I want you to be the father of my children (if I ever have any)

PalmaWe met at a party. When Tito’s was still Tito’s (which makes me feel very old). It all started as good love stories begin: with two glances that met in the middle of the room. “What’s your name?”, “What are you studying?” and a kiss as a promise that I would look for him again. And I did. Some supernatural force wanted me to end up finding him on Facebook (which also makes me feel very old), just from the two questions I asked him.

What if it’s him? I remember asking myself on the first date, when we had only known each other for half an hour. I have that frame recorded in my memory. Just as we were passing in front of Bar Bosch, I looked at him in profile and, without him knowing it, I asked myself: What if it’s him? Now, 13 years later, I think that day my body wanted to give me an answer when, instinctively and as if it had a life of its own, my hand went to find his, at the height of the Parc de la Mar.

Still, the question echoes in my head. I hear the echoes, at times. And, depending on the day, I'm met with one emotion or another: excited, worried, impatient, determined, overwhelmed. What if it's him? He has never conditioned me or made me anxious about finding the answer. All we've needed is to know that we wanted to be together today. And after all these 'todays', here we are, confirming that today too, facing the fear of the future.

Look at me /beyond / thirst and bark / on my skin

Sometimes, they tell me: “Don’t let this one go, huh. This man has earned heaven.” As if I had found a bargain, as if it really wasn’t what life should have dealt me, as if it had been a matter of luck. And I wonder if the merit isn’t also mine, if it isn’t that I simply have good taste. Or if it hasn’t been both of us, who have known how to choose each other and bring about what we have.

“Look at me /beyond / thirst and bark /on my skin”, I heard Aina Zanoguera sing for the first time, sending shivers down my spine from the second row of the small hall at the Principal de Palma. I am not an expert at writing about love, about couple’s love. It’s not something that particularly inspires me. This love is one of the few things that lets me enjoy myself like this, without overanalyzing. So I am very grateful to hear the words that others have found to describe what they feel. Love has a lot to do with what Aina says, in this song from her duo with Gori Matas, Two Little Rooms. Love has to do with being seen beyond. And with having someone who acts as your armor.

Nando acts as my armor. He is the cotton that cradles me, softening me from the world. I think he is the only person I feel doesn’t need me, to whom I owe nothing. Thank you, to you too, Rosalía, for putting words to this: “Only love can be repaid with love / I owe you nothing and you owe me nothing” is the mantra we repeat to each other. Within our ecosystem, everything is softer, less demanding. I fear nothing. I feel forgiven and permitted. I can be a disaster, a complete disaster –never helping to organize a trip, making it impossible to go to bed before midnight, doing nothing at home for a week–, and I will always find his gaze, on the other side of the room, and his half-smile, unconditional, knowing that this cannot serve as a precedent. And love, after all, is that.

I am aware of it. I feel his care when he is here, when he makes me lunch if I'm late for work, when he leaves me a glass of water on my bedside table, when he listens to me chat non-stop for half an hour. But, above all, I feel them when he is not here, with his absence and the emptiness he leaves. I miss them, like a blanket on a winter night, like his sleeping body next to mine, breathing silently.

Lately, I've been thinking about this privilege it is to feel the one you love resting beside you. How relative everything becomes when, at least while the early morning lasts, we only exist for each other. I would never want to take this for granted, this hand that seeks my thigh and its warmth to find calm. I would like to be aware, every evening, that perhaps I answer his question – And if it's her? – when his breathing syncs with mine. At least today. Today too.