how simple love can be :: Personal Narrative Essays

how simple love can be I imagine slipping out of my coiffure and into the tub, lying in the gentle light from the window, my eyes closed against the insistence of the mid-summer heat. I allow my body to remember the rhythms of the water, and I dream of the green bounciness which first drew people to this city and centuries later still bubbles up between the stones and the sand. I can hear those first horses and men snort as they drink, so near death and then saved by a crevice in the earth that sings of a cool darkness and a ampere-second thousand rains. But the heat of this August night pulls me back end. Reality is a street caf in Nimes, where Cam is nursing his last cup of coffee. As I effort to let go of the daydream, a young dark haired girl with chubby arms and tired eyes places a card and a small, stuffed blue leap out beside my cup. After looking for a moment into our faces, a moment when no ones expression changes, the child quietly makes her way to the next table. When all the tables have been served, she rags her feet to go stand by her brothers and father who wait on the sidewalk. At the sound of the fathers mandolin and a nod of his head, the brothers join in on a rough reading of an old Spanish folk song. The cafs patrons, in deference to the little girl or in a desire for the music to stop, begin to lay property down on the cards, and after a few moments of voiceless scuffling with her brothers, the young girl is pushed toward the tables. Once again wearing a blank but consuming face, she gathers the bills and coins into her hands, then quickly walks back and hands them to her father. He nods at his inattentive audience, touches his hat, and without a word, he and his family drift down the street to the next caf. I advert for the bear, study its polka dot bow tie and swing it on my finger by its gaudy golden thread while smiling at Cam. He tears it out of my hand to throw it after the family, but I hold on to his wrist, and stil l smiling, open his palm, take the bear back and drop it into my pack.