love
August 2008 
50 Truths Worth Knowing
Posted on Jan 26th, 2007
by 
Stella Luna
Stella Luna
Love can endure cross continents
We had barely dated a year, but I knew in my soul that she was the one for me. A simple, random harmoney that just wouldn't quit: the drape of raven hair, her wicked, jolting sarcasm, and something about that gentl indentation in her upper lip. All conspired to make me thoroughly hers. How could I spend an entire summer without her?
Laura had fallen for me too, but here was a chance for her to see the far side of the world on a Fulbright teaching scholarship. She would travel through India for nearly three months, visiting holy shrines, meeting cultural leaders, and storing it all away to share with her world history students back home. Of course I urged her on, thrilled at her opportunity, and only half joking that even though we would be in separate hemispheres, our souls would be joined in every moment we were apart. "Namaste", we would laugh, invoking the Sanskrit word used by Hindus across the Indian subcontinent to communicate reverence, honor, togetherness.
She boarded her plane in a roilng summer thunderstorm, the flashes of lightning seeming to sear each of our good-byes into our souls. I drove home alone, wondering how our time apart might pull at the delicate threads we'd woven between us. Would being apart help us to love eachother more? Then later that night, as the thunder and rain began to ebb, I found a trove of greeting cards Laura had left for me. She had written nearly a dozen, each earmarked for a week she would be gone, and I read them one by one as the summer wore on, parceling out a steady diet of her happy, reassuring words.
On my side of the planet, I composed long typewritten letters and faxed them to the exotice dialing codes listed on Laura's travel itinerary, timing each one to arrive just as she checked into hotels in Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, and other parts of India. Finally, near her journey's end, I set up a makeshift recording studio at my kitchen table and filled a cassette tape with recordings of her favorite music, poetry, and stories, along with news of her family and friends. Laura would later recall the most sublime moment of her trip: sitting on the hotel balcony in the swelteringIndian summer after a monsoon rain, listening to the sound of my voice float across the courtyard as wild monkeys frolicked and chattered in the dripping palm trees.
And then what seemed an eternity finally ended. Laura's plane was headed home. I stood at the end of the long airport concourse, surrounded by taxi and limosine drivers waiting for their inbound passengers. As the travelers cleared customs, the drivers held up handwritten signs to beckon their rides-"Robert", "Citicorp", "IBM", "Mr. Singh". Then the woman I'd fallen for, missed all summer, and a year later would marry, burst through the gat to run toward me.
I held up my own sign, etched with a single word that said everything I held in my heart: I bow to you. There is no other. We are joined always. "Namaste".
by Tony Farrell
We had barely dated a year, but I knew in my soul that she was the one for me. A simple, random harmoney that just wouldn't quit: the drape of raven hair, her wicked, jolting sarcasm, and something about that gentl indentation in her upper lip. All conspired to make me thoroughly hers. How could I spend an entire summer without her?
Laura had fallen for me too, but here was a chance for her to see the far side of the world on a Fulbright teaching scholarship. She would travel through India for nearly three months, visiting holy shrines, meeting cultural leaders, and storing it all away to share with her world history students back home. Of course I urged her on, thrilled at her opportunity, and only half joking that even though we would be in separate hemispheres, our souls would be joined in every moment we were apart. "Namaste", we would laugh, invoking the Sanskrit word used by Hindus across the Indian subcontinent to communicate reverence, honor, togetherness.
She boarded her plane in a roilng summer thunderstorm, the flashes of lightning seeming to sear each of our good-byes into our souls. I drove home alone, wondering how our time apart might pull at the delicate threads we'd woven between us. Would being apart help us to love eachother more? Then later that night, as the thunder and rain began to ebb, I found a trove of greeting cards Laura had left for me. She had written nearly a dozen, each earmarked for a week she would be gone, and I read them one by one as the summer wore on, parceling out a steady diet of her happy, reassuring words.
On my side of the planet, I composed long typewritten letters and faxed them to the exotice dialing codes listed on Laura's travel itinerary, timing each one to arrive just as she checked into hotels in Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, and other parts of India. Finally, near her journey's end, I set up a makeshift recording studio at my kitchen table and filled a cassette tape with recordings of her favorite music, poetry, and stories, along with news of her family and friends. Laura would later recall the most sublime moment of her trip: sitting on the hotel balcony in the swelteringIndian summer after a monsoon rain, listening to the sound of my voice float across the courtyard as wild monkeys frolicked and chattered in the dripping palm trees.
And then what seemed an eternity finally ended. Laura's plane was headed home. I stood at the end of the long airport concourse, surrounded by taxi and limosine drivers waiting for their inbound passengers. As the travelers cleared customs, the drivers held up handwritten signs to beckon their rides-"Robert", "Citicorp", "IBM", "Mr. Singh". Then the woman I'd fallen for, missed all summer, and a year later would marry, burst through the gat to run toward me.
I held up my own sign, etched with a single word that said everything I held in my heart: I bow to you. There is no other. We are joined always. "Namaste".
by Tony Farrell
Access: Public
