The photographs are tied to August 1988, a particular moment in time and space. They have sentimental value, and they are entangled and simultaneously have the power to bring a memory to your attention, a memory of someone who enjoyed trips away, just like a lot of us do. I'll be sprinkling in anecdotes that may not fit exactly with the holiday but are thoughts and feelings that surfaced when I went through the part creative, part sentimental, and part artistic process of selecting the photographs that I took of Adrian, that he took of me, and that complete strangers took of us.
There is an intimacy we shared in these moments of taking the pictures, which is all wrapped up in the final photograph; the closeness still remains embedded until this day. During our eight years together, we went on numerous trips. Those trips, those times away from the rat race, away from work, away from our own comfort zones, we found another form of comfort in another space, a comfort of quality time, where we felt free enough to still be ourselves because we were together, sharing this newness of a holiday destination.
Letters for Adrian: No. 1
Dear Adrian,
I've been trying to remember the exact month that we met. It's either March or June of 1980. Of course, it doesn't really matter.
What I do remember well is that when I met you, it was a classic 'love at first sight' scenario, an instant sexual attraction.
However, it could've been a different scenario if you hadn't persisted in pursuing me.
It was a Saturday night in June 1980 (let's settle for June) and I was at a house party, a birthday celebration in East London. I went with Shirley, one of my friends. I had been there about an hour when a girl I had never met before told me that there was a guy outside who wanted to talk to me.
My first reaction was to tell this messenger that if this guy wants to talk to me, then he had better come in and join the party because I had no intention of going outside. The messages kept coming. It was ironic that you and the messenger didn't give up. Backwards and forwards, the messages came — at least five times. And my resistance to going outside remained firm.
I carried on enjoying the party atmosphere, which was warming up nicely, and I tried to ignore what I thought was a bit of an interruption. Nothing to worry about either. But when I moved and stood near the front room's window, which was open at the top, I wasn't prepared for what happened next.
While standing with my back to the window, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder from behind. I quickly turned around to see who the culprit was. As soon as I saw you, I became speechless. Whatever I had thought I might say soon escaped from my consciousness. Why? Because I saw your gorgeous face, your lovely smile, and your beautiful sparkling brown eyes! We stared at each other. You broke the spell, the silence, by saying:
"What's your name?"
"Who wants to know? I answered.
"I do," you said.
I was, of course, smiling by now. We both were. These rather idle verbal interactions or chat-up lines didn't matter as we were both caught up in something far more interesting than what we were saying to each other.
So, when you asked me to come outside to talk to you, I didn't hesitate. By now, I was hooked. I wanted to see you properly, see all of you, rather than just your head and shoulders. Your mission to win me over by sending messages five times showed me how determined you were to meet me, yet you resisted bringing yourself into the house party space, as that was not your intention. You wanted me to join you in a more private space outside in the street. And this led to us having a brief chat, which, as preliminary chats go, was quite meaningless except humour appeared, light humour, enough to remember and to write a poem years later, which you can read
here. I gave you my landline number (no mobile phones back then) and the next day, Sunday, during the early evening, you rang to ask if you could see me.
I said, "Yes, of course."
You replied, "Really?"
You arrived at my place at around 8pm.
I don't know why, but I didn't have any fear in my mind about inviting you to my place. Meeting you felt like a breath of fresh air. Maybe that's because we were both young at heart. I didn't have any qualms, no hint of anything that I felt concerned about. I had been living independently for a number of years. I wanted to see you, and it felt right.
Our First Kiss
Our first kiss took place in the kitchen of my one-bedroom 10th-floor flat in Hoxton, Shoreditch, which had an amazing panoramic view of London. We were both standing up. You had your back to the window while I poured some juice for us to drink. We exchanged words back and forth. Your kiss soon arrived and was the most unsurprising part of your visit. The kiss was inevitable, waiting to happen, and it wasn't rushed. You gave me a kiss on the lips, not too long, not too short. And I kissed you back. When we naturally stopped kissing each other at the same time, we smiled our biggest smiles.
This kiss sealed an exciting beginning, and as first kisses go, it was unforgettable and easy to recall in my imagination as I write these words. This was a kiss that I sensed would lead to more kisses, and of course, it did. We were both feeling the same rhythm of attraction. The chemistry between us was firing up and simmering nicely.
Our First Date
On our first date, we went to Finsbury Park, and that is where and when we started to take photographs of each other. I wore a pale-yellow blouse and a dark turquoise-blue suedette skirt, which had a split halfway down at the front. You said you liked my skirt. Would you believe I can't find the first ever photographs? We visited the same park a few times.
* * *
Our First Few Months
During the first few months of our relationship, when you sat quietly on the sofa at my home, almost in a meditative state, I would feel the need to check in with you to ask if you were OK, and you would say, "Yeah, I'm fine." We were getting to know each other. The quietness would happen when you stayed the weekend, when we were branching into spending more time with each other, although you didn't leave long gaps in between the times we did see each other; you were consistent with your visits from the start.
And you would always, especially at the beginning of our relationship, leave something of yours behind ... small change, a bus ticket ... would appear on the windowsill in the front room. When you returned and I said, "You left your money here," you would say, "Yep, I know." As if to say, that was the intention. And of course, you knew what you were doing. But more than that, you felt comfortable enough to leave something of yours behind because you knew you were coming back. There was also a sense of you wanting to leave something for me to remember you by. You really weren't bothered about leaving a few bits of change.
* * *
Our First Internal Conflict
Having already asked each other how old we were soon after we met, I realised that there was an age gap. After a week or so, I confessed:
"There's something you should know: I lied about my age."
You responded immediately by saying, "So did I, it's not a problem."
This resulted in lots of laughter. Being honest and open in our revelations about our ages meant we were keen to address this 'age-gap statistic'.
We both lied because we wanted to protect this new and exciting experience rather than let this internal conflict, a social norm, become an external conflict, one of social acceptance, that suggests people usually have relationships with people of similar ages.
So, we talked about it. At this early stage, it was too soon to consider whether this newfound mutual attraction could become a long-term relationship. I had questions to ask you, questions to ask myself.
You were unconcerned about what people might think; it didn't even come up. You didn't have any issues about the 'age gap thing' as you called it. However, I did have reservations in the beginning and at certain stages of our relationship, but only because it was quite a gap — 10 years in fact.
I was, though cautiously optimistic, willing to take one day at a time and not dwell too deeply into this.
You were able to provide the reassurance that I guess I needed. So, we dealt with it; we addressed this internal conflict with the knowledge that we really liked each other, and we were prepared to at least invest in the unknown territory that would inevitably arise. Neither of us knew what that might be, which is the same for any relationship starting out; you don't know how long it's going to last, what twists and turns are going to materialise.
We knew enough and felt strongly enough about moving forward and taking a chance on what we felt was something we weren't prepared to (or couldn't) walk away from. We wanted to keep our minds and hearts open to allow ourselves to bond, to allow the love to grow.
* * *
Dreams ...
After losing Adrian, the first time I dreamt about him was two weeks later. Those early dreams were quite random. I longed to see him despite the realisation that he wasn't alive anymore. The longing to see him manifested into dreaming about him. And eventually, the dreams went through a kind of mourning process until they became quite familiar. Sadness wasn't present in any of my dreams of Adrian.
Here are a few journal entries of my dreams of him:
13 Nov 2024:
Last night I dreamt about Adrian. It was such a lovely dream, a poignant moment. The dream went something like this:
We were standing up, and I went over to him. I don't know where we were ... out there in the afterlife, I guess ... I walked over and embraced him, a familiarity I have experienced before when dreaming about him. We then kissed each other, and then I said:
"It's amazing that you're still here."
"I know," he said.
"You're not just here, you're here in this physical form," I said.
Initially, dreams of Adrian were surreal and bizarre. Now we have arrived at this place where we've passed all of the disbelief and strangeness. Now there is this recognition of each other in my dreams.
This is the kind of dream that I cherish.
4 Sept 2023:
Another dream:
Adrian's presence, familiarity and closeness: We don't have long conversations; it's almost as if words aren't necessary. In this dream, I looked at him and said, "You're a miracle." I know that he's gone, not forgotten, but in my dreams he is present. So my sense of knowing that is always there in my dreams. I'm never surprised by his presence. I know that when Adrian shows up in my dreams, that's the part that's a miracle.
And of course, I know that where we are in the dream is obviously not in the real world, and yet we do interact. These moments live in a different dimension to the reality that we know, as we live it. Maybe it's a spiritual plane; it's nice to think about it like that.
Adrian is often in my thoughts. He has been in my thoughts for over three decades, and his presence isn't going anywhere from my memory. And that's how he was, and that's how he is.
20 Nov 2023:
Dreams of Adrian and Andrew
This is a rare occurrence, dreaming about them together. Maybe this is because they are in my consciousness in different ways. So, in this dream, Andrew appears as a little boy (he's aged 43 in December 2024). When I dream about Andrew, he is often young, so with him, my dreams go right back to his childhood days, possibly before Adrian passed. It's just his presence, my presence. We're together, close, familiar.
Thank you for reading!
Comments welcome...
