romance

Tricia celebrated her birthday a couple of days ago and I had the chance to reflect on our friendship and feel gratitude for what I think now was her greatest gift to me: the gift of romance. Different people seem to have different ideas of what romance is. It isn't romansa, which suggests acts preceding physical intimacy, neither is it pagsuyo (courtship) nor pagibig (love). During mass, I thought of this definition of romance: a self-induced high that you share with someone else. Perhaps pagsinta is its closest translation.

What was wonderful about our friendship- and this has been the template for my relationships with other women- was that while together we basked in the glow of passion, we directed its flames to others rather than one another: our friendship through the years was never consumed by conflagration.

In Middle School, she explained to me the meaning of the Gallic phrase, "Je suis amoureux comme un fou de toi." It's an extravagant way of saying I love you: literally, it means I am like a fool in love with you. Since we used French to write top-secret notes to each other, these words are branded on my heart.

When we saw each other again after more than a decade apart, we had barely finished hugging in front of City Lights when she said we would spend the day in Napa Valley. I seldom drink wine, Wine Country was a couple of hours away, yet Trish instinctively knew that this was a day the romantic in me would always remember. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.


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Thanks to Basil Valdez for the song Paalam.