Encounters

I went into class early today to make-up a practical. While painstakingly piping rosettes with whipped-cream, I came upon a conversation with my Chef about how he met his wife. "We met over the phone", He said. "When I had my first restaurant, she worked for the company I would call to order from. I called every night at midnight, and we would talk for hours. She would put me on hold and come back and talk every night. By the time we first met, we had been talking on the phone for seven months, and I was so nervous, because I knew I was already in love with her." My heart sank, (does that really happen to people, and not just in Cary Grant movies?). I asked how he proposed. "We went out to dinner, and I can't remember what we ate. It is the only time I can't remember what we were eating."

Then, later, at the post office I stood in line with a man who was in his late 80's, and had the charm and rough accent of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. He asked if I was married to which I cynically replied, "no, not for a long time". He seemed puszzled, looked at the emblem on my chefs coat and asked if I haven't already tried cooking for them, I replied yes, way to the heart is through the stomach. "What's wrong with these guys these days", He said. I laughed. "No, no, no", He said, "it will happen. It's hard to find the right guy, but when you do, you'll know. It will feel linear."

I love words, and what an amazing choice: linear. It rolls of my tongue even now, and I feel, in some ways, completely reinvented. Less misanthropic. happier, for just having met him.

Look: I'll tell you a secret.
Hemingway was a cynic like me. He married, and he loved, but he never felt complete. In his books, the romances of his characters were always tragic, marked with failure - even in his memoirs. There were never exchanges of the heart, perhaps to signify the importance of missed opportunities. But once, and only once, did he ever reveal a monologue of pure love: In "For Whom the Bell Tolls",which reads:

" Do you know that until I met thee I have never asked for anything? Nor wanted anything? Nor thought of anything except the movement and the winning of this war? Truly I have been very pure in my ambitions. I have worked much and now I love thee and, " he said it now in a complete embracing of all that would not be, "I love thee as I love all that we have fought for. I love thee as I love liberty and dignity and the rights of all men to work and not be hungry. I love thee as I love Madrid that we have defended and I love all my comrades that have died. and many have died. Many. Many. Thou canst think how many. But I love thee as what I love most in the world and I love thee more. I love thee very much, rabbit. More than I can tell thee. But I say this now to tell thee a little, I have never had a wife and now I have one and I am happy. "

And because of him, I am torn between reclusiveness and the "For Whom the Bell Tolls theory": no man is an island.