intimate walk/dinner with Rodrigo

This was going to be a difficult walk for me. I am in love with him still. Even after three months away. My feelings haven’t changed. And I am afraid when writing this to sound stupid and naïve and pathetic. But I wanted to do this walk with him even though I knew that maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

We were supposed to do yoga together like how we used to. But he had rehearsal with Emma. I did yoga alone in sunny 809. I was nervous because an intimate walk with Rodrigo was full of potential for me. Although I knew I shouldn’t have any expectations, my expectations were high. Doing yoga helped me feel more calm and relaxed. Outside it was windy and cold. It was the first day of winter.

He was waiting for me in front of school on the bench next to the canal. He looked a bit cold like he had been sitting there already for a while. He suggested we go home first to eat something to have energy for the walk. This meant we were going to go to his place, to David Zambrano’s place where he lives. I didn’t even ask if Matt and David were home, which would have been o.k. but not my idea of intimacy exactly. I just trusted him that whatever he proposed was going to be fine. I was more than willing to give up control and responsibility. Because giving up responsibility was necessary, I felt, to be available for whatever kind of intimacy might come my way.

So Rodrigo cooked for me and welcomed me into the house I had wondered so often about. This whole last spring I had lived in the same neighborhood and kept wondering what David’s house looked like, how Rodrigo was feeling there and what he was doing there.
And now suddenly the mystery was revealed to me. The house was like a little miniature museum - full of little statues and paintings, full of color and character and detail.
There were two cats quite eager to receive physical intimacy. Their purring made me feel at ease. I was ready to just be a guest and to receive all of Rodrigo’s carefully crafted attention. Rodrigo offered me a pear juice he had made himself with the same spices that go into chai tea. And it did taste like chai tea, but also very refreshing.
He served lentil soup, a rice dish with green peas and carrots and green garden beans. I was impressed by how he managed in the kitchen and how much he seemed to feel at home. We talked a bit about intimacy. And Rodrigo said that to him intimacy was about knowing somebody or something in detail, it’s about observing and spending time.
I’m not sure I got it all right. In fact, I think I spent more time observing the details of his gesture and expression than what he was actually saying about intimacy.
But it makes perfect sense to me. His idea of intimacy is what makes him such a great video artist. He is very skilled at observing. And spending time with him also sharpens my own observation. Every detail becomes intimately dear to me. Rodrigo always listens to music when he is home. I imagined having this personal DJ next to me who was playing all these songs to make me feel good and create a nice atmosphere.
I almost didn’t feel like going for a walk anymore. But this was the project and so we went. We walked along one of the canals towards Westerpark. We saw an art window with a video installation of a snowy mountain. Rodrigo said it looked like Chile. In Westerpark we walked along the water towards the field where some older Dutch men were playing basketball. We started talking about sports. Rodrigo’s father used to be the manager of a football team in Chile. As a small boy Rodrigo was taken along to the football field every Sunday although he never got into football or any other games involving balls. I always twisted my ankle when playing football and hated it.
We went to sit on the swings at the playground. I had asked him to perform an intimate action for me before the walk. He gave me his i-pod to listen to a song while I was on the swing. It was a song about a house at the sea and three sisters. I couldn’t focus on the lyrics too much. The swinging messed up my sense of balance and before I knew it I felt quite nauseous and had to stop. It’s very much like him to give songs to people. And I’m often quite fond of his taste in music. He has given me songs by Sufjan Stevens before, which has become my way of remembering him. When I listen to certain songs I feel immediately connected to Rodrigo but also nostalgic. We decided to walk back home as it was cold and I was still feeling a bit dizzy from the swinging. We sat down for a while at a bus stop with a big poster of Penelope Cruz. The walking home part felt a bit awkward. I didn’t really know what to say. I had memories of our walk to the beach last New Year’s eve. I felt embarrassed that my desire for physical intimacy was overshadowing this whole experience.

Back home he made tea for us. We sat in the living room with the cats. I don’t even remember so much what we talked about. He said his neck was stiff. I offered to give him a neck massage, which is something I think I’m good at. Luckily he accepted my offer. Although we do this all the time at school, feeling the weight of his head release into my hands made me feel lucky and special.
Suddenly I had this longing to lie next to him in bed - a very narrow-minded and conventional concept of intimacy I should say. And surprisingly enough I had the guts to ask if I could stay in his room a little bit. He has this tiny little room, a small shed out in the garden. It’s just big enough for a queen-size bed and a small closet.
We had to turn on the heating as it was very cold in his room. Rodrigo explained that it was rather damp and there were spiders – big black ones he was afraid of.
That’s why he usually doesn’t even turn on the lights. I stretched out on his bed hoping he would do the same. But he stayed standing regulating the heater. I could tell he was feeling uncomfortable. He said he would like to smoke a joint and asked if I wouldn’t mind going with him to buy some in Haarlemmerstraat. I realized I had intruded on his privacy quite a bit. Maybe he needed this joint because my company had become a burden to him. But then again maybe he just wanted to relax a bit more. Anything to save our intimacy was fine with me. He makes these very thin joints with no tobacco, just grass. I love to watch him roll a joint. We went to the garden to smoke. I took two drags and didn’t cough. I was proud. I imagined we were two teenagers smoking our first joint secretly in the backyard.

Back in the living room the conversation ran much more smoothly. Or maybe it was a monologue? I suddenly talked a lot and felt very lively and connected. The joint had increased the level of intimacy considerably. Or was it an illusion? At least for my part I felt more relaxed and I think Rodrigo did too. It was the Jan Ritsema kind of intimacy at play. The overcoming of shyness, the sharing of personal impressions, opinions, feelings without fear. He asked me about PAF and I told him details about performances I had seen there, things we had done. I talked a lot about myself and even performed a little dance to illustrate what I had seen in a dance piece. I felt entertaining and had the impression Rodrigo liked it. I wanted to touch him. I put my head on his shoulder and stayed there. Eventually he moved saying he was going to fall asleep in this position. My clumsy attempts at physical intimacy didn’t go anywhere. It became quite obvious that he didn’t want to go there. I kind of apologized for my behavior. I felt embarrassed and needed to talk about it. He said he was sorry but that he thought it would be too confusing. It was a very valid answer and I felt stupid and guilty for insisting so much, especially knowing that he had just broken up with Roger at the beginning of September. Still I needed to know if the reason he didn’t respond to my advances was because he didn’t feel attracted to me in principle or because he just didn’t want to complicate our already fragile friendship. He didn’t have a clear answer.
He said he really appreciated talking to me and spending time with me. I believed him.
Eventually I forced myself to leave. He gave me the video portrait he had made this summer about a Dutch painter lady, a good friend of David. I watched it the next morning. It was so touching I found myself crying for about fifteen minutes while watching it. The first part of the video was shot in David’s house. Rodrigo made the paintings slide down from the walls and gather in the living room on the couch to watch the portrait of the painter, their creator. She paints colorful portraits of animals, a lot of cows and a sheep and a cat. The humanity of it, the unique editing, very Rodrigo, the songs he had selected to go with some of the footage – it all made me realize how much I appreciate this guy for who he is and how he sees the world. Of course I will never know him as much as I would love to. But in that moment while tears were rolling down my cheeks I was immensely grateful for all the intimate moments we have shared already, for how much he has moved me and keeps moving me. And crying that morning with the colorful animals on the screen of my laptop was surely one of the most intimate moments of my life so far.