currently rent a small, damp room in San Pedro. I either keep my door open to let the air in - in spite of the cold that comes with it at night, or confine myself to a moldy closed space that gets really stuffy after a while. I caught the flu and it has been really hard to recover partially because the room does not make recovery any easier. The location is great though - I couldn't be happier living around the hectic campus, and my light does not flicker; in that sense, it's not as bad as I pictured it. But is the typing and the storm of ideas present in my life? I owe myself big time in that part.
Gotta make this small room worth being here! Gotta get cracking with the writing!

I belong here - Soy de acá.

In one of the most gorgeous sunsets I’ve seen in my life, I grabbed a baby turtle and release it to the sand, so that it could find its way to the Costa Rican Pacific. I was standing somewhere in the left extreme of a line of forty people, everyone shoulder with shoulder, holding their hopes of preservation in the shape of an animal and finally release them to continue the circle of life. A race of forty hatchlings immediately started leaving their small and barely noticeable track, some more hasty than others in responding to Mother Nature’s call. Their instinct dictated them to go forward, the roaring ocean claiming its children. Mine – I dare to call it such for the time being, in the biggest of ironies, started following the sun, not going straight as the rest, so it took it a while to meet a wave. I felt a rush of excitement when the little black spot in the sand embellished with the colors of the sunset finally disappeared under a veil of foam, salt, and water. “This is kinda the day it’s been” my Canadian group says. This is the description of my last afternoon of work at Junquillal.

How could I’ve taken this for granted? As a kid, my father took me to a lot of places in Costa Rica so after a while I started believing I’d seen it all. I longed for Europe and traveled there then, came back not really knowing if anything was left for me in this land. This is when I find out I’ve lived my life in no less than paradise. The heath hugged me, the kindness of the people made my days brighter, and the peace I found taught me that although I was able to see the beauty in another places, I had given my soul to this land long time ago. The culture of double standards, of widely accepted mediocrity, and blatant face saving still bugs me. I still criticize and condemn the lack of interest of the population in vital political and environmental matters. Nonetheless, I want to be here, and though my heart is scattered around the world with the people I love, the part that I still keep is in love with this place. I’ve been suspecting I was hopelessly surrendered to Costa Rica since I started my trips around the country once I came back, but it has been these days of waking up with the sound of the waves, contemplating the dusk with the sound of the howling monkeys in the back, and the walks in the night through a shimmering green field of fireflies that has convinced me of being in the right place. While essentially remaining a city boy, I’ve been able to venture in the cloud forest, to witness the silent majesty of a volcano, to run two miles in the beach to see a huge leatherback nesting in the Caribbean, to see the sun rising in different coasts, to live at the foot of a mountain with the shape of a sleeping Indian… I’ve been living to the fullest and rediscovering a place where I completely wrongly thought once that I did not belong.

30 Days Song Challenge. Songs 1 to 10

These days I am running short of stories to tell in the blog or inspiration to come up with something new. I felt like I wasn't doing much worth telling, but then I came across this challenge on facebook in which you post a song everyday for a month; there was a chance to tell 30 stories with music over there.

Day 01. Your favorite song at the time. Fuckin' Perfect - Pink.
I was in London. One of those evenings when my sister and I used to skype, she asked me if I had listened to the latest song by Pink. She sent me the link and I started helping her with the pronounciation of the words, and before I knew I was so into it!!! I put it in my mp3 player when I came back to Costa Rica, and in some sort of Pink mode (only finished because of Gaga's new songs,) I listened to Fuckin'Perfect every day and made sure everybody around me felt just happy with who they were.

Day 02. Your least favorite song. Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus.
I rarely hate songs, and I couldn't care less about Miley Cyrus's career, but this song really annoys me. I dunno why. Maybe it bothers me listening to Costa Ricans singing about the USA. We should all party in Europe. It's so much more fun!

Day 03. a song that makes you happy – Born this Way – Lady Gaga
Yet another song that does not excite me at first but starts growing in me like a zombie infection! It came out one Friday while I still was in London. That same night they played it in a club in Vauxhall I went to and after that, I was just playing it every single day on Spotify. It is very liberating. I was thinking about how closeted I had to be when I came back to Costa Rica, but the song reminded me that I had nothing to be embarassed of, and that I was born to be brave.

Day 04 A song that makes you sad. How - Maroon 5
Mathieu and I had our ups and downs, and he was prone to give up on love while I insisted I was going to give it a shot. Ultimately, he gave up. As the album Hands All Over accompanied me in that relationship, some lines of these song just fit very well in the outcome of the events. "I dont understand the meaning of love, but I dont mind if I die trying" "why are the ones you love the ones who make you want to cry, and how?"

Day 05 A song that reminds you of someone. Never Gonna Leave this Bed - Maroon 5
Guess in whose bed I spent my last night in London? I felt like I really wanted to miss the flight and stay like that for days... Oh well, too chessy for this blog. Next song, please!

Day 06 A song that reminds you of somewhere . Nein Mann -Laserkraft
Marian, Diana's Colombian friend, played this song for us one day while pre partying at Diana's in Berlin. I thought the song was a lot of fun immediately. It wasnt until next day in Mauerpark that the song became an anthem for Berlin! We were having fun at the karaoke in this park. Let's say we had the idea of smoking something we had bought on the subway the day before. Booom! They play Nein Mann twice and the music just comes from everywhere! People dance like in a ritual and sing very low "Nein mann, Ich will nacht ein gehn." I hadnt felt that alive in a long time.

Day 07 A song that reminds you of a certain event - The Spanglish Song - Jay Brannan
I fell in love with Jay two years ago or so when I came across one of his songs on youtube. The moment I found out he was playing in London less than a month after I arrived, I bought two tickets and waited... He totally lived up for my expectations, and the concert was a success! I invited Raluca and we had so much fun. Raluca, though knowing Jay is gay, couldnt take her eyes off him and enjoyed the music. I remember I was the only Spanish speaker in the crowd who knew the chorus by heart and could sing along The Spanglish Song.

Day 08 A song you know all the words. Please don't let me go - Olly Murs.
Yet another trace of my former British life. Along Ambitions by Jessy McEldery, this song was being played all the time when I got to London. They were famous because the singers came from the X factor, a musical reality show as big as American Idol over here. My softie side loved the fact that the song was about being helpessly in love after running away from feelings all life. In addition, the beat was playful, the video was interesting, and Olly Murs's smile is golden.

Day 09 A song you can dance to. Release me - Agnes.
I listened to this song for the first time in a club in London and absolutely loved it, but none of my friends knew who she was or what was the song called. During the week I stayed in Barcelona, Therese started playing random swiddish music for me, and there she was, playing Agnes and the song I had been looking for several days ago. I kept dancing the song whenever they played it at clubs, and play it in my room along Born this Way, Airplanes, What's My Name, and some other London songs. The night Mar and I went to Club Oh! they played a remix almost right when we arrived. That was enough for me not to stop dancing for the rest of the night.

Day 10. A song that makes you fall asleep. Dearly Beloved - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack.
I inserted the game, waited for the PS2 to load and there it was, the menu song for Kindom Hearts. The piano was soft, the sound of the waves like a lullaby... closest feeling to heaven I've ever gotten. At that time, I wasnt an expert in dowloading albums from the web, so I ask Mar to give me the Kindgom Hearts soundrack as a present. She did. I recorded the tracks in my computer, and even used the cd player to play Dearly Beloved in replay and fall asleep. I feel like floating every time I listened to it. Damn Japanese composers and their heavenly music.

The cheesiest entry ever.

The title says it all. You'd been warned.

I think every time two souls that have had some sort of connection separate, the world suffers a little.

My friend Javier is very hard on me when I finish a relationship and get sad about it. "You'll get over it next time a pair a cute eyes cross your way" "It's always the same with you, but you'll forget about the whole thing in no time." Truth is he's right. I surely overcome emotional crysis very quickly - on the surface, but my heart can't help but feel a deep melancholy for a long time.
This last break up left me particularly shattered. The conditions in which all ended - beyond the obvious imposibility of keeping a long distance relationship, were quite complex, and the easy way out for my ex lover was just cutting every contact. I just couldn't believe two people that loved each other could end like that, throwing the other to total oblivion.
However, we humans like to believe in Magic or religion or whatever to hold on to in order to find some peace of mind, and so I did. After telling all the story to my friend Raluca, she said there wasn't such a thing as being forever apart. "It's not like you guys don't share memories. It's not like you've forgotten the other. Everytime one remembers the other, you'll meet in a place in the universe only the two of you can reach." I nearly wept after those words, and though I enjoy fantasy, I don't think it applies to human relationships. However, I gave it a second thought and deemed that, since the whole love thing is kind of surreal, maybe Raluca and her esoteric ideas fit into this context and I wasn't entirely disconnected from... can't really write the name without some recoil.

Meeting in our thoughts: the idea isn't entirely new. By the end of "His Dark Materials" saga by Philip Pullman, Lyra and Will have to separate knowing that to restore the chaos of the dimensions, each has to come back to their original world. After a rather sad goodbye (can totally relate to that now,) they promise coming every afternoon to the same bench in Oxford at the same time and, though in different dimensions, they will feel each other's company because they knew the other person was there. Neither of us are walking the streets of Soho now, nor are we embracing under the moonlight in Trafalgar Square, but maybe we travel distances in our minds and meet there in a London just made for the two of us, where no time will pass, will be forever young, and our kisses and promises can last a life time.

I said it was going to be cheesy.

These days.

This entry was more than overdue. I'm sorry I stopped blogging for almost two months, but I was out there having the time of my life. As for not taking the time to write the last month, I have to admit I've been just lazy. Sue me.
I'm back to the good old letters because I desperatedly need to find my smart self again. To tell the truth, I'm terryfied it has left me forever. I'm also back to writting in an attempt of protecting myself from self-destruction. I'm undergoing a stage of self loathing. After feeling immortal, glorious, and on top of the world in Europe, I come here to find I've gained weight, my hair is a mess, and my techniques for flirting - that proved super effective in London, are not taking me anywhere in here. For a month, wherever I went, I was sort of a celebrity and leave alone a exotic Latin American. I came back and people here think I'm the same, not willing to give credit to what I have achieved or learned in all this time. Oh, well, "At least I still have my writing to show the world I'm still here" I thought, and here I am almost begging a muse to come around and strike me with inspiration. If I don't come up with something good soon, I can oficially consider myself a waste of oxygen.
Skin problems and rashes do not help the self deprecating feeling either. I wish it were like Black Swan and the leprosy were only in my head. Having broken up with my lover doesn't do me well either. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was building something with somebody, but life proved me wrong. Oh, well, "At least I have my writing" I thought. Gotta think again.
Food barely tastes like anything. No joke is good enough to laugh aloud and freely. I got a job in the same exchange office that arranged my trip to Europe, and I love what I've been doing there, but the moment I leave my desk, I'm a hollow man again. This is what getting off the ride feels like.
I would be unfair with my Costa Rican friends if I said I'm not glad to meet up with them again, but I've come back in a moment in which everybody's gotta a life but me - and I have zero motivation to look for one outside my job.
I hope this entry doesn't come across as a lot of bitching. Reality isn't that great these days, and that's all I have to say. The saddest part is that I'm not looking for sympathy. I wouldn't know what to do with it. "Oh, Isaac, this troubled kid..."
These days, these days--can't wait to talk about them as in the past.

Too Weird to Go Back?

My excentricity might have increased during this months I spent in England. I might be just stimulating myself with the thought that I'm weirder now, but I might not. I think I have become wilder, more ruthless; one could say in simple terms "an epic mess." The moment I walked around Soho at midnight wearing a silly rabbit mask and knew that nobody gave a shit, I realized that well, hmmm, I might be too comfortable in here.

I have complained about London a great deal, I know, but I don't think I've taken the time to highlight how I love the freedom in here. My Skins-fan friends remember that mini episode of the first season in which the guys throw a party in the forest. Well, I have to say it happens like that out there. English people lose it when they drink, and the atmosphere they create invites you to let yourself loose too. The chanting, the dirty dancing, the jumping, the costumes, masks,more drinks -- Had I mentioned how I absolutely love that? Not to mention the fact that you're entitled to be yourself and accentuate your particularities (read also oddities) as much as you freaking want.

Now, as suited as I feel having coke and cigarettes for breakfast and spending ridiculous amounts of money for a night out (that last line could be read as sarcasm,) my unconscious is fixated with making me aware of the fact that this lifestyle is about to end. I've dreamt of going back home three times already. The dream keeps changing in setting, time , time of the day, people welcoming me and the rest, though three features remain the same:
1.My mom and sister are alway there.
2. The happiness, although overwhelming, lasts very little.
3. Towards the end of the dream, I'm always anxious to catch a plane back to go back to London, "where I live."

I should have read Cinderella instead of that anthology of Psychology that time, but I now I can't help to try to analize myself and decipher whatever the unconcious is telling me. While awake, I day dream of my friends, the beaches, the simple life of Costa Rica, but it seems that while asleep, when my defenses are down, my psyche dictates differently. That's confusing and arises many questions. Am I no longer fit for a society with more rules when it comes to public behavior? Have I finally become a helpless libertine? Lots of pointless introspection in here, but the thought of not coping with my country when I go back is plain scary. I was warned about the existence of the phenomenon of re-entry shock, but I laugh at that. "Pfff, me not adapting back..." However, the last times I've skyped with my family, a certain tension has settled in, like I'm a stranger, like I'm no longer welcome to come back. I just didn't know it was going to be that distressing.

In less than 50 days, I'll be back in Costa Rica and will discover how upside down the world would look. Am I too weird to go back? Only time will tell.

Update. Towards One End.

I have to thank Aline for dropping by my blog one of these days and remind me of the gift I have with words. "A normal person would sit down, record their events in the fashion of a supermarket list, but you Isaac, you make the other person see." That was both a huge compliment and a recognition of my skill, but above all, it posed a personal challenge. So much has happened in your life lately. Why on Earth haven't you written about it?

The date is January 31 2011. I've been in the UK 151 days already. If I were more precise, I would have some recollection of how many of these days were gloomy, sad, lonely and how much of the remaining time was simply hangover days. It's been such a ride... I couldn't escape the "U" process: first, everything is cool, then everything sucks, but finally it is all acceptable and relative. Now, in retrospective, it's been all rock and roll.

I remember walking London for the first time, with puppy eyes and with occasional silent tears of joy. I was making a dream come true. It seems so ridiculous that now I can't help but walk with petulance around Trafalgar Square, barely minding the Big Ben in the background and think exclusively of when is the goddamned night bus going to come!!! I was taking everything for granted! How easily we lose the perspective!

And it is true that my project never made me happy. It barely annoys me these days - it is more like a big boring segment of my routine, but it can't affect my mood anymore. I have Sage to thank for coming all the way here to slap me in the face and make me notice that the rest was being incredible - and besides we got to see Christina Aguilera and Cher live. It is true I never fully like these Indians I work for, but so what? I collected thousand of stories, and as I said in my previous entry, I gave birth to a character from all the shit I was putting up with (with a British manner, excuse the language.)

Now, as I walk (or run?) towards the finishing line, I can't help but feel happy. Despite the cold temperatures, the feeling inside is always warm - the Spanish sun and two days of clear skies in London have greatly contributed to the well being too. Part of me wants to stay, to keep living adventures, but the other part accepts peacefully that my time has come to go back to my people and show them how much I've grown and learned.

I'll try to recapitule some events in future entries. I'm really close to conclude one chapter of my life, and one of my favorites by the way, but who knows what's to come? I won't close the book just yet.