Friday 5 July 2013

A little bit of Paradise

Time with William is rare, so I cherish every second I have with him. We had settled to meet today and spend the afternoon together. I had just had a case of food poisoning at a Japanese restaurant (bad shrimp tempura - or tempura getting their second life...) which resulted in fever and a fairly whimsical stomach as I was watching Jacques Doillon's last opus with my friend Shang Hsin, a tiresome film where an angry girl and a verbose man joust verbally, get naked, wrestle physically, make love in a way that you don't want to touch anyone for weeks, endlessly, on and on ad nauseam, as they are known to do in so many French films...  I didn't stand more than half of the film and left.
Food poisoning mean no sex with William! Not even kissing. Sharing would not be caring in this case! William has to take care of his mother who was suffering depression. She had to be taken in and out of the hospital regularly. But I got confused. Wasn't his mother in Kaohsiung? Did it mean he had to go South every day after work? It takes an hour and half with the high speed train, but still... Wouldn't that be draining?
"No! My mother is healthy"! William laughed. "It's my 'other' mother, my Taipei mother!"
That lady had taken him under her wing and he devotes lots of time to her, taking her to church, to the hotspring, on week ends. Between that and his friends and his boyfriend, there was little time left for us.
"What shall we do today?" William asked me.
I had no idea. Since sex was out of the picture, I suggested we went somewhere out of town. River, mountain, beach... We got to his car which had been fixed at the garage and drove to a flower market where I bought a few new plants. Then we headed to that spot where the two rivers join before reaching the sea, on the border of a bird park where I sat to watch egrets and ibises flying in the sunset. Going to the river and walking aimlessly was one of the first things William and I enjoyed doing at the beginning of our relationship. There was a sense of uncertainty and limitless possibility then. For a couple of hours, we forgot about the dead end of our situation, and just enjoyed each other's company, surrounded by the beauty of nature at its sunset's best.
Indeed joy and happiness find their true meaning when one has known sorrow and unhappiness. Both are unfortunately strongly bound to another. Moments of bliss can erase all the hardship - temporarily. But how precious they are.
I didn't think of any future with William. I was just feeling good. Now.











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