Today is January 12, 2023. This is something I wrote January 12, 2020 while I was living in Bilbao, Spain. It can be painful to look back on times when we were so happy that sadness never occurred to us. And nostalgia is an illness, of this I am well aware. However it's not so dark as that, I was happy then, I am happy now, I felt like sharing.
Yesterday, I went to Getxo to hang out with Alex. I took the train to Algorta as the sun was beginning to set, and the light hung a golden misty aura cast in the gulf.
It looked like a peachy amber shower, and there was a heavenly beauty shining on all the people out for a Sunday drink and stroll in town.
I found him reading a Nabokov book overlooking the ocean. Getxo has a walking path which winds all along the edge of the cliffs, complete with little benches and knobby trees every couple of feet. A worn stone wall lined the edge of the path. The seats perched at a steep angle on the hill, as if about to toss the seated into the cold ocean below.
Alex sat planted at one of these. There was a black iron cross high on a metal pole to the right of his pew. I brought the THC candies from New York, we each ate half and sat and talked about dating and romance. Hanging out with Alex I can be in silence with him.
When I first arrived, I hardly felt like saying anything at all. We watched the translucent coral-ocherous halo sink over the town. I should describe the halo more -- it is a corporeal depth to the air which radiates because the air bulges, pregnant with condensation and ocean water. It is a glimmering fog the color of the sunset dwelling in the bowl-like bay of Getxo.
And Alex and I talk. We hike back to his apartment at twilight, and eat some of the applesauce we made and he broils asparagus. We also eat hash butter on bread. We realize the movie we’ve been trying to catch is in 22 minutes and it takes us 20 to walk there. We take the asparagus out of the oven and gorge on it with our hands.
We begin our walk to the movies, along the porcelain white ornate iron girded riviera beach front. My memories of the walk there are much different than the memories from the walk back.
We arrive at the theater and purchase tickets from the machine because costs €0.50 cheaper. The auto-clerk inhales his €20 bill, and sputters for a minute and a half before returning our change and our tickets. We get popcorn and soda and sour sticks.
We are seeing Clint Eastwood’s new movie. I laugh right away, as soon as the disembodied dubbed voice says “Señor Brian”. Alex and I are giggling together in a theater mostly full of middle aged Spanish people. We munch our popcorn and sip our soda.
Halfwayish through the movie Alex hands me half a sour stick. I place it in my mouth, and devour it slowly, cautiously, peeling apart each little strip with my teeth and rolling it around in my mouth, in order to savor it. Three quarters of the way through the movie, Alex hands me the other half of my sour stick, and I put it in my mouth in the same deliberate manner.
We finish the movie. We review it on the way home. He walks me to the metro and we say goodbye with a hug and a see-you-tomorrow-probably. I sit on the platform reading Lydia Davis short stories, and messaging Mateo on Instagram, who tells me about his work as a researcher at the university quantum physics laboratory.
I feel harmonious, the yellow and black cover of the book match the black and yellow logo of his Instagram icon.