The flower withers and bloom
The last summer in New York City
It was Spring in the year 2012 and my mom arrived back in Manhattan alone, to clean up a small apartment that she and her husband owned. The apartment had been rented out. However, it proved difficult for them to look after from another country so they decided to sell it in order to focus more fully on their new life in Ecuador. Her husband stayed behind there to look after the business they run and attend to other matters. After a painful and bothersome story, the apartment eventually sold. She began counting the days until her return to Vilcabamba, Ecuador.
Summer, especially in Manhattan is choking. Of course, there are parks nearby including Central Park, to cool off and wherever you go the air conditioners run continuously. However, even in the park and well air conditioned coffee shops, mom feels literally unable to fully open her lungs and breathe clearly. She is missing the wind blowing freely in the open nature. The intense desire and longing to return to Ecuador grows ever higher in her mind. Among the other things occupying her mind of course! It has been many years that she has been suppressing the doubts about her marriage and life. Once again, these feelings rise up strong and persistent.
“Marriage is just a marriage. Don’t fancy about it”. My mom used to say this to herself like a mantra. But this time, the mantra is not enough to lull her feelings. She feels if she doesn’t do something about this now, it will be irreversible and she will be consumed and doomed in this marriage. She wonders what it is that she is so afraid of. She can’t stop thinking of herself as being like a dying flower in a dry pot. “It is an insult to leave the dried flower in the pot without water. This time, this time I have to do something. I will even pull out the dried flower from the pot if I have to”, she promises to herself. Many days pass where she can’t grasp the reins of her confused, fast moving mind. She goes to bed especially early one night, but the heat in the small apartment in NYC is unbearable with or without an air conditioner. “This noise from the air conditioner is stabbing my head just like the noise in my mind”, she grumbles. Eventually, she gets out of bed and goes out intending on a short walk. The summer night in New York is the same as always, beautiful looking people sitting outside drinking wine or beer, laughing and kissing. After walking 4 or 5 blocks on the streets aimlessly, she stops at a bar where she used to drink with her friend T a few years back. She takes a chair at the counter and asks for her much needed glass of gin and tonic.
Not long ago, she read a novel called ‘Call Me Brooklyn’ by Eduardo Lago. The troubled characters in the book used to get together in the evenings at a bar called the Auckland. In the sanctuary of the bar the people became like ghosts of the night, escaping, sharing their woes, hugging and licking each other’s gaping wounds. They find comfort in this and their comradery. Yet they seem not to grasp how the Auckland actually ties them up inside. They only feel at home in the darkness of the bar - so much so that they can never see the light or blessings of real life beyond these limits. “What’s the difference between me and one of those ghosts in the Auckland?” she whispers. She is just one of the characters in the book finding comfort under moderately dark light, sipping gin and tonic, licking her own painful wounds. But… will it be any easier to find the path if she faces the fresh wind in the open nature? She doesn’t yet have the answer.
