The last time I was in Tenerife was just about exactly three years ago. Last time I celebrated New Year's Eve here. This year I will be alone, in Madrid, just as I did the first time I came to Tenerife. The first time I came to Tenerife I came right after New Year's Eve, some six years ago. Then, and as always except this time, I would miss Christmas in Tenerife because it's a family time for Marifrancis and her family. This year I arrived with her on Christmas Eve.
And I arrived with so much on my mind, perhaps so much that I just collapsed in bed and slept more than three hours.
The night before I hardly slept. Partly because I had two shots of Scotch after a few sips of wine. Partly because I couldn't stop thinking about the Swiss pianist, about the decision she is about to make, or has already taken but hadn't dared to tell me. And of course, it was really unusual time of sleeping for a week of an already unusual sleeping patterns. I was supposed to sleep from 9PM to 4AM, local time, a time when I usually went dancing or not sleeping at all if you translated it to US time. On top of that, the sofa bed of Marifrancis was never conducive to sleeping for me.
So it was a night of lost sleep. And I managed to doze off in the airplane, despite the heavy sound of footsteps every time someone walked by on the shaky airplane floor. But dozing off didn't count. I slept a few hours after having arriving and having lunch.
It's been three years since I was here, and I am remembering many things as well as learning new things. Not just learning new things, but also deepening what I have already learned. I mean, about Marifrancis' family, about their interactions with the surrounding areas bound by the limits imposed by the Atlantic Ocean. For some of her brothers, the island seems like a prison. For at least her youngest brother, it is home and he volunteers to stay here as long as his mother needs. This is especially true now that the father had passed away in February.
The eldest brother is still working hard to provide for his daughter, and both of them live under the same roof as the rest of the family. The only member missing, besides the father now, is Marifrancis, the only one to have left the family and island more than eight years ago. When I first came here eight year's ago (exactly so starting next week), the family didn't have that brother and his daughter. The daughter was a shy little three-year-old, as unfamiliar to me as was the island. I remember coming off the plane from Madrid and discovered a lot of warmth in the air but also more coolness from the clouds than expected. The island, like my friend's family, was much more complicated than I had expected. But isn't that usually the case? You get some impression at first, some hearsay, some expectations, and the more you spend time on this subject, the more complicated it gets.
Today (being a few days since I started this blog) Marifrancis and I went to one of her favorite spots, which tourists don't usually visit since it's in the northern part. There are no beaches here, but lots of black rocks from lava and white waves smashing onto them. I sat there with her, taking some distance for our own space, and I tried to let myself go, mentally, into the emerald sea with its emerald waves. I thought about the problems each member of her family faced. Not just the eldest son with the daughter, but also the son who had been trying to get a governmental job for as long as I had known the family, or the mother who had just lost a 40-year old relationship to cancer. These things gave me some perspective in a time when I am trying very hard not to think about the Swiss pianist. The bliss with her in the final couple of weeks before my vacation is becoming a distant memory. I don't feel as desperate as before to have her in my life, but I don't want it any less. I just don't feel as desperate, either because I am calmer, or because I am suppressing that feeling better.
With the perspective I am gaining from interacting with and observing the family that has welcomed me at each visit, I gain also a sense of peace with respect to the Swiss pianist. I am thinking more about what I want to do besides worrying that she would not want me in her life the way we both wish would happen. I am still disturbed that she has gone off to Hawaii with her boyfriend without making a final decision, but at the same time, not only do I trust that she has some good reason that I cannot currently understand, but also, well, it doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things. My life can't revolve around her decisions about her own life. Perhaps one day my life will intertwine with another person's life, but right now, that's not the case. Being away from her, being with people whom I care and who have real dramas and difficulties, helps me move forward with my life.
Tomorrow (really officially now) is the birthday of the eldest son. I will take them out for lunch and hopefully will have energy to make him some spaghetti alla vodka. To give love to yourself, and to those who have become a part of your life, helps you feel more grounded. With this thought I hope I can sleep!
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