Love out of sight

I never said goodbye to him before I left Berlin. It's hard to believe even now, a year later, after all that had transpired between us. At the time, I just couldn't face it. He had come to see me at the hospital about a week before my scheduled flight home to the US, and I had told him I was going to postpone my move until September. That actually had been my original plan until that perfect storm came raining down on my parade. I didn't want to leave Berlin this way, broken and in pieces. I wanted to enjoy the side of the city that I loved, enjoy the people that I loved, and I needed more time to heal. 

The conversation between us was not going well that day as we tried to come to grips with our sadness and find closure to our shattered love story, one that had officially ended 2 years before. And I being in complete self-preservation mode had to walk away, back into the hospital where it was safe, from him, from the fleas, from the massive change that was about to occur. Little did I know these would be the last words spoken between us, because in the end I did get on that plane a week later after much back and forth deliberation with my doctors. Just a mere two days after I checked myself out, I was floating 35,000 feet above the world making my way home. I never told him I was leaving and I never said goodbye.

The irony of it all lies in the way we first met, because 6 years earlier, I could not leave Berlin without saying hello. 

I first saw him in the local cafe where I always gathered with friends after a day at the studio. He was sitting there alone, quietly drawing in his sketchbook, and he appeared to be so calm and present within himself. He radiated a strong sense of character. Of course I found him very handsome too, with his pensive look behind edgy dark-rimmed glasses, that contrasted sharply against his shoulder length blond hair. It had been a lovely summer, I spent my days painting at my studio sublet , and spent the long evenings drinking wine and sharing conversation with other artists, writers and musicians. It had been a dream come true, it was almost cliche. Then on that inauspiscious evening just 2 weeks before my departure back to NY, there he was at a table behind me. I had never seen him there before, but the moment I laid eyes on him I new we would have to meet. It was love at first sight. Later he would say that he saw me first. Who can really know.

We did not say hello that day, and what commenced was a an exhilarating and somewhat nail-biting 2-week non-verbal courtship that went something like this. Unbeknownst to either one of us, we were both showing up at the cafe at the same time every day in hopes of meeting each other. And so it was that every day we both were punctually there. Now I have a tendency to want my actions to appear unintentional. That's a real problem. Especially when I like someone, because I will behave so intentionally unintentional that I will downright avoid or even ignore the person I fancy. This ends up keeping me single for very long periods of time.

 And so, like pieces on a chess board, we maneuvered ourselves around the cafe every evening for several hours, starting at approximately 6 pm, sometimes finding ourselves sitting at the table next to each other, and at other times much farther away. Both of us were internally scheming on how we could manifest a chance encounter. We laughed about this later when we started comparing notes about this day and that. It was a perpetual comedy of errors. We did  manage to exchange some glances, and that too was quite funny. Not wanting to appear overtly flirtatious, I would shoot him a somewhat morose or serious look from time to time, and he would in turn shoot one back. An outside observer might have wondered whether we had a previously established disdain for one another.

Then push finally came to shove, my magic summer was coming to an end. It was Friday and I was leaving for New York on Sunday. I was terribly hung over that day having had an open studio party the night before to share all the paintings I had done during my 3 month stay and to celebrate with my new found friends. Those paintings would never make it back to the US by the way, the airline would mysteriously lose them all, never to be found again. So on that fateful Friday, I dragged myself out of my sick bed at 5 pm with puffy eyes, determined to meet him come hell or high water. I could not leave Berlin without an introduction.

It was a cool and cloudy day, like many days in Berlin, I would discover over time. As I approached the cafe, I could see him sitting on the long bench underneath the awning protected from the impending weather. He was the only one sitting outside. My chance had come. So what did I do? I ordered myself a soup and sat at the table farthest away from him, and I wondered to myself what the hell was wrong with me. There we were, and I had gone and created an ocean between us even before my impending transatlantic flight. I was broiling with determination despite the lingering headache and nausea that taunted me from the night before.  I was not going to blow it this time, but now I would have to move boldly like the bishop in a game of chess, diagonally across the entire board. No way, it was too risky, and it would be far too conspicuous. What to do, what to do. My only saving grace was that my table was not under the protection of the awning. So I did the only thing left to do in that situation, I prayed for it to rain…