I Know There Is A

It's One Of Those Unforgettable Moments That Happen As A Child, When You Discover That All Along The World Has Been Betraying You.

Once Upon A Time You Were A Fish. How Do You Know? Because I Was Also A Fish. You, Too? Sure. A Long Time Ago. Anyway, Being A Fish, You Knew How To Swim. You Were A Great Swimmer. A Champion Swimmer, You Were. You Loved The Water. Why? What Do You Mean, Why? Why Did I Love The Water? Because It Was Your Life! And As We Talked, I Would Have Let Him Go One Finger At A Time, Until, Without His Realizing, He'd Be Floating Without Me. Perhaps That Is What It Means To Be A Father-to Teach Your Child To Live Without You.

She Was Gone, And All That Was Left Was The Space You'd Grown Around Her, Like A Tree That Grows Around A Fence. For A Long Time, It Remained Hollow. Years, Maybe. And When At Last It Was Filled Again, You Knew That The New Love You Felt For A Woman Would Have Been Impossible Without Alma. If It Weren't For Her, There Would Never Have Been An Empty Space, Or The Need To Fill It.

But Loneliness, True Loneliness, Is Impossible To Accustom Oneself To, And While I Was Still Young I Thought Of My Situation As Somehow Temporary, And Did Not Stop Hoping And Imagining That I Would Meet Someone And Fall In Love...yes, There Was A Time Before I Closed Myself Off To Others.

There Are Moments When A Kind Of Clarity Comes Over You, And Suddenly You Can See Through Walls To Another Dimension That You'd Forgotten Or Chosen To Ignore In Order To Continue Living With The Various Illusions That Make Life, Particularily Life With Other People, Possible.