Cucumbers, Sliced Thick

I now eat cucumbers for breakfast, peeled and sliced thick. This simple, fibrous act keeps my heart and mind with the Gypsy King. I ate them every morning while in Istanbul. Because it was a new morning offering to my palette, it has stuck in my brain as a pleasant practice and makes it easy to feel his Gypsy presence while I crunch. But long before I ate cucumbers for breakfast, I was and am able to feel his essence from six thousand miles away.

From almost the beginning of our correspondence, I could feel when he was thinking of me. When my third eye feels like a thumb is pressing down on it, he is there, directing his thoughts towards me. Do not doubt me. I have tested this over and over again. The first test came unexpectedly and suddenly.

It was the first February we were getting to know each other. We were engaged in an email volley when he sent a message saying, "Mam, I have to go now. I just received word I have to take my team west. I don't know if or when I'll be back. I want you to know it has been an honor to talk with you. You've made me very happy". Having no prior experience with men in active military duty, men in the midst of a war zone, I was stunned. I remember saying, "what do you mean?" over and over. How could our conversations simply be done? I had flung open my door after work each day, thrown my goods on the floor and snapped on my computer in eager anticipation of finding him waiting for me online. How could it be done, just like that?

He left. If he was able, he would try to send me an email letting me know he was okay. For days I waited for that email. I was shocked at how frightened I was to never hear from him again. One evening, (how many days after he left I do not recall), I was making my dinner at 7 o'clock. With sauce pot in my hand, I knelt on the floor and started to sob. Not knowing what happened to him was breaking my heart. But in the middle of a sob, my third eye was pressed. I dropped the pot and ran to my computer. And there, one minute before I pushed the 'start' button, an email had arrived from the Gypsy King. He was alive and tired and his team was intact. He missed me. I cried again.

Time and space do not exist. Not to the heart of a human. For close to 3 years, with my forehead buzzing, I have known when this force-of-a-man has been thinking of me. He has thought of me alot. Now he is leaving again. I don't know where. The military keeps its secrets. So, I'm stocking up on prayers and cucumbers and facing east, third eye exposed for radar. I will think of the time I stood on the Istanbul ferry, my cheek to his chest, his coat and arms around me, and I will wait for the pressure to come.

{Ferry to the islands, Istanbul, October 2009}