I, Isabel, And The Origin of Love

She was the frame of life I had to freeze. 

Lurking in the labyrinth of my mind

Everyone has, in his past, moments or events which are hard to erase from memory. Some of these events never lose their potency and remain as vivid as the day they happened. In retrospect, however, they all acquire an air of nostalgia. 

I am not sure if my memory of Isabel is a sweet or a sad one.  I met her at a community event years ago. Both being too shy we left it to chance to meet again and, months later, I saw her at a picnic. In total, we may have met four times in a six month period, last one being the one we decided to go on our first date.

It is hard to imagine now how you could be cut off from someone completely, unless by choice, given the slew of communication methods at our disposal. But back in the Jurassic period of land lines only, a home phone was all we had to go by. I remember we gave each other our phone numbers in that last meeting. Not having found anyone with a pen or paper to write it down, we trusted we would remember, and agreed to see each other at a local train station where she lived the following week. I distinctly remember she emphasized how there were two local stations at the opposite ends of the town, about twenty minute walk apart, and which one I was supposed to go to.  We said good bye until the fateful day. I was on cloud nine. I kept thinking how romantic to meet my first love in an old train station, probably going to a local pub (read Poob) were local kids would be hanging out, loud music, smoke clouds and all, to would find a quiet corner, order something and talk.

That Saturday, as I got ready to leave home I had the next two years planned in my head. I had to change trains in Barcelona’s Sants station. I got on. When I arrived at the station I checked the schedule for connecting departures and to my dismay I realized the schedule had changed and the next train would arrive one hour too late. I didn’t have a choice. I waited. The train arrived. I got on. I was restless. I was worried she wouldn’t wait. I arrived in her town. I got off the train. Looked around but couldn’t find her. Went outside the station, on the side walk, looked and waited again. Then I thought, maybe she’d thought I’d gone to the wrong train station by mistake. I asked for direction and ran towards there. Got there, looked around and waited, but couldn’t find her there either. I decided perhaps she had gone back again to the other station looking for me. So I rushed back. She wasn’t there. My legs were tired, but I couldn’t take the chance. I ran back again to the other station again. People must have thought I was mad. I couldn’t find her.
I went back and forth four more times.

 It was 10 at night.  I couldn’t remember her phone number. I knew she thought I’d forgotten. I caught the last train home and hoped she’d call the next day.

What happened the next day to this day puzzles me.  I was home all day. Not hearing anything back stepped for 5 minutes to buy a bottle of Coke and as soon as I came back my roommate said: “Isabel called, I told her you’re not home, she didn’t leave a message”. 

I never saw or heard from her again.

Lurking in the labyrinth of my mind, hidden but not forgotten, Isabel’s memory is as vivid as ever. How can someone you saw so few a times leave such an enduring impression? Why is she the measure, the frame that still bounds my heart? To me, she was more beautiful than Berenice Bejo, more astonishing than Emmanuelle Beart, more fascinating than Marion Cotillard, more captivating than Jean Seberg in a love scene with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

In my memory there is a static image of her, a motion paused, so clear that to this day I can see my reflection in her eyes. Her eyes, the maze of her gaze, the yearning in her glance, the sweetness of her face.  I still find myself lost in the sway of her gait, the quite of her voice taking me into a realm which is beyond love and hate. Those moments, ephemeral as life, eternal as soul, remain clandestine in my heart. Those moments, so far from now, remain present in my mind.  

So now, in the quite of my morning commute, as I block out the hustle and stare silently at the sleepy faces taking the morning train, sometimes, see someone who reminds me of her. I rewind the scene, replay the emotion and re-live the moment in my head: her sitting on the floor looking up at me, the call I missed, my hurried walk between the two train stations. I wonder if she commutes. I wonder if she tells her friends about that fateful date that never was or whether I was just a footnote in her teenage years.  No matter. I embellish the scene in my imagination as I want it to have been.  I blur everyone in the background, remove their colour and silent their voices. It’s just her as I make it to the station in time: She is sitting on the marble steps looking up towards me expectantly after I call het to tell her my train was delayed. All of a sudden, everything and everyone fades out. I zoom in for a close-up until she is the only one in focus. She smiles, pure, in black and white. Her long skirt flowing in the breeze, her hair softly swaying as she tries to keep it from covering her eyes, she leans ever so slightly forward.

I smile back and take her hand.