There’s a couple I see at the gym. I’ve been seeing them for maybe two or three years. The thing is, they’re not actually a couple. They are friends, I suppose. The man is about my age, with a physique that I use as an example of what I should strive for. His body is thick and muscular, but not overly so, and not fat at all. He has short blonde hair and is ruggedly handsome.
The woman is a pale-skinned redhead with a long face and voluptuous figure. She’s in her late late thirties or early forties but lovely enough to be a cover model.
When these two see each other, they stop to talk. That’s all. The thing is, when they’re talking they ignore everything else around them. They stand very close and face each other with open body language. They talk for fifteen minutes, twenty, a half hour, never looking away. At one time I wondered if they were husband and wife, or lovers, but they never physically touch.
Last week they were standing next to the pulldown machine. I wanted to use the machine, but I didn’t want to disturb them, because they were so engrossed in each other. So I made a circuit, using other machines. Every time I came around on my circuit they were still there, standing very close, looking into each other’s eyes. They never looked away. It was so intimate that I felt embarrassed watching them. But I couldn’t look away.
I exercised for almost an hour and the entire time they were there, talking. Then the man said something and the woman smiled widely. He reached out and touched the dimples on her cheeks, pressing them with his fingers. They stood like that for a moment. Suddenly he reached out and embraced her. She threw her arms around him and they held each other tightly, not in a casual embrace but like two lovers reunited after a long absence. It was a thrilling moment, and of course I thought of Yajaira. That’s unavoidable.
Then they released each other, and resumed talking.
I wonder if these two see each other only at the gym. Do they admit to themselves that they are in love? Do they each long for the other? Are they afraid to express their true feelings? Perhaps afraid to lose the friendship if they are wrong? Maybe one or both are involved with other people? Do they live in denial, telling themselves, “It was no nice to see my gym friend today.”
* * *
I dropped Salma off at Casa de Fruta on Saturday morning this week. On the way back I stopped at the visitor’s center at the San Luis reservoir. It’s perched on a hilltop high above the lake. I sat beneath a small windswept tree, so small that the canopy was just over my head, and looked out over the lake. The surface was crystal blue and unruffled. It spread in every direction, mirroring the sky above. Black birds – tiny as grains of pepper from my vantage – floated on the surface of the water.
Thinking about the depth of the lake and the vast amount of water it held, I found myself suddenly moved by the grandeur of God. I thought about Yajaira, and how I would have brought her here to play in the water or sit on a blanket and relax. I think about her constantly, with longing and desire. Only when I’m practicing martial arts do the thoughts of her fade, only to resume again when I am finished.
At the end of a spit of land that reached into the water, a family of five was packing up after a picnic. They began to walk slowly back along the shoreline toward the path up the hill to the parking lot. A boy threw stones into the water as he walked. When they’d gone some way, a flock of seagulls and descended onto the spot where the family had been, no doubt looking for scraps or leftovers.
Every living thing sees the world from its own perspective. It’s difficult to comprehend that God sees all of us, and knows our thoughts, and cares, even down to a leaf that falls from a tree, or a seagull looking for a scrap of bread beside a great lake. God understands us but we don’t understand him. Maybe that’s why so many of us lack faith.
I want to open myself to God’s grace and guidance. I feel he speaks to me through dreams at times, and through signs. I only have to pay attention.
* * *
The valley is beautiful at this time of year. The hills are green. Vast herds of black cattle and white sheep fill the fields, eating the long grass. The females are pregnant, and soon there will be calves and lambs running about. The almond trees are covered in tiny white and pink blossoms. It’s a time of renewal, a good time to be alive. I’m waiting for my heart and mind to renew as well. At the beginning of 2018 I was saying to everyone, “This is going to be a good year. I have a good feeling about 2018.”
I still want that to be true. I want to be a better man than I am. I want to leave a legacy to Salma. I want to die – when the time comes – knowing that I did something meaningful in this world, that I touched people in some small way and made their lives better.
– Wael Abdelgawad personal journal, Sunday March 11, 2018. Fresno, California.