It Was the Eyes, Bright with Light and Love I Assume, as She Spoke to the Person Next to Her in the Nearly Empty Carriage.

On the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, Terminal 2, in the carriage I was in, I thought I saw you. No, a girl, a young woman who looked like you.  It was the eyes, bright with light and love I assume, as she spoke to the person next to her in the nearly empty carriage.

And as I quietly surveyed the carriage and the very few fellow travelers within, I occasionally glanced at the young woman at the other end of the carriage thinking more and more of you. My eyes eventually rested upon the empty seats across from me, and I thought of how the red and the blue and white could look so American, but it did not, of course, as this was the City of London, and not one of the cities in the States – just as she didn’t really look like you. And one part of the repeating pattern of the seats – endless, though I did not follow it down to where she sat – was one square with silhouettes of three churches in a row it seemed, steeples on the right and left, and the middle one, a rounded dome it appeared, which I assumed was St. Paul’s – not your favorite, no, but I don’t now remember why.

Remember one time when we were at St. Paul’s, high above, slowly, reverently, walking the inside circle of the dome on the narrow walkway, when our communal silence was broken by the sound, the ting or ring or little bell of the rising sound of a cash register, and we laughed, further breaking the sacred space with our own profane laughs. And then soon we met – do you remember? – the young priest also up above telling us how during the war, a German bomb came through the dome and crashed all the way down into the crypt – am I remembering right? – without exploding – a miracle, yes, we agreed later, and then laughed again at how bad his breath had been, old breath, excited breath of a recent lunch heavy of garlic, and just bad old breath.  You used the word, and I quote, “reek”, and we laughed. You were always much better than me with words, and I loved you for that – just one of the things I have so missed about you.

And occasionally – still on the way to Heathrow – I looked around the whole carriage again just to bring my eyes again upon the girl, at her eyes, which – did I tell you? – was all I could see of her face because of her mask, perhaps a precaution against a new pandemic wave, just one of a few masks right now, at least for a while. 

And glancing at her eyes … was just like when as a first semester exchange student, I first saw you in class at the Language Centre, then in the cafeteria, and later the Student Centre, and no, I wasn’t following you, I told you that, but it was like…  My eyes have always been drawn to light, and just walking into a room, big or small or huge, my eyes just irresistibly found you, because of the light, because of your eyes, and I don’t think I ever told you that, for how could I, for I never knew that when you were always there…  Only when the light of your eyes no longer shone…

And now, when I am in London, it is always different.  I still love the City, because you so did.  But you know – no, you don’t, because I never told you, as I was still living it – I don’t really remember anything about our first three or four times out and about in London, maybe more… As I said I don’t remember – and that’s because I never really saw or remembered anything but you, only you, your life my animation. I don’t know why you loved me, why you chose to be with me. I am downright dull next to you, but I know you loved me – for you told me so, many times, darling, perhaps because you knew and understood that I needed to hear that often.

And how often you whispered those words with sighs when we made love and your hands would run through my hair gently with tenderness – and this, I so miss – but that may not be the right words – you could say this so much better than me – for did I miss it? – no, because however lame this sounds – when you were … gone … so was my life, and being as deficient as I am, it is hard for me to miss something that just no longer exists … however lame that sounds.  I did not miss all this love of your hands upon my body, no, it was more like … all the oxygen left the universe as did my life into nothingness and…  You would have been the only person to ever understand what I just said.

I wish we had had time to make children, or just one, a little girl, who would still be here and with me, or still in my life, maybe with little girls of her own.  A continuation of your light, of your spirit, of your eyes upon me, as yours always were – always.  And always to my amazement and delight and wonder. Always.

But in London that first year…weaning myself from watching your eyes, from being in your light, was impossible, as impossible of weaning myself from having you in my arms at night.  But I learned, after a time, with your hand in mine, my hands or arms upon you, I could almost naturally turn away from gazing upon you to look where you were looking and listen to what your voice and words spoke of and, for me, painted with gold. A whole new world opened up – a universe of what you saw and loved and shared with me.  This London I now see and still love is the best I can do without you.  I hear your voice.  I know you still love me.  I still love you.

I am at the terminal now.  I will make my way along all the tunnels and moving walkways, elevators, to all the check-in points.  I will be in LA this evening, where I now live.  I think you would have liked it.  For you, a couple of months ago, because you would have wanted me to, for you, I tried Thai food for the first time, and I liked it.

I work well in Los Angeles it seems, and along with all my short stories, I have finished my second novel.  I believe it better than the first.  You of course, at least to me, are all over its pages, even with the cat, Priscilla, whose eyes at times are said to sparkle. 

And I tell Oscar my cat about you, but as a cat, I suspect he doesn’t care, and so I tell him when I win an Oscar, I’m going to talk more about my Oscar win than him, but he still doesn’t care or seemed concerned.

I like keeping busy.  When my pencil is upon the paper, I am at peace, and I think of you, and, yes, I still have my morning and evening cup of tea, but instead of with you, I look out the front window towards the mountains.  In LA, there are mountains and hills all around and I know you would have liked it here.  The one mountain I always see from my comfortable chair that I push and pull each morning or evening to the front window – wearing out the carpet in places I’m afraid, but always hearing your wonderful laughter fill the room when you used to watch my “antics” – this mountain I see, I named after you, but I still need to inform the State of California so they may update and redraw their maps.

I write of you in many ways, still so missing you since the cancer took you away so suddenly so fast.  Like away in just a breath.  And with your last breath – I don’t mind remembering it because you were ever so beautiful with your kind eyes upon me – and with that last breath, something in me breathed out for the last time also.  And yet I am still alive, still thinking of you.

And all of this I thought, because I saw a girl in the nearly empty carriage of a train on the Piccadilly Line in London, while on my way to Heathrow to Terminal 2, to catch my flight to LAX – oh, darling, LAX is a bona fide zoo and you would have loved its life, but not the traffic to or out of it, nobody does – and all I thought was of you, because I saw a girl with eyes of light like yours wearing a pandemic mask, her eyes the only thing I saw, which was enough.  You were always way more than enough for me, and that was good.  And even though you have been gone so many years, you are still enough.