Gem in Black and White
So much has been said and done. So much time has passed and so much of what we thought would last forever has dwindled to an end in bittersweet goodbyes. We hugged and cried, we parted and moved on.
I packed that life away in sturdy brown boxes and stored them out of sight, pretending they didn't exist, pretending I never said those goodbyes, pretending I had parted and moved on.
But when it is dark and dank in the dungeons of my soul and the old demons come out to haunt me once again, the only things that keep me sane are those boxes in the attic - to which, inevitably, I am drawn.
It's where I keep this.
This painfully honest image of youth on the brink of growing up - still kicking and screaming and struggling to surface in the treacherous waters of experience - teaching me again and again that feeling scared and lonely and cold is only human and understandable and will pass eventually.
He was scared of what was to come. He wondered and worried if he was going to be good enough. There is the cigarette as silent proof of nights he spent awake, terrified of failing to do that which others, less honest, promised him he would accomplish without a backwards glance. He was scared and I know he still is at times, but he faces life with his chin up, so painfully honest.
He was lonely - hell, weren't we all? This is Te Anau, the end of the world, where each and every sense of civilisation is reduced to memory, where nature is infinitely bigger than the blue of his eyes. This is where all of us had to tap into that tiny space within ourselves, that secret place where there is warmth and openness and the firm belief that everything will always be better in the end. I look at his eyes and I notice the frown and I know he was doing just that, always so painfully honest.
He was cold. This is Antarctic snow gracing his hair and his lashes and the wool of his overlarge shirt, as always covering his fingers like a toddler in a hand-me-down. He was cold and even Dom's bottle of wine did nothing to stop that. He shivered and lit up and giggled when he realised he should have worn more clothes.
He was cold inside as well. Not very often, mind - just at times when he thought about his fears and his loneliness and his being so young still in that sea of experience that was the rest of us.
Yet, even now, when I don't see enough of him at all, when missing him makes me cold and lonely and I worry where his life is going to take him, I know that this beautiful contradiction in terms will surface and resurface. He will succeed and fail, he will win and lose - but no matter what happens, it will never damage him. Because what he still teaches me today, he has taught himself right there.
He will return to that secret place of warmth within himself, he will frown and then giggle, he will still light up, too frequently even, and face life with his chin up - and he will never cease to be what I love about him so much. He will be painfully honest.
This is a gem in black and white.
This is Elijah.
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