the geography of love

We were in Stockholm a couple of days ago visiting uncle Dag and aunt Memi (but she only wants to be called Memi). Then Susan and her daughter Sarah were here from Chicago/New York (via Heidelberg and Amsterdam). Susan and her companion, Beth, are going to rent their flat to us in Chicago when we go there next year in the summer for three whole months (Wow, just think of that!). Next summer it will be wonderful to spend time with aunt Becky and uncle Ed, and Ben, Karen and their son Jacob, as well as Debbie and her family, in Chicago.

Tomorrow Fidelma is coming to visit us from Ireland. I wonder when we will next see aunt Denise, who lives in Strasbourg. It would also be fun to go again to London and see our cousins, all of them. I wonder when we'll be able to meet again aunt Kat and our cousins Emil and Viktor in Copenhagen. This Christmas we'll spend it with Farmor and Farfar in Lund. I hope it will snow. The Botanical Garden will look like a fairytale. Maybe the Danes will join us too.

I'm also planning to go to Lisbon with Georgie and see Mami and Vóvó before the end of the year, before Mami goes to Luanda to spend time with the Angolan side of the family. In Lisbon, it would be great if we could meet all of our cousins and uncles and aunts, and our friends too, like Zé, Manuel and Gonçalo and their son Guilherme, and aunt Guida of course.

Thank goodness for our few friends in Brussels, like Pascal, Antonio, Charlotta and Agneta, otherwise it seems our heart is always somewhere else. The (many) acquaintances fill in some gaps, but they don't taste real; like fake sugar.

We are like gypsies of the heart, travelling all the time to meet the ones we love. Elis Regina, the late Brazilian singer, has a song where she says that her dream is to have a house in the country, where she could keep her books, her friends, and her records, and nothing more. Well, I wished I had them all in one place too. Close to the heart, forever, and ever, and ever. Around the corner, literally. It sounds possessive, I know.

When I look at a map of the world, I see these dozens of hearts throbing in all the corners of the globe and their glow keeps me company, but it also reminds me of how lonely it feels sometimes here in Brussels.

And the vessels of my heart are the runaways of airports, and its blood is made of air and clouds, and the cells are airplanes fueled by love and solitude; sweet pain of combustion. Anti-gravity laws. Up, up, and away. Like superman.