A Day At The Beach

By Ish Tablar

This is the story that I never wanted to write, but I did.

For you.

Every word of it.

All because of a love that you may never answer, but a love that I can always say I truly fought for.

It is an unusual story, one that covers an aspect of my life that I normally keep to myself. That would be my perception of the world we all inhabit. Few, however, with much awareness.

A perception that I have always been hesitant to share with anyone, only now I can't.

I can't because I love you and that calls for drastic measures, like sharing my side of the story, a story that puts on full display my imperfection.

I hope you will not think bad of me when you read about those moments when I gave in to my bitterness and heartache, or when it was my turn to get crazy ideas in my head.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ish Tablar
• Release date: Apr 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463795286

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Ish Tablar

© 2019 Ish Tablar

ISBN: 9780463795286

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

A Day At The Beach

The heart loves, or it does not.

Altogether not leaving us any choice in the matter, it really is as simple as that. So, if you were to ask, Why do I love you? Well, I could summarize all the parts that make up your whole. I could mention your tiny nose, and your beautiful Chinese eyes, and your hands.

Hands that are small but deceptively strong.

I could mention the unusual shape of your earlobes and your tummy, one that I’ve longed to kiss for too long now. Or I could mention aspects of a more abstract nature, aspects of your character and psyche, like the childlike abandon that is all yours, or the way you express your inner strength through a stance and your voice, a strength that stands in stark contrast to your diminutive size. But none of that matters. None of those things are why I love you.

In truth, there are quite a few aspects of you that I would not have picked if I ever had been given a choice. But there is no choice when it comes to love. I know that, and I suspect you know as much too. Why? Because I am certain, you are as mystified as me.

Mystified by a love that you would not have picked if you had ever been given a choice, a love for a man who is twice your age and who is emotionally younger than you.

I like that about you: you are older than me in certain ways, and as a consequence you often make me feel like a little boy. Which leaves me feeling insecure and with no clue as to what to say or do. And then, when you are there being old and even a little bit wise, you do it. You transform into a little girl, and I am so happy. You see when you become that little girl? That is when I know exactly what to say and do. That is the moment when we just laugh and play without a care in the world.

I make my jokes and we laugh, and there is real happiness between us

You make your jokes and we laugh, and the happiness grows.

But then something happens, something always does, and gone is the little girl. Say Hello to pain, and anger, and fear. In the blink of an eye, you retreat. So do I. A retreat that results in more than just a physical distance. That I can handle, it is the emotional distance that hurts.

It is a retreat on your part that I have witnessed more times than I wish to recall, one that always hurts me deeply. But never before like it does now.  

Why? Because this time it is a separation created by a belief on your part that tells you that I am a bad man.

Not the Batman, just a bad man. The kind who tells lies, and not just any kind of lie, but the kind that crosses a line that no one can afford to cross.

Not if you want to keep your core integrity intact.

Do you realize how much that hurts, Zhan Zhan? To sit here in this hotel lobby, only so I can regularly go outside for a quick smoke, and more beer from the AU-Minimart across the street, with the knowledge that you believe I would spin the kind of lies that cross a line from which there is no return.

The kind of lies that only a bad person would tell, a thoroughly morally corrupted one.

To sit here with that knowledge as an innocent man brings a heart-wrenching pain to my chest. The chest where the heart lives that loves you, not a matter I have any say in, only because the heart either loves or shows a natural indifference.

A heart-wrenching pain that serves as a reminder that we don’t choose love, it finds us, and we either listen to its call, or we don’t.

A reminder that leaves me wondering if your heart loves the guy who you hang out with seven days a week.

Do you?

Is love the reason why you chose to spend all that time with him?

The same time that you deny me, even though you have made your love for me more than clear, a love that I met with the anger that scared you away.

He is just a friend, you say. I can only shake my head at that. Really? Is that why you don’t want him to see you with me? I have to hurry to karate, you understand? you said, opening your daypack wide enough for me to see your karate suit.

Of course, I said, not yet believing it to be a lie. That belief came later. The believe that you were actually hurrying to have dinner with him. Not inviting me to join or simply telling me it was him who you were going to meet for dinner, roughly an hour-and-a-half before your karate class. Why? Because you picked him, not me.

But what made you pick him? Was it your head that led you to that decision or your heart? Or am I just imagining things?  

A refugee, you called me, and that may be true. But I’m not the only refugee here. You are as much a refugee as me. There you are hiding in that beautiful head of yours, afraid what you may find when you acknowledge that heart of yours.

The same heart that I hurt so badly.

Are you afraid that is where you will find me if you go there? Find the man who brought you pain when I had no right to do so, and yet I did. Why? Because, like you, I have my wounds. Wounds that at times have me behave like a beast.

Beauty and the Beast.

A tale as old as time.

You and me.

And now here we are. Separated by more than a physical distance, and playing a part in a play that our heads and hearts never volunteered for, at least not consciously. The thing is, love is not a thing we volunteer for. Love is what happens because hearts don’t think. They react to their surroundings with feelings, not thoughts. They love. They hurt. They suffer. And you know who makes them suffer the most? We do.

We are the ones who make our heart suffer because of the choices we make, creating the heartache that we try to avoid. Choices that often stem from the thoughts in our head, not the impulses that come from the heart.

Do you remember what you told me? Don’t listen to your head it lies always!!!! Listen to the heart! Well, we sure screwed up in that department, didn’t we? Here I am, a prisoner of experiences that happened decades ago, and there you are: a grown woman who has sought refuge in her head.

A beautiful head that tells lies.

But I am not totally fair now, am I? No, I’m not. You were the one who was courageous enough to invite me in. Invite me to love you without restraint, and I screwed up.

Simple as that. No room for misunderstandings.

A screw up that led to your retreat to the head when it concerns me. The head that tells you lies. Like, He’s just a friend. Then why treat him like a potential partner? All while continuing reaching out for me, only to cut me off again the next moment. And you know what? That hurts.

A lot.

It leaves barely clinging to the strength  I need to keep listening to my heart. That is how I wait for you, even now when waiting seems futile. Even now I fight for the strength I need to keep listening to what you told me to listen to: my heart.

The heart that fell in love with you when it first came within your sphere, leaving me standing without a single thought. Reduced to a man with a heart that resonated with the heart of a woman without asking for my permission.

That is because hearts don’t do reason.

They don’t ask for permission.

They just respond.  

The first time I saw you, you were dressed in dark blue wide Japanese pants, and a loose-fitting white blouse, a small woman with an easy and wide smile, and voluminous short black hair.

A small woman with Chinese eyes and huge glasses.

A woman who left me standing and staring through the window, not thinking, surprised by the heat that had been set free in my chest.

A heat that entered my life without warning.

My heart finding itself utterly defenseless against your presence.

But being a man who is not used to reside in his heart, I was fast to retreat and turn my back. I sat down. Trying hard to shake off that feeling you had brought me, a feeling that brings me fear and anger — creating the impulse to flee. But also the impulse to stay and fight.

Fight for the union of two hearts, no matter the fear and anger.

Fight for us that would be.  

Us. Two letters that when combined create a word that easily leads to powerful feelings that any two people who ever loved each other can relate to. Feelings that come with an intensity that makes us refer to the one we love as my better half, and meaning it. Feelings of the heart that come with an intensity that makes fighting not optional, but a given, even when we reach the point where fighting seems senseless.

The point where fighting seems nothing more but a futile exercise in holding off the moment of admitting defeat.

But you know what? I’m not defeated.

For all the despair and hopelessness that is mine at times, I still feel strong.

Maybe because this is it. The moment where either I am strong enough to persevere and continue down a path that will lead to your embrace, or this really is bye-bye for good. And you know what? I am not willing to accept bye-bye. You have no idea how angry the thought of saying bye-bye to you leaves me.

But I could get another woman, my head tells me. The head that rationalizes. The head that tells lies. The head that misleads.

Only my head is no match for the anger in my heart, it doesn’t stand a chance in Hell. A smile breaks through to the surface when I think how you have no idea what that expression means. How could you? Your English is extensive enough to create limited understandings, but not extensive enough to understand slang.

Good thing the heart doesn’t need words to know when it is loved, and you have been very clear in that regard. Clear enough for even a total stranger to see how much your heart loves the man who sits here in this hotel lobby. Thinking of you. Thinking and writing. Just to tell you how much he loves you. That and how deeply he regrets his mistakes, and tell you how he will fight for your love.

Fight for us, refusing to quit even when this seems just a futile exercise in holding off the moment of admitting defeat.

That is the present I live in, a present that is currently infused with more alcohol than I care to admit.

Alcohol. Anger. Love.

You put those together and it makes for a potent cocktail that brings me a pigheaded refusal to give up, not on you. Not on us. Not after the way you looked at me the last time we met. Not after the way you hugged me and the way you stood in front of me. Had you been indifferent. Cold. I just might not be fighting now. I’d have moved on with all my heartache under my arm, a refugee searching for a place to hide from his heart. But it is the love that you showed me that brought me the inspiration to accept the only alternative available.

Fight, that is.  

A simple fight and yet the hardest of my life.

A simple fight that exists out of telling you the truth about what happened. Not my personal truth, but a truth that is the same no matter who looks at the facts. I’m good at that, you know. In fact, I’m great at honesty, and that is why it hurts so much that you believe I lied to you. Believe that I fed you the kind of lies that only a morally corrupted man could tell.

Only I didn’t.

Did I screw up by reaching the wrong conclusions? Yes, but I did not lie.

I made a terrible mistake by reaching the wrong conclusions, and that is something I deeply regret, and yet, part of me can’t help but think that maybe it was a good thing. Why? Because it brought you back to me, if only for a few moments.

But long enough to show me that your heart still loves me. Deeply. Exactly what I needed to be reminded of to keep fighting. The reason why I sat down to write down our tale.

A tale of a Beauty and her Beast.

The days that followed after I’d first seen you, I didn’t think of you. I was too busy with thoughts that were centered on anything but you. Thoughts that created a perfect barrier between me and the feelings in my chest. Thoughts that would always come to a crashing hold whenever I’d see you, leaving me staring at you, not thinking, only feeling. Then I’d try to shake off this feeling that I could not place. I’m good at that. Good at pretending not understanding my feelings. I’ve had many years of practice at that — too many.

Decades.

I just went outside for more beer at the AU-Minimart across the street. They have these small tables with small chairs that remind me of playing house with my niece when she was a wee little girl. That is where I sat down to drink and smoke.  

Watching the people. Some watching me back.

A woman and a little girl on a scooter stopped at the side of the street in front of me. The little girl offered me the gift of a smile and a Hello, a simple gesture that drew a smile from me as I sat there with a cold beer and a smoke.

Hello, I greeted back, smiling. Happy for a moment. Thinking of you.  

Things fast changed after I learned the truth, a simple truth that says: my heart loves you, a love that left me staring at you in those early days, not thinking — just staring. Reduced to a man who was confronted by the heart he had learned to ignore at a very early age.

The heart that you resurrected just by being there. 

A heart that had been put on ice at a very young age. Ice that started to defrost the day I first saw you. Here in my chest it is defrosting because of the heat that burns there, a heat that is the natural product of your presence, be it physical or mental.

A defrosting that leads to all the frozen tears that once enshrined my heart to finally run freely.

The tears of a heart that is refamiliarizing itself with what it is like to actually feel love, not just a feeling that exists only in theory, but a feeling that is meant to be an actual part of life.

It is that deep feeling of love that makes you the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.

An impossible woman, too, at times.

A woman who at regular intervals makes me want to sigh and grunt with powerful frustration. A woman who gives great advice, only to ignore the same advice herself. Which leaves me wondering Why? And the answer I’ve found, right or wrong, is this: fear.

You are afraid to be hurt.

That I can relate to, and yet, a woman with your inner strength should be able to accomplish anything, and yet there you are a refugee. There you are hiding out in that beautiful head of yours.

Afraid to feel.

Afraid to be hurt.

Not that I blame you.

Who isn’t afraid of being hurt? We all are, and many seem to be unable to admit as much, are you among them? It can be tempting just to pretend to be fearless, right? Because the moment we are honest with ourselves about our fears is also the moment when we have a simple choice to make: face those fears or live under their shadow, enslaved and silenced.

I can understand how at times it is easier to live a lie than fight for the truth; it is what I did for decades — hiding from a heart that was enshrined by a thick layer of frozen tears.

That is the simple truth of it.

Just your luck that you are dealing with a man whose heart won’t accept bye-bye, not after you resurrected his heart. A man whose heart is now very angry and set to fight and win, even when winning is a frightening prospect.

All because winning means facing and overcoming my fears. Powerful fears that have been with me since I was a child. There is the fear of emotional intimacy to think about. Then there is the fear of being touched with affection. That is not even mentioning the fear to commit emotionally. Sitting here and thinking about that should give me pause, only it doesn’t, not today. It is not as if I don’t feel the fear. I do, it is just that the fear for losing you is that much more powerful than all those fears combined. 

Right now, it feels like I am facing the worst I could possibly face. And here I am facing it: the fears that for decades had me run and hide. Not now, though. Not with you. Why? Because my heart loves you, and the thought of living my life without you is unbearable.

So I’ll face my fears with all the strength, courage, and endurance I can muster, and the only way you can stop me is by telling me to go. Then I will go. You will never hear from me again.

I hope that day will never come.  

Do you remember the day we first talked? 

It was a festive Buddhist day, and we all went to the river. That being the crowd from the hostel where you stayed, and which I often visited just to socialize. It was already getting dark when we left the hostel with the intent to catch a public bus. This was after handcrafting the sacrifice we were going to offer to the river. Not me, though. There weren’t enough raw materials available, and I gave up my spot for a guest. Then we took pictures. I did, and someone else did. You stood center front. You had to because you are so small.

You and two other women were dressed in a traditional Thai dress.

Then we talked. I was bad, wasn’t I? I was making fun of an unusually tall lady. But it was in good nature.  

Then we set off for the main road to catch the bus, a plan that was fast abandoned in favor of taking the BTS. And it was at the BTS station that my eyes wandered off to look for you, eyes that I was unable to pull away from you.   

After the BTS, we all got on a public bus to the pier to take the ferry, and after the ferry there was a short walk. I did not see you during that entire time, nor did I think of you. In the bus, I was too busy having a good laugh with another guest from the hostel. He had made the handcrafted sacrifice and now had to hold it up while standing during the entire long and crowded ride.

On the ferry, I enjoyed the view of darkness penetrated by the city lights in the distance, and the water stretching out in all directions. It made for quite a fairy tale sight, a sight I could enjoy because of my ignorance of what the near future had in store for me.

Near the temple on the other side of the river, I found that I could actually buy a handcrafted sacrifice. So I did. I bought myself a little turtle made from dough that was painted in festive colors, and pierced with sticks of incense.

Then I followed a friend to the riverbank where I’d spend the better part of an hour waiting for my turn to lower my dough turtle into the river, a gentle breeze made it a challenge to light the sticks of incense, and then I stuck around to borrow my lighter to anyone who asked.  

Never, not once, did I see you during that time.

Neither did I think  of you when I made a wish as I lowered my little dough turtle into the river.

Wishing for the ultimate richness.

I wished for a woman to love forever, not a day or a year, or a decade or two, but forever. Which most will agree is a mighty long time. Little did I know that my heart had already found the woman it wants to share forever with.

A woman who was within walking distance of me.

Eventually, my friend set a time and meeting point, and we spread out among the food stalls.

Still, I didn’t see you.  

Nor did I think of you as I walked in the artificial lights among the food stalls. I was too busy trying to decide what to eat. Something that is the furthest thing off my mind right now. Food? Drink? Those have become things that are met with great indifference.

But at the time, I didn’t yet know what fate had in store for me. So without a care in the world, I walked among the food stalls, my only concern what I would eat. That and ensuring I would be on time at the meeting point. Which I was. So were you, and it was you who used my phone to take pictures of me with the river as a background.

I checked one picture and looked up with mock surprise. I’m so handsome, I said, an obvious joke as I am not handsome at all. I’m just a regular guy, nothing special, and at that moment, you were still just that woman who had an undefinable effect on me that I could not yet place. We walked with the group to the ferry. Talking. You with your limited English and a pronunciation that was often more miss than hit, challenging me to make sense of what you were saying.

Tomorrow water will be gone, you said, or so I thought.

Water? I said, not quite understanding how water could be gone. Plenty of water to be had in Bangkok, really.

Water, you said, clearly frustrated and struggling with the word.

I still did not understand. Water? I echoed, holding up a small bottle of water just to see if we were really talking about the same thing. We weren’t. I finally guessed that what you were really trying to say was Walker, a guest who was also staying at the hostel.

You mean Walker? Yes, Walker was leaving the next day. But I wasn’t, and I was hooked. I was hooked before I realized it when I first found myself staring at you through the window. A man staring at a woman. Not thinking. Just feeling. Not realizing yet how deep the hook had been driven in the moment I first laid eyes on you.

I didn’t even know your name when I walked with you to the ferry. So, I asked.

You did not provide me with the English name that I later learned you had adopted for your stay in Bangkok, but your Chinese name.

It was a name that I kept forgetting. That had you say, You forget easy. Yes, I do. But I never forgot your smile or the magic that happens the moment when you drop your defenses. That is when the little girl appears. And God, she was awesome from the start.

Beautiful. Funny. Intelligent. Wise. Unfathomable.

I later learned there is also the adult woman. A woman who is afraid of being hurt. A woman who is fast to anger but usually for good reasons. A woman who is fast to dole out words of wisdom, but who also has a hard time taking her own words of wisdom to heart.

Also, a woman who is the best person I know.

After we arrived at the hostel, you talked to me. That is a memory that brings me a smile. That surprises me for smiles rarely find my face these days here in Da Nang. But there is a smile on my face when I look back on how you talked with an enthusiasm that took my breath away. I could have understood that enthusiasm if you had been talking with anyone else but me.

I can’t stop talking  to you, you said, not words I was expecting to hear.

Your phone went back and forth between us as we used Google translate, many translations leading to a struggle to make sense of it.

Bad translation, were the words that flew through the air a lot, and we’d reformulate with the hope it would yield a translation that would actually reflect what we said.

That was how we sat next to each other at the low table outside the front of the hostel, in the semi-darkness. Guests inside, not near us. Did you see both the happiness and the surprise that was all mine as time sneaked by? Were you aware that you already owned this heart of mine as I observed you?

A woman who I found myself mesmerized by. Beautiful. Radiant. Like a blob of light. Animate. Energetic.

Different from any woman who I had ever met before or since.

A woman who made me feel different, too. I just hadn’t figured out yet the difference was a simple matter of the heart.

I’m just a little girl, you said with a childish lilt, making yourself smaller by rounding your back and pulling your shoulders forward, offering me a childlike expression of innocence. That annoyed me. It was like you had put on a mask to hide behind. There is a little girl inside of you that is real, but she isn’t the little girl you showed me with that pose. Not even close. 

No, you are not, I said with enough firmness to take you by surprise.  

You looked up at me, instantly dropping the pose to make place for the real you: a strong woman who knows what she wants, not half as innocent as she’d like people to believe. I’m a mature woman, you said after a moment of silence. 

Yes, I said with the same firmness as before. Still a little annoyed, but also pleased you allowed me to see the real you, a mature woman who is as real as the little girl who is also part of you.

The little girl who comes to the surface when your heart feels safe, and she is the one who creates a sight that brings joy and happiness to this world. She is the one who invites me to express the little boy who is part of who I am. The