The Barcelona Glass

It is 6 o'clock in the morning, and I already know I am going to be blue today. Really I've been nursing the perfect 'blue' for a couple weeks in anticipation, knowing that every September 16th is the anniversary of the last time I saw my lover.

You'll remember her as the one that sucked my seed in the tea house in Paris oh-so-long ago (go read the post called "Reminisces from my trip to meet my lover in Paris" for those wonderful details).

The last time we saw each other, we were lost together by choice, meeting in a small studio 23 floors up, in a random big city where she had a meeting and I could swing through for a couple days on my way home from a different meeting in a different big city. There was a lovely park for walking, some decent restaurants, and a place to get a manicure together across the street. Joshua Bell was opening the symphony season down the street.

At this point, we had been meeting like this a few times a year for seven years (with a 27 month gap, see below). Lovemaking and food, walking, talking, laughing and crying. Each in marriages that had their strengths and weaknesses – weaknesses that had driven us into each other’s refuge long ago now, like a safe port in a storm – with another who could relate.

One of our cardinal rules was that we would not speak poorly of our spouse to the other. And we didn’t.

As was our custom, upon settling in we would go shop for food we might need to make a few meals in. She would always get a bottle of orange juice. I loved orange juice but we did not drink it at my house at this point in my life – it was more like a throwback to my c***dhood. She preferred “no pulp.” I liked pulp but this was not a deal breaker. Orange juice became one of the many special things I shared with this wonderful woman.

So this morning in her honor and memory, I have picked up a bottle of Tropicana Pure Premium No Pulp. I have poured it into a special glass. Earlier in the year, we had reconstructed our love affair after 27 months of breathing room. I like to think I charmed her into coming back to me, but she would never allow herself to be described as “charmed,” and she would take full responsibility for her own actions (which only makes it better).

I digress, but we finally wound up in the same place at the same meeting in Barcelona early in 2016. After the meeting, we allowed ourselves to go for a walk. It started out tentative, but after hours and hours of food, drink, conversation, and making our way up and down the streets, we wound up back in my hotel (she had been so angry at me for coming to this meeting, that she absolutely insisted I stay at a completely different hotel).

In the wee small hours of the morning, as she got up to leave me in bed insensible, she lovingly left behind a glass of water on the nightstand, should I desire a sip later, awaking. She took our armbands from the meeting, tied them together, and left them alongside the glass. The photo I snapped shows the armbands with a telling spot of blood on the bedsheets.



So loving. So thoughtful. So symbolic. I kept the glass.

We met together again a couple months later in Edinburgh for another meeting, then flew to Bourdeaux for another couple delightful days to remember. In September 2016 we found ourselves in this flat on the 23rd floor with Josh Bell in town. On the 16th we awoke, made love once more, packed, meandered to a nice restaurant for an early lunch, then to the airport, she to fly thousands of miles home in one direction, me, the same, in the other. I remember the last time we saw each other across the crowded departure lounge. A kiss and a wave.

One month later I came clean with my wife (long story), and agreed that I would never contact my lover again. It was a hard choice but on the whole I do not regret it. I am sure I will write about that, too. Maybe next month but no promises.

Today I raise my Barcelona glass, filled with no-pulp orange juice I got at the store yesterday in anticipation of this moment:

“To you, my love, who gave me the best years of my life. Thank you for those, my tapered sweetheart. I’m sorry things went the way they did. I hope your life is well. I hope to see you one day again.”

Yeah. Blue.