ORANGE TREE, HUMAN HEART OR IS LOVE POSSIBLE?

I saw him for the first time last November - he was Tiiu's dentist. It was a spark of some sort of recognition I felt when our eyes met just for a second. We never spoke that day. He disappeared back into his office and Tiiu told me that he was getting married.

Then in February I broke my tooth and had to go to a dentist. We met again. Gabriel looked at my teeth with compassion and talked me into getting three new crowns. The job was going to cost me all the money I had. It was supposed to be a two week thing altogether, but lasted until... well actually it is not yet over, and it is May.

We spoke a lot. He was just a few years older than me, yet mastered an art that I had no idea of. For that same reason I was quite concerned in the beginning. I guess it is a problem of our generation - too little time has passed since we were "equal".

Children have a certain pace of development one can follow  - when they are one they walk, when they are two years old they talk, with seven years they know how to read and write, with 18 they graduate from highschool. But now with 30 how do you measure? Each of us had had about 12 years after graduation of "free-growth", and in that time we had become  two completely different "plants".

"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"I would say I feel quite humble, I can only trust you," I replied.

Gabriel told me that after finishing his studies he took a loan from the bank, set up his clinic, then with another loan bought a house where hoped to raise children and around it he wanted to plant an orchard. What a great dream...The nest was ready, only the woman was missing. They say he had separated soon after marriage. I never asked what happened. It was none of my business.

Since one month or so Gabriel moved to our neighbourhood. He has been over a couple of times - grilled meat for Tiiu's guests and then last Tuesday after returning home from fishing came to cook us the fish. I liked him. Maybe a little bit more than I should have.

After he finished my crowns I bought an orange tree, tied it to my bike and brought it home. Took it over to his place today as a good-bye present and we chatted some more. I looked at him and his future garden, looked at his little house and another that he intended to buy. He is a wonderful dentist, a fisherman, works out, is good looking and friendly. And then standing there looking at him I thought - was there something wrong with me in not wanting such a life? That dream of his remained so strange to me.

Tomorrow I am to pass by his office again and he is coming over on Sunday. I might imagine if I stayed for longer, perhaps it could be a beginning of something "more". Maybe it would not even be too out of the ordinary. I stop daydreaming. I have no intention of staying. I look at everything as if a thick glass separated me from the "world". I can see him, perhaps he can see me too, but we do not share the same space. Can I ever touch someone, or be touched by someone? Is there a door in that glass? And who then should give up on his or her space for the two to be able to meet? I do not know the answer. For now.

Nothing, absolutely nothing has happened. Only one thousand and one thoughts have run through my head. And I feel how кошки на душе скребут -  (cats are scratching my soul, a Russian expression). And it is not because of him, but because of the "idea of him" and of a "normal" life, "normal" dream, "common-sense" that I freewillingly say no to.

Once again I looked around his garden and at the orange tree he was going to plant. If I could ever be planted, then in whose garden? If any... Perhaps my kind of plants need a different climate. A good excuse?

"It is your place," I told the orange tree in my heart, "but not mine." 
Then I left. And as I walked away my steps felt light. I smiled.
The time had not come yet.