The air hung heavy with dust in morning's sun. Rush hour was over yet the streets had plenty of traffic. Grit covered the sidewalks. Most grass was bare of snow and dead and dusty, dry from winter. The sun hung in the colourless sky - not discouloured from smog but miscoloured and hazy from all the dry dirt in the air.
Scarf around my neck still smells of Khaosan Road and a time of my life very much outside of time. A small town on a different river that was running too low for further travel. Up in the morning, layers, this scarf, walk out into the street to a dusty, dry world just waking up. Into a cafe to sit over coffee and breakfast, to write/into this morning's cafe greeted by an Asian boy wearing a Fuck FM tshirt bringing back a wave of memories of mangled random english shirts; into a cafe for takeaway bread and a walk around town in the cool morning. The smell and the haze over the river valley and the lack of hurry brought me back to a time and place where life outside of my culture felt normal again.
Standing in the hall as I walked past, two Asian girls talking, well I guess I should be going, it was nice to see you and I thought of Annie, how she looked into my eyes and tried to break a lifetime of conditioning that girls don't kiss in public and worst of all that Asian girls don't kiss white girls. I panicked and wish I could take back that moment. Why such surprise that an Aisan girl would be interested in a white girl? Wasn't I interested in her? Nothing I'd grown up with explicitly said anything was wrong with that construct of a relationship but there was nothing affirming it etiher. A number of unsaid things manifested in that moment. Sure, you can date girls, bring them home even, the family will understand or deal with it but Asian girls?
But I liked her. She was smart and pretty and athletic and had a fantastic way of being. She looked amazing in yellow. I felt young and inexperienced and out of my element - shy, embarassed - shameful - that I was letting the colours of our skin get in the way of my feelings. I'd never considered it before. Beyond shame at stumbling on skin coulour was a deep fascination with the way she looked - her beautiful hands and long black hair, the way she stared so directly with her deep dark eyes... It is the combination of these things that leave me missing her. Her presence was electrifying and fascinating and I wish I could have stayed focused there, just there, but when she reached for me to kiss me goodnight I felt taboo.
Two little girls from different cultures don't kiss.
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