Bondage man she called me as she attempted to wiggle her way free of her restraints. Her cadence and thick Scottish accent have a melodic quality to them that makes me nearly miss what she’s saying because of the effect that it has on whatever part of my brain that is that has decided that she speaks in music. I like to listen to her speak and I’m often too quiet during conversation because I don’t want the sound of my voice to interrupt it.
“Do you feel like a bad bondage man…” she asked me, because she was wiggling free. I smiled from behind her while unbuckling the straps and I told her that it didn’t.
“I’m sure you could have kept me if you wanted”, she said, or something to that accord.; I was inside of my head as I unbuckled the straps enough that she was able to work herself free and I might not have heard her correctly.
There is a lightheartedness to Heidi that I appreciate. She possesses an awareness of herself that leads me to believe that she knows that people find her attractive but in the moments that she is shining the brightest, that isn’t the most significant thing about her. Her warmth leaves the most lasting impression on me, which is impressive in the fact that it does compete with her exceptional beauty. When we finished shooting and she said goodbye, I hoped that I would see her again.
This morning I filled the bathtub; it’s been three months since I last stood up to bathe because there isn’t a shower in my apartment, only a tub. I do a great deal of thinking while I soak in it, but today I climbed into it empty and read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer while I waited for it to fill. I listened to the London Philharmonics recording of Adagio for Strings and flipped through the pages of the book which I started six years ago according to the bookmark. When the water hit its mark, I put the book down and contemplated why it had taken me so long to read; I’ve felt differently about it every time that I picked it up, but I believe I’ll see it through to the end this time. I finished the tea that sat cooling on the ledge, put down the cup and slipped almost all the way under the water, stopping at a depth where I could still hear the music.
I looked at the walls and thought about what Miu said when we’d worked together: “You wouldn’t expect this bathroom from looking at the rest of the apartment”. She was right; I wouldn’t. The tub is tall and deep, darkly tiled like the walls on the outside, white on the inside. There is a mirror on the wall that’s hung rather high and a single tiny window that’s nearly to the ceiling (daylight always looks a pale grayish blue when it peeks through). I wanted to pick the book up again and read a little more, but my hands were wet and I thought it best to finish my bath and save those pages for later.
My time here is coming to an end and these are the things that I will remember when I’m gone: the shower that I don’t have, the new friends that I do. Henry Miller in the bathtub, suddenly seeming to make sense. In a few years I’ll have forgotten most of the phrases that I’ve learned. I won’t remember the name of the orange cat that sits on me when I’m in the pub that we frequent. I won’t remember the things that frustrated me about living here either, which is a blessed forgetfulness that leaves one with only the romantic remembrances of time spent in a strange land.
“When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music” -Rumi