Call me ...

A woman lived alone on her island. 

One day, she saw a man in the sea, fighting for his life. She threw him a lifeline and took him in. They lived happily on her island.

Tiny, perfect bare feet

athletic, toned legs,

loose, colourful dress.

Sparkling eyes, broad, generous, genuine smile:

Meu amor -  

happy.

But the man brought his struggles onto the island with him, and tried to overcome them while living with the woman that had saved him.

Because he felt safe on the island with her, and although he was trying really hard to overcome his struggles, after a time it seemed that he was not making sufficient progress.

Appreciative of my determination to succeed.

Supportive. Patient.

Yet, sooner than I,

becoming aware of my need

to learn a lesson I needed to learn

 - to grow.

A lesson she perhaps needed to teach

 - to grow.

The woman loved the man, but saw that the only way for him to overcome his struggles would be to face them alone, without her assistance. So she let him back into the stormy sea of his struggles. Without warning, she banished him from her island paradise. 

For her, the lingerings of love was the new enemy -

enter the ruthless efficacy of Silence.

She applies it unflinchingly, resolutely, and ultimately effectively.

He soon found his own island though and there he set about facing his struggles alone.

For him, a silence a-buzz

with the white noise of why.

Indignant, persistent and in the end futile protestations

proved no match for her resolve to keep her stony silence.

Slowly he started to make progress against his struggles, and one by one he managed to overcome them all. And he was a better man for it.

I didn't hold you like I could lose you

          - I didn't know how.

And then I lost you

          Fell apart-a-bit,

          broken heart-a-lot.

But I learnt.

Love is fragile,

its weight measured only by its loss.

Anti-fragile Love

- hold her like you could lose her.

He had developed a friendship with a seagull on their island. One day he saw her again on his island. Soon the gull was eating from his palm again, they were reunited. He saw this as a sign; a sign that what once was, could be again.

For he couldn't forget the love of the woman that had saved him, not once, but twice. First by rescuing him when he was drowning, and later by setting him free to face his struggles alone. He looked across the sea at her island and wished that he could see her again because he loved the woman with all his being.

I got there, finally (he wanted to shout across to her)

where we believed I could be

Through belief in myself 

and belief in your love.

I want to give back

what you gave to me.

I want to love you

as you loved me.

Now all I need from you is

Belief

In Us

Again.

He wished he could build a bridge between them that spanned the rough seas between them - that time of struggle and frustration that necessarily separated them for three long years. Somehow he had to make contact with her.

Perhaps he could send her his poems across the stormy sea, but how?

A message in a bottle. 

And if she found and read his message, perhaps she would realise that the time had come to see him again. That she could meet with him, not as his saviour this time, but as a woman meeting a man on equal terms; a man she knew she had once loved and could love again.

So he placed the most touching, yearning, longing poem he had written in the depths of his despair into a bottle and tossed it into the sea. 

If it was to be, she would find it. And she did. She read the calling of his heart.

        Call me.

          A prayer I whisper into your heart.

          Daily.

          I whisper it

          when the longing consumes me.

          And then I can move on. 

Listen!

          Every time you think of me

          randomly

          it is that prayer you hear,

          manifesting as a gentle reminder 

          of a love, not lost, but misplaced

          in time and space.

          One day you will hear it

          its meaning will be clear

          and you will 

   Call me.

It is time, the woman thought. His words spoke to her soul and danced happily with her own, deep longing. 

She wrote four words on his poem, placed it back into the bottle, sealed it tightly and tossed it back into the sea.

"Come home, meu amor!"

The message-in-a-bottle washed up on a beach in South Africa recently.

It was still sealed.