In my senior year at School of the Arts, I felt that I had finally been seen as a real actor. I had a method of embodying the written word, my own style of movement and vocalization. People paid attention. Jarrett was by my side more than ever, at times competing for my attention.
People thought we were boyfriends. They would ask me to confirm, and I didn’t deny it. In my way, I had confirmed it by writing love letters to him. He never turned them away, and that was the strongest sign of mutual affection that I knew.
Preparation was vital to my delivery. My love was demonstrable, not just words. I would clean the apartment, sweep the entry stairs and stoop, and make vegetarian pasta. When Jarrett took a part-time job at Children’s Museum, I would spend my Saturdays alone. This was the perfect time to prepare the house and my confessions of love.Sometimes he would talk me out of it, shrugging it off with cheap vodka and drawn-out chess games. And there were other times when he wanted me closer, in his bed, massaging his shoulders and neck and talking until delirium took over and he slept.
When Victoria moved in, she stole me away. She said he was using me and didn’t want to see my heart get broken. One day she dragged me to Berkeley and showed me what it meant that she was daughter of a great flamenco guitarist.
Her father’s name was Augusto, and he had big cheeks like her, dark eyes, calloused hands. When we arrived and he embraced her, I could feel that he loved her completely without hesitation or judgement and pride. It was a sharp contrast to how much she doubted herself and her talent as a singer and performer. But I was beginning to see how deep love can cast shadows when you step away from the source.
Augusto ladled out his signature sangria and took to the guitar. I’d never seen a guitar with 8 strings. The back yard was full of new and old friends, each proud for knowing the charismatic guitarist and singer. His daughters were no less proud, laughing and performing their palmas loudly to correct the aimless clapping of rhythmless gringos.
The sunlight on that Saturday afternoon increased as a wood platform was assembled on the lawn. The dancers were Augusto’s new wife and a couple of other women that she had resisted and eventually deigned to share the stage with. Though I had seen Flamenco dance before, it was the first time that I’d ever seen a male Flamenco dancer take to the stage. Earlier I had thought he was just some eccentric cousin or another wannabe trying to rub elbows with the ever-authentic Augusto. His black pants were tight on his skin and his brightly colored shirt was blousy. If it were any other circumstance, I might have laughed at his silly bravado complete with turned out mustache.
Rather than shirk, it was in this moment that I realized what I was missing. I was overcome with the fire of flamenco. The whole orchestration was inspired. It was often dissonant, but Augusto’s enthusiasm brought everything back in line, either through some scintillating change to the melody or a renewed vigor in the rhythm.
And where was the passion in my life, I wondered.
I changed the idea for my letter that evening. I spent the night agonizing how I failed Jarrett, how my romantic feelings were displaced, and I had betrayed our promises of an unbreakable friendship.
But I wanted to betray. I wanted to expose my heart on my sleeve and have him laugh or become angry. Anything. I would have taken morsel of romantic love, any sign that we could be both lovers and best friends.
But this backyard flamenco changed me. It was a combination of the warmth of the sun, fatherly affection, music, and passion that seemed to answer any love letter I could ever write in my life.
I was no longer mad at love or what I perceived to be the lack of it in my life. I felt that something had been resolved. I knew that if I could find my inner strength, my will to live and celebrate living, loved would find its way to me.
When Victoria and her sister clapped, it was for people like me. I was a brown gringo but a gringo, nonetheless. I couldn’t do the palmas to save my life, but I got the gist– we are all in search of great passion, not because we want it but because we need it.
The letter that I eventually passed on wasn’t one of angst and unrequited love, but of fearlessness and this is what I said.
“While it pains me to leave you, I must. I feel my life’s flame growing dim with each passing day. We are living lies upon lies and I can no longer bear it. Do not seek me out, do not speak of some incomparable love or of time spent. I am gone from you, and I take my fire with me.”
I packed up in the night and he would not be heard from again. I abandoned a story that would have ended badly had I stayed. I was determined to discover my own rhythms and write something new, wake up for the sunrise, find a way to settle into my proper self. My purposeful and intent self. I didn’t need a guidebook or a special program, just a sense of fire and light.