On the Subject of 'Butts'

 

As our holiday in Turkey draws to a close, I thought it a good time to touch on a subject which is particularly near and dear to your heart and which has become a recurring theme of our holiday: that is to say 'Butts,' (as you like to call them), or 'Bums' as they are commonly called in the UK. We both know you are EXTREMELY fond of them and that while you find mine 'pleasant' and to your taste in general, it cannot compare to some of those more massive, mountainous and monumental examples we have seen in passing on our walks around Istanbul which are no doubt the result of years of overindulgence in Turkish Delight and the other irresistible sweet things one comes across in shop windows everywhere here in this country.

Thinking of this now I am reminded of a very early conversation between us whereby your interest in the subject became clear to me for the first time. I repeat it for you here now and hope it will make you smile to recall it...

 

AR: Do you have butts?

CT: Butts? I have only one butt.                                        

AR: Americans normally don't have them.  But you are not typically American.

CT: Are you crazy? Butt, as in 'bum'?

AR: Yes. In Wisconsin, nobody have it.

 

CT: Americans don’t have a bum?

AR: Square bum. Flat.

CT: They have square bums?

AR: Yes.

CT: hmmm. That sounds weird.  I confirm. I have a bum. One bum.

 

AR: Thank God!!!

CT: it is a bit bigger than I would like, but my body is like that.

 

AR: Oh, please. This is lovely.

CT: Actually it just looks a bit bigger because my waist is so small.

AR: Perfect. In Brazil all women are like you.

Cats, colors, care

     Lovely to roam the streets of Istanbul hand in hand with you, kissing you here and there. One of the things that have called our attention are the omnipresent cats. It seems everybody takes care of them. They are everywhere and it seems they are much more appreciated them their rivals, the dogs.

     This has been a special time, full of discoveries, different tastes, many colors and great talks. We will remember this for long and I hope we can soon come back to Turkey. I will surely wish to enjoy my cat woman's kisses and the scratches... Timeless moments in love in this timeless town.

Wandering between two continents

My dear, the last few days have been wonderful, wandering the streets of Istanbul and enjoying  being here together as we explore this city, full of history, sites and  beauty. It is nice to imagine its great past as we walk along together - the sultans in their palaces, the adventurers and explorer's crossing the Bosphorus in their wooden skiffs, the mixing and mingling of world religions and cultures that took place here at this crossroads of east and west over many centuries.

There is also happiness in the small pleasures  which have become our everyday rituals: in the bags of hot chestnuts eaten while walking down İstiklal Street, in passing the fishermen on Galata Bridge and climbing up  Begoylu's hills past the tower on our way home after a day of taking in the sights and laughing together over silly things along the way.  I will remember for some time our long stroll along the Bosphorus one misty, cold afternoon, and an evening spent eating stuffed mussels with glasses of Turkish wine at a cozy Lokatansi restaurant in Karakoy, not to mention the happy hours spent snapping photos of the elegant domes and arches of Aya Sofia.

I like the unhurried pace of our days and our conversations which are always interesting for me, no matter what the subject.  What a nice beginning darling, this shared time in this special place. You are becoming mine and I am becoming yours as we grow closer day by day. I love you.

A room with a view

This is the view from our room this morning as day breaks over London.  It will be our first full day together so I thought it worth capturing. And besides, it is beautiful and I wanted to share it with you as you are sleeping away and won’t have seen it. Last night was memorable and special in many ways, so this can be a sort of memento of that too: of our first meeting, our first conversation in person and our first kiss…

It is good to recall these things here so one day in the future we can think back and remember: a very cold, rainy and windy night, an appointment at Temple tube station, walking hand and hand along the Strand past The Courtauld, a lovely Thai dinner with some wine and nice conversation and a stop at your office before returning to this, our room for the night.  It seems a very nice start to what will surely be an even nicer holiday. We leave for Istanbul today. How lucky we are to share this together… Happy Valentine’s Day my darling.

Our time

     This is our time. I woke up with this idea on my mind this morning. You crossed the world to see me and I have been waiting for you for a long time already. I can't wait to kiss you, to walk hand in hand with you, to feel your skin, your smell, your femininity. Tonight we will have a long conversation over a glass of wine and we will be together along the next few weeks.

     Definitely it's not easy to live so far away from each other. But that's life and we have to manage this. Anyway, what matters now is this happy moment that is about to begin. It will be short, I know, but it will last for long. 

Already here

     It is great to be here counting the minutes and looking forward to the time when we will be together and even travel together to a different part of the world. These next 15 to 20 days are going to be very special and I'm sure we will recall them for a long time in the future.

     Let's just forget the pressures and the prosaism of the world and enjoy life. You are a great conversationist and we have a lot to talk about this Friday evening of a cold winter's day in Europe. I feel as though you are already with me. And this gets me warm and comfortable.

Counting the minutes

The Lovers - Picasso, 1923

My love, it seems we are both struggling these days. There is a lot of pressure bearing down on us at the moment: different types of pressure but we are feeling them in equal measure. Life is not easy sometimes. That is certain. Despite this and all the bad moods these external forces bring, we can finally look forward to being together in just a few days from now. It will be so nice to be able to see you, to laugh with you and to take care of you there after these months of anticipation. The distance has not been easy but we have managed well enough and even found some ways to be happy together in it I think. But real happiness is what we will be sharing very soon my dear.

I am counting the minutes….

A language all our own

During our very first conversation we discovered we had many things in common, including a passion for poetry. Since then, sharing poems with one another has become a very loving way for us to express many of our deepest thoughts and feelings.  I heard poetry once described as ‘a mirror held up to truth and written down.’ If this is so, then we can find in the touching words of the great writers and poets the depth of emotion of our own true hearts.  This exchange of beautiful words between us has become a language all our own dear. I hope we will always use it to speak to one another with care and tenderness. The first poem you sent me was a wonderful gift. I share it here with you again.


The Wedding of Prince George & Princess Sabra
- D.G. Rossetti, 1857

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

-William Butler Yeats

 

A love letter

My darling,

    This morning, a bit by chance, I had in hands a letter written by the American physicist Richard Feynman to his wife Arline. He was 27 years old and she was 25 when she died of tuberculosis in 1945. This is a picture of them a few years before he loses her.    

     The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 wrote this touching letter six months after his sweetheart's death. Then he sealed and never opened it until he himself died in 1988. Showing how life can be cruel, his letter reads as follows:

October 17, 1946

D’Arline,

     I adore you, sweetheart.

     I know how much you like to hear that — but I don’t only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.

     It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing.

     But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.

     I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures.

     When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.

     I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I — I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

     My darling wife, I do adore you.

     I love my wife. My wife is dead.

                                             Rich

PS: Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.

Across a distance

The Birthday - Marc Chagall, 1915

Love comes in unexpected ways. Sometimes suddenly, out of the blue, when one is looking in a different direction entirely. And when it comes, there is no denying it: even when one’s heart has had its fill of disappointments and pain and sadness and would rather not open itself again to risk and hurts.

You arrived into my life like this, with a few words sent from half a world away one uneventful evening and changed everything. From that first moment some two months back, you have been with me every day: in my thoughts and plans, at night when I sleep and in the morning when I wake. Our love has grown across a distance, across countries and languages and time zones.  It has grown in our minds and in our hearts outside of physical space but it is no less real for this. It is just the beginning for us, but a beautiful one and I am thankful for it. And now we have this, our ‘diary of us’, to share our thoughts and ideas and which we can look back on years from now when we would like to recollect how it all started. I love you too.

No distance at all

     A man and a woman born in different countries. Two people living out of their countries and even their continent. Two other distant countries, distant continents. Oceans, lands, cultures, hours, bureaucracy in between. But love is there. So, there is no distance, no frontier, no time.

     Here we are, at our beggining, writing about this improbable love made possible by the modern means of communication. Where are we going to? We don't know yet, but we are moving forward in the same direction and we are happy. That's what matters. I love you.