India - Day 18

We contain multitudes, Raza!

That’s what she exclaimed in the middle of our argument. It was her final sentence. Then a pause permeated the room. I watched her.

I don’t remember what the argument was about. I don’t know where it was—maybe Austin, maybe Brooklyn. I don’t remember what she was wearing or the shape of the light on her skin.

I only remember the words. I remember the tone of her voice—the sadness and love and frustration of two people trying to understand each other. I remember recognizing how beautiful it was that she used Whitman’s words. How accidentally beautiful to quote poetry through a storm. I remember imagining the multitudes swirling in her like ink in water.

I remember the anger, or hurt, or whatever it was, dissolving in the purity of the present. Nothing mattered because it was all so pretty right now.