Singing

   She was in a city she had never been in before. But Claudia didn’t mind at all. She couldn’t pay attention to anything else. Her turn on stage was scheduled in about two hours and she was very nervous.  In the car, she looked at her hands frequently and sang her song in her head, repeating it over and over, in order to prevent any accident to happen. Her hands were already a little bit sweaty and she knew her makeup had to be retouched once they got to the arena, which would be in just some minutes.

 Her agent looked at her and told her she didn’t have any reason to be nervous. The contest she was in was crowded with first timers and Claudia was all but that. She had been singing since she was a little girl and hadn’t stop for a moment. Her first public appearance at a singer had been in a local state fair, back when she was only five years old. Even then, people fell in love with her voice and the magnificent range she had. Many people thought her voiced was tricked or something.

 But that wasn’t the case. That little detail made her instantly well known among the people of her town as well as some others in the vicinity. That was the beginning of her singing career and year and years of investment in a voice that was very particular but incredible subtle too. People just loved it and she made the effort, every single time, to make the best out of every single concert she had. But, somehow, this contest seemed to really make her nervous, beyond anything she had felt before.

 The day she entered the contest, she didn’t really feel she was going to get the spot. After all, many other young singers wanted to be there. The trials for the event were very harsh and it was the first time Claudia was authentically scared for her voice, the reason being she was using it almost everything, without any rest whatsoever. Thankfully, she was able to sing the day she was chosen to be in the contest. The very next day, she decided not to talk for a while in order to preserve her voice.

 The car finally arrived to the arena, entering an underground parking lot and stopping just in front a big door and a woman holding a notebook. She was the one verifying everything was all right. She checked their papers and then told them where to go next: the assigned changing room where Claudia would have the chance to dress up for her performance. She had brought a very nice dress that her mother and father had bought for her just after they received the news of their daughter participating in the festival. The dress was just perfect and so were her parents.

 She thought of them as she put on the dress, which was blue with many sparkles all around. The outfit came with a pair of earrings and a necklace, both made of silver. They had once being the property of her grandmother, another woman in her family that had been known for her amazing voice but did not have the chance to sing professionally. Partly because she decided to have a family before a career, but also because she had to suffer a lot and singing was not a priority.

 Claudia, on the other hand, realized she had never really suffered anything. The irony was in that her song was about exactly that. So she felt a little bit like a hypocrite. So bad she felt, that she decided to try and change the song chosen to be performed in the contest. But it was impossible to change her entry at that late point in the process. She had to sing what she had decided to sing in the beginning, no matter if she liked it or not. She had to look inside herself a connection to the song.

 Many people think that’s bullshit. They think that an artist can just speak about whatever subject they want and there won’t be any trouble and all. But that’s not true. If you don’t feel the subject that you’re going to be handling, there’s a big chance you won’t be able to deliver. An artist is supposed to shake you to the core, by making you realize things about yourself that you didn’t even know about. No matter what art for it is, people expect to be moved in one or the other.

That was the problem that Claudia had with the song and she had to really learn the lyrics and understand the meaning in order to find her unique connection to the song. It took her several weeks to connect to it but she finally made it. The improvement of her performance was notable. Before, it just seemed she was a very good singer, doing a nice job with a random song. But after properly exploring it, her voice and the lyrics appeared to turn in the whirlwind of emotions, pure heart.

 That’s why she always cried after each performance of the song. She did it all the rehearsals and she did it the night she was chosen to be in the contest. And she will probably do it there again because that was the connection that she had created to her song. She thought about all of this looking at the mirror, once she was fully dressed for her presentation. The first performer of the night was already singing and now she had to go and stand in line for her turn to come. It was nerve-cracking and every other singer there looked worried, none of them tried to hide it.

 Thankfully, she was in the middle of a thirty people group. So she didn’t have to wait a long time to sing but she wasn’t thrown into the stage too fast either. She just sang the song inside her head over and over and tried not to look at the other competitors. Claudia also tried to tune out the voice of the person singing at the moment, which was very difficult because only a thick curtain separated the singers on the line from the one performing on stage. It was a rush of energy.

 Finally, her turn came. She walked slowly towards the microphone, that way prevent herself to trip or step on her dress or something. She controlled her breathing and closed her eyes the moment she arrived on the spot she had to be in. She had to wait for her music to begin and that seemed to take years. Of course, they were only a few seconds but it seemed forever then. She even had time to think about her parents, the only people she really cared about in the whole world.

 The music began and her voice began flowing out of her body, filling every single part of the enormous stage and beyond. People looked at her ecstatic but she didn’t looked at the audience. She was singing to herself and to her parents, looking up, to a point far away into the bright lights that bathed her with a bluish light. Her arms moved, her legs were in tension and her chest was doing a lot of the work. But everything went perfect, even better than expect. When she finished, she cried once again.

 The cheers and screams and expressions of joy from the audience were just overwhelming. Everyone seemed to love her song, her voice and her performance. She had really managed to make the song her own and now, even if she wasn’t able to win the contest, it didn’t matter. She had proven to herself what she was capable of and that was something she had not expected to learn there. She had just come to sing and she pulled away from the stage having changed as a person and a singer.

Early hours

   For some reason, he wasn’t able to sleep properly, as he would have wanted. Ever since he could remember, his eyes opened automatically very early, always around seven o’clock in the morning. Every single time he tried to keep sleeping, staying in bed and covering himself up with his bed sheets, he failed miserably as his eyes wouldn’t close for anything, no matter how much and how long he tried. When he had something to do late some day, he just woke up that early and then waited.

 If he ever had to wake up earlier than that, then there was no problem. It was over sleeping that was the problem and not the other way around. Certainly, it was a very uncommon thing, but very real nevertheless. Craig, that was his name, had become an expert in handling all those hours that he normally had to spare on days he didn’t have to work or on weekends. He tried to use them for exercising or doing some of the things he never got to do when he was busy like his taxes and stuff like that.

 It was this early, once he went cycling around his neighbourhood, when he met someone that had a problem with his bike. His name was Rick and he his bicycle on the lawn of a park, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. As Craig had gathered a considerable amount of expertise related to cycling, he decided to stop and help the guy, carrying the bike to a near gas station where they could check the tires for any problems. Indeed, the issue was that something had cut through one of them.

 Rick felt really silly and blamed his accident to the fact that he hadn’t been sleeping much. That small phrase caught Craig’s attention, who rapidly responded by smiling and confessing he rarely slept too much, instead doing things like cycling to spend the time. Rick was very intrigued by that, so he asked Craig if he would like to join him for some lemonade while walking towards his house. There was a place nearby that made an excellent, sweet, lemonade.

 They each bought one and talked about everything as they sipped lemonade and walked with their bicycles on the side. Craig realized, once he got home, that he had practically neglected to actually exercise that day. But he didn’t mind because of two reasons. The first was because he didn’t cycle to exercise as such but to get distracted and spend time he didn’t want to waste. And the other reason was because he had enjoyed Rick’s company too much and would have wanted to spend even more time with him. It had been a nice thing to ask for his phone number.

 He had to wait a week, until next Saturday, to receive a text message on his phone. Rick wanted to know if he was going to go out on his bicycle again, as he had already fixed his bike’s tires and he was looking forward doing it correctly this time. Craig wrote him that he was indeed coming out with his bicycle and that he would love to meet to exercise together. Sure enough, Rick was on the front door of Craig’s building very early on Sunday, yawning a lot but with a smile.

 That day, they both really exercised a lot. They went very far, some ten kilometres away. There they looked for some place to have something to drink and then they came back to Craig’s apartment. As the only thing to drink they had found was a store they had bought some water bags from, Craig decided to invite Rick to his apartment, for a proper breakfast. Rick refused at first, saying he still had to go to his house, but as Craig knew it wasn’t very far, he accepted the invitation.

 The bikes stayed on the basement, behind Craig’s car. On the elevator going up to the apartment, the two men realized they didn’t know what to talk about. They were tired but at the same time they both felt it was necessary to speak, as they were going to spend some more time together that day. But not a word was said in the elevator. On the fifth floor, Craig grabbed his keys from his pocket opened the door. Rick was visibly uncomfortable, as Craig walked stretching his arms into the air.

 They both entered the kitchen and then decided to make omelettes for breakfast. Realizing how tense Rick appeared to be, Craig decided to make the moment very interactive: he would ask the other guy fro every single ingredient for breakfast and Rick would have to look around for it. Surprisingly enough, he was very fast with everything, finding all necessary items in just a few seconds. The game was a very smart way to break the ice and initiate a proper conversation.

 As the eggs cooked, Craig explained Rick everything about his rare condition, where he couldn’t sleep past seven o’clock, how he blamed his childhood for it and some funny things that had happened as the years had gone by, during those early hours. Then, it was Rick’s time to talk about himself. He chose to acknowledge the fact that he was very shy but that he was always trying to push himself forward, in order to meet new people. He confessed that was the first time his experiments had actually been successful. Craig proposed a toast with orange juice.

 They spend the morning eating and talking, until they realized the moment was becoming very awkward again. Thankfully, Rick’s phone rang and broke an uncomfortable silence that had settled in. They didn’t write or called each other during the week. But, at least Craig, certainly thought about Rick when his mind wasn’t busy doing something else. He realized he felt something but he didn’t know what it was and it bothered him. So he tried not to think about it too much.

 The next weekend, nothing. Rick didn’t call or sent a text. Nothing at all. That was the first Sunday in a long time that Craig spent in his bed. He decided he was tired of exercising and instead chose to watch an animated movie he had never paid attention to. He surprised himself by doing that, as he wasn’t the type of guy to watch cartoons but he thoroughly enjoyed his morning, complete with a big bowl of cereal and sliced bananas. He felt like a younger self again, for some time.

 That afternoon he decided to go to the supermarket, as his refrigerator was becoming more and more empty. He normally didn’t worry too much about it, as he normally ate outside of the house, but an urge to eat better thing took over him, so Craig decided he wanted to start cooking more. He was on the pasta aisle when he heard a familiar voice. At first, he thought he was imagining it and got very embarrassed with himself because of that, but then he realized it was really happening.

 Slowly, he moved his shopping cart around the corner into the next aisle. There he was: Rick was talking to a small girl. Apparently she was deciding which cereal she was going to buy. The decision was down to a pink box with princess related stuff painted on it, or a red box with a big panda on the front, eating something that looked like tiny chocolate cylinders. The girl grabbed the pink box and hugged it. Rick smiled and then his eyes moved up, to see Craig standing there like a lamp.

 There was no way of pretending he hadn’t been looking so he only waved and smiled. He didn’t come closer; somehow his legs wouldn’t move his body forward. There was a tense moment, in which the only noise was the girl trying to make Rick move from his spot. They didn’t say anything. Craig was the one who moved first, turning around, almost sprinting to the nearest paying point. Once he was at home, he decided that his early hours would never be used to do any exercise again, or at least not one that involved meeting strangers, as if that had anything to do with his embarrassment at the moment.

You and all of us

   Who are you? Or rather, who do you think you are?

 You have been going around your life thinking what the purpose of everything is and you discover that purpose is not something that exists out of the blue; it is something you have to create and make yours. But you my friend, you are someone else. Possibly, you’re very far. Maybe you speak a very different language and have radically different traditions. Or is it the opposite? Are you so close it’s ridiculous life hasn’t made the connection yet?

 You’re probably sleeping now and it’s easy to picture you: your soft skin and beautiful legs lying on a bed. Your body has pushed away all covers and blankets because in the cold you will warm and when it’s really hot you dare to say it’s cool. Physically you have been so different so many times but the reality is you’re probably unique and absolutely different to what has been imagined now and before.

 Hopefully, you have a job and you like it. Or is that the problem? Is that why you haven’t arrived yet? Have you been delayed because you prefer to solve your more important problems first, rather than looking for love or whatever it is this could turn into? You probably have a nice head on those shoulders and have your priorities in order. Yet, it is possible you are a bigger mess than what happens here. That could be good… Or very bad.

 It’s very confusing and unnerving because you are the one. That’s it, really. You are the one that’s going to change someone else’s life and it’s hard to see how you’re supposed to be doing that. After all, you’re a human, you’re no superhero or god, and you cannot make extraordinary things happen. Or at least not the kind that shifts life from one side to the other, from up to down, from left to right. But you possibly know how to make changes.

 Yes. If you are the one you probably know how your make your voice be heard and make changes in your life that are permanent and powerful. This is clear because that’s the kind of person “the one” needs to be. Someone with a certain drive, a certain push in life that matches someone else’s drive and thrust. Because it’s not about one leading the other but about two people going hand by hand.

 It’s scary, but all of it could maybe not be love at all or at least not the kind of love one would expect. It would be hard if you were just a friend or maybe even less than that but if you are the one, then that probably doesn’t really matter. What matters is the change that you can bring, the energy you can balance with someone else. Romantic love is, after all, an illusion in most cases and, always, a distraction.

But then, what if you are that prince in a shining armor? It is so much fun to picture you, especially because you could be anyone. Maybe you are that guy in the supermarket that always stares for hours at all the cereal boxes. Or maybe you are the kind of man that loves car and football matches whenever they take place. Or you could even be from a different world, a different level in the social sphere. It could happen.

 But, do you know what you definitely are? Well, a possibility. Everyone is a possibility because we could all be that person that changes the life of one of the others in the world. It’s kind of a lottery when you know you’ve won but not how much and the prize can take its time to reach you. You could even lose in that lottery but that would be kind of impossible… Wouldn’t it be? Losing at life sounds to hard and harsh and just unfair. No, you win every time but in different ways, that’s one happens.

 Are you awake now? Are your eyes looking at a teacher in class, trying to follow what he’s talking about and you're not interested? Or are you alone, in a place very far from any other people? Maybe you like sports and you have your mind and body up to that task. Hopefully, you are a person that likes order and having everything neat and well put. If you’re not, it could prove difficult to be around you.

 But, it is important to know what kind of person you are, which thing you like doing and what makes you whole. Because even if you are the one, you are only complete when you are a whole other person. The kind of people that make a couple work as only one person, that’s not good because it doesn’t really make any sense. A couple is supposed to be about two, about differences and even about fights and disagreements, because the world is not perfect and that’s beautiful.

 So, what are your flaws? What do you think about yourself? Do you like your body or is there something that makes you look away from the mirror? All of that also makes you unique, one of a kind. It would be nice to tell you that you are perfect every single day, that that little thing you don’t like doesn’t matter at all because the larger picture is just the best there is. That would be the best.

 Imagining your skin is probably the most difficult thing. It’s probably soft and has a nice smell but when you haven’t touched or done something, it’s very hard to picture with accuracy. Like when you dream: most times you can only do there what you have actually done in real life. Except maybe flying, which is a mix of falling and just being in bed.

 It’s a little embarrassing but it’s probable you have done it too: picture the moment when you and your one meet and you two can finally be together. You can touch his naked body and he can touch yours and you can kiss and have sex like you have never had it before. Because that’s the expectation, don’t you agree? The idea is that that person makes the difference between having sex and making love. Hopefully you get to feel what that’s like and cherish it for the time you have it.

 That’s another thing. As humans we have an expiration date, which we don’t even know. So we cannot be around forever looking for that other person, we’re here for a while and then we just leave. So we really have to take advantage of everything we can do and just do it, unless it harms someone else. But if you really want to do something that makes you happy, just do it. Whoever turns out to be your companion, will love you being happy of course.

 Maybe you’re now on a beach, feeling the sand between your toes. Maybe your skin is darker or maybe lighter. Maybe your eyes are the color of hazelnuts or maybe the color of water or the color of grass. You are probably very “average”, whatever that is. But all of that doesn’t matter because it’s just the surface. Your are that but there’s so much more underneath, like a human iceberg if you will.

 The one could come in any shape or form and you probably enjoy him or her anyway. Because you won’t even have to think about it that much. The idea is that it just happens, in time and eventually. Maybe not magically and suddenly like in movies but it certainly builds up to something strong and stable but you won’t be able to see it until it is there, until it’s a reality and you notice it happened.

 That sounds a bit scary but it shouldn’t really be. That’s how life works in any case and it has been like that for many thousands of years and will keep the same way for other thousands. We just have to accept that special feeling, that kind of magic that happens in the moment. But mostly, we have to have patience and realize that life has ways to do things and that not everything works for everyone. Efforts to achieve a goal always have different results for different people.

 In any case, you’re there. You’re all there. And you will meet one day because that’s the most probable outcome. And you will get used to one another and when you realize, you will have what you always wanted. You will have picked up the last piece of the whole puzzle that is you. But that piece needs all the other pieces, or most of them, to work correctly. Never forget that.

Connection

   As we headed to the station, to take that small train that goes around every terminal, I decided to take his hand in mine. Normally I would never do that but I decided this was the best moment to do it. It was time not to mind anymore about who was watching or if they had things to say. All the hate in the world could fall on me but I didn’t care because I understood what he was going through. He needed much more than just my hand in his, but I was happy to feel he took and squeezed it a bit, as if telling me “Thanks, I needed this”.

 We hadn’t spoken in several hours and I decided I didn’t wanted to be the one to talk first. For me, it was a decision he had to make because it was him who needed this time to reflect and think about many things. Well, that was my guess anyway because I couldn’t be inside his head. I did wonder though, about his thoughts and his secrets. But all of that was his to have and not for me to know. I respect a person’s life, and a life always has secrets and things you rarely share with anyone.

 The train station was a bit crowded and, oddly enough, most other passengers were foreigners, just like us. We were in San Francisco international airport and in our train there wasn’t a single Californian. We sat down, put our bad in front of us and felt the pull of the train beneath us, moving slowly towards the next terminal. I noticed my eyes were closing a bit, rocked by the movement of the train. The flight had been very long and we still had another one to go. I had never travelled so far before and felt a bit guilty, as I hadn’t paid for one dime. It had been all him.

 He squeezed my hand again and I turned towards him. His eyes looked sad but they felt stronger than before. He looked at me as if wanting to tell me something but there was no need. I proceeded to lay my head on his shoulder and he did kind of the same. I closed my eyes but I couldn’t really sleep. I just felt closer to him now and didn’t want that moment to end. But the train, after two other stops, finally arrived to the terminal we needed to be in.

 When we stepped out, we walked slowly towards some escalators and eventually to a commercial area. We passed a coffee shop and I asked him if he wanted to grab a bite. He didn’t say anything, just nodded as he yawned from exhaustion. As we wouldn’t let go, he joined me in the queue. We bought two big sandwiches each with cappuccinos and a big muffin to share. After we paid we found a little table a bit separated from the rest of the people and sat there. Our baggage was there too, with the few things we had been able to bring for such a short trip. We started eating in silence, watching people go by.

 We let go for a few seconds, to take our coats off, but he grabbed my hand again as he ate his sandwich. He ate it a bit too fast, he was hungry and he hadn’t told me. I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told me he was hungry if maybe his stomach hurt or something. I was growing very mad for a moment out of such a silly thing and even my hands began to sweat so he noticed I was going through something. He looked at me and I saw his watery eyes looking at me. I had never thought they were as beautiful as they were in that moment and I felt bad for that.

 I at my sandwich as he drank his cappuccino, drying his eyes with a thick napkin they had given us. I saw he wasn’t feeling good, I saw he was still broken and I hated him for not talking to me. I felt so far from him and I didn’t understood what I was doing there, why he had brought me there if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. I had had it with all the silences and considerations. I didn’t wanted to wonder anymore about what he was thinking or what he wanted to say.

 Suddenly, he stood up and left. When he was two steps away I thought I heard the word “bathroom”. He had used his voice once only to tell me such a stupid thing? I almost made my cappuccino cup make a flip in its own plate but luckily my fist landed in the right place. People looked at me anyway and I just covered my face and lowered it to finish my sandwich and the cappuccino. I took the muffin and took a bit chunk of it with my teeth. The sweetness of the chocolate helped my spirit feel a little bit better.

 When he came back, I noticed he had been crying but I didn’t say a word. I only gave him his half of the muffin but he didn’t grab it so I ate it. I wasn’t going to waste a good muffin just because he wouldn’t talk to me. We took the baggage and started walking around the terminal, trying to make time for the next flight. I checked our gate on a screen and he stood up behind me, not even looking at the screen but at the airplanes on the tarmac. I hate to see him do that because I felt I just couldn’t leave him, ever.

 We got to our gate and sat down by the counter in order to be ready when they called us for boarding, which would began in a matter of two hours. I wanted to fall asleep or at least feel I wanted to be asleep but that time had passed. Maybe it was the coffee or the fact we had eaten something, by I couldn’t fall asleep.

 Then I felt his hand grabbing mine and, of course, I didn’t push him away. Because I wanted to feel his hand and smell his scent and taste his lips. But I didn’t now when I should go for a kiss, a hug or a conversation. I felt lost and kind of in a disadvantage. After all, we had just arrived from his mother’s funeral.

 He squeezed my hand and also stroke it and I just had to look at him. But he wasn’t looking at me but, again, at the planes outside. I squeezed his fingers softly and he did look at me at then he came close and kissed me. His face felt a bit cold, his lips a bit dry, but I knew those were the kisses I had learned to love although covered in a veil of sadness I had to understand. He let go of my hand and put his hand on my face and just keep kissing me. We stopped after a few seconds, smiling.

 Our hands stayed together as people arrived. The plane was going to be full, that was certain. He kept looking to the planes and then he started watching his watch. He was clearly anxious to get back home or maybe worried he had to go back in a plane. He wasn’t that friendly with them. Finally, the boarding process began and some minutes later we were already inside the plane, sitting side my side with and old lady as our neighbor. She was the first person to speak to him and he responded.

 Hearing his voice was the best thing for me. I loved it so much it filled me with joy, tumbling down all the feelings that had gone through my body earlier.  I smile at the lady who told me I had a very charming husband. Of course, I didn’t correct her but my blushed cheeks should have been enough to tell anyone she wasn’t exactly right. As a matter of fact, we had been boyfriends for a bit more than a year. That’s why I felt so strange doing all of this, the trip and meeting the family and all that.

 I mean, I had met them earlier, his mom too. Bu that situation was like getting to know them all again, especially his father who was obviously different now. He interrupted my thoughts by whispering in my ear: “Would you like to?”

 He caught me completely unprepared. I started to sweat again, my heart racing as the plane separated from the terminal and made its way to the runway. He grabbed my hand and from his pocket took out a small box. I started coughing right there. He knew I did that when nervous because he just opened it to reveal a very simple but beautiful ring. He took it out from the box and took my hand. Now, he asked me in a normal voice, making some heads turn.

   - Would you marry me?

 I felt all of them watching me, even if there were maybe only three people paying attention. In my mind, I revisited the funeral and what had happened earlier and the day we met and how we shared our lives and then, I remembered him watching the planes. I remembered that feeling I had when saw him standing there, his back towards me, looking at the tarmac.

 I knew his body and his way of dealing with things. I knew how he ate, how he peed, how he showered, what his favorite curse word was and how high he could jump. I knew I like his hugs and his voice. He had said to me he liked my body and my eyes and my mind. I also knew there were things he didn’t know about me and I didn’t know about him. There were secrets and thought that were private. So many feelings.

   - Yes. Yes, I will.