The Romantic Elliptical, Part 47: Keep your tools in the Shed, Dr. GQ

I opened my eyes and Dr. GQ was next to me, talking to the nurse.

"Hey, you are awake! Welcome back, brown-eyed girl."

I wasn't sure where I was. I got up slightly only to be hit by the pain in my side.

"I am still in emergency?" There were about four people in the room, separated by curtains. I looked over at the clock. An hour had elapsed.

"We got your blood results back," he said while flipping my chart. Then it all came back to me. I dared not ask about the exam down below. I was hoping that my blackout episode prevented him from doing it. Nothing more eerie than to be unconscious and ...well, I think you get the idea.

I kept quiet. I had remembered what I asked before passing out. I better maintain silence than to challenge the man who held my fate in his hands.

"Your white blood cell count is very high, indicating appendicitis. So we are going to open you up and have a look. I have booked an OR. You will be going in an hour."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. The nurse smiled at me and left to attend the older man next to me who was clearly having problems breathing. She and Dr. GQ were laughing about something. I did not hear what they were saying (probably some joke about administering my rectal exam while I was conked out) but I could clearly see she was enthralled in her conversation with him. Whenever he spoke to her, she would light up. Made me want to barf. Dr. GQ walked over to a desk nearby to complete his charts. I watched him from my bed. It was too quiet, except for the old man's troubled breathing next to me. I had to make small talk.

"Were you trying to distract me from my pain by feeding me the line about my eyes?"

He stopped writing and directly looked at me. I slipped lower into the sheets. His dreamy gaze made me want to melt.

"Of course not. I do not pay compliments unless I absolutely mean them," he smiled and then returned to his chart. I became highly suspicious. The nurse said to me he was a professional. Since when do doctors compliment their female patients? My imagination ran wild and I thought about how my surgery would pan out -- they would take out my infected appendix and he would announce to me, post surgery: "We removed your beautiful appendix. May I keep it in a jar and take it home with me?"

I felt woozy. Instead of sedation, the morphine kept me talking.

"How long have you been a doctor?" I questioned. He continued to write in his files without lifting his head.

"Three years," he responded.

My suspicions were confirmed. He was a newbie! I knew he was too young.

"I fast-tracked high school, undergrad and medical school. I am just a smart guy. Its funny how many people ask me the same question, but yes, I really know what I am doing. Guess some of us are gifted," he said.

I bit my lip and sighed. His looks were affecting my ability to concentrate and I did not have enough strength to ask about his 'gift'. I lay back and after ten minutes my father arrived. He came over to me and placed his hand on my forehead.

"Are you ok? What did the doctor say?" My father explained that he got my brother's message when he came out of court that--I was taken to the hospital in excruciating pain. The doctor walked over to my father.

"Suspected appendicitis. She will be on the operating table within the hour."

My father looked past him.

"I would like to talk directly to the doctor please," my dad answered, in his heavy accent. I pulled the sheet up over my mouth, trying hard not to laugh.

The doctor smirked and folded his arms across his chest. "I AM the doctor. We ran the tests and I am pretty sure its her appendix. I will follow up with both of you after the surgery." My father looked at him confused and then proceeded to ask him if he was a resident student doctor. Dr. GQ man, trying to discern my father's accent, rubbed his chin and shook his head. He then proceed to walk out in a huff.
My father turned to me. I thought he was going to comment on his age or the fact that the looked MY age but my father... was alas, my father.

"See how young he is and he has completed his medical degree! You should learn from this example. I told you to do science instead of English! You already know how to read and write English!"

I pulled the covers over my head. I should have told him that this fine specimen of a young man just finished giving me a rectal exam.

"Your brother told me that Yvonne came to study at our house. She showed up with coffee and donuts but he told her that you went to the hospital."

Yvonne! I had totally forgot about our Sociology exam. It took me half an hour to explain the procedure of how to alert the University about missing an exam. My father did not get why I couldn't complete the surgery and write the exam the next day. I asked the nurse for more morphine.

After bidding my father goodbye, I was wheeled down the hall towards the operating room. The anesthesiologist stopped me to explain how I was to be put under. I did not hear a word he said. All I heard was Dr. GQ a few steps away, flirting with one of the surgical nurses!

The anesthesiologist noticed that I was not paying attention to him while Dr. GQ schmoozed the nurse. Instead, he stopped mid-sentence and waited. When I realized that he was no longer speaking, I looked back at him and studied his face. He was older, perhaps in his 50s, but the lines on his face told me a story -- knowledge, wisdom and genuineness. I had been physically shaking as we approached the OR but now I felt strangely comfortable and relaxed in his presence.

"Are you nervous?" he asked. I nodded my head slowly. He came closer to me and I felt I could see his soul through his eyes. He had such kind eyes.

"Well kiddo. You will do great. Focus on Dr. So and So -- as you can see, he is not hard on the eyes. I suspect something more is going on, requiring us to keep you under a bit longer," he winked at me. My heart sank.

"Are you going to be there? Will I wake up? What if I die on the table?" I asked, my eyes welling up with tears. He laughed and squeezed my arm. He had a nice, hearty laugh.

"I've been doing this for 30 years and as long as you don't mind falling asleep and waking up to me, I will stay with you every step of the way. Deal?" His eyes crinkled around the corners as he smiled. I suddenly felt ashamed.

He did not coerce, bully or pressure me into doing anything. He was real. He was true. He was no Mr. GQ but I was willing to wake up to him, welcoming me back to life after surgery. Certainly not to Dr. Your-eyes-are-so-beautiful.

Men always want to know what women are thinking. Well, I will tell you. The most handsome and attractive man can open his mouth and be revealed as the biggest tool in the shed. He loses his appeal and his words and actions betray him on the spot. Here Dr. GQ was telling me about his accolades, how gifted he was, using his wiles and charm on women to get what he wanted. Dr. Anesthesiologist won me over with his words, the twinkle in his eye and the kindness of his heart.

I learned two lessons that day: Inner beauty and that tool, Dr. GQ, was only partially right with my diagnosis.

The Romantic Elliptical, Part 46: Inner Beauty

For me, the bullying started in Grade 4 and lasted straight into Grade 8. The neighborhood I grew up in had very few immigrant families. We were surrounded by caucasians and we stuck out like a sore thumb. Especially me. Loud, brash, fiesty and ...brown. And kids were mean. If you were different, they were threatened. Fearing what they did not know. There were many days I would come home, bury my head in my mother's lap, crying.

"Mamma, I was on my way to Krista's house and those boys stopped my bike and threw me off," I sighed, wiping my tears away. I climbed back on and had to take another longer route to get to her house. Every morning on the way to school, these older boys would stop me, knowing I would be barrelling down their street to pick up my friend. A part of me wanted to avoid that route, but the other part, a more sound and brave part convinced myself that I had just as much right to travel on that road as they did. Everyday, the colour of my skin betrayed me.

"Go back to your home, you PAKI!" the ugliest boy spat at me. He had red hair and freckles all over his body. When he saw me coming, he ran out of his house and grabbed my handlebars. I frantically looked around to see if any adult was witnessing the scene.

I sucked in my breath and lashed out: "This is my country! I was born here so if you want me to go home, I AM home, you moron!" My attempts of challenging his intellect did not help the situation. His friends laughed which enraged him further. He tipped me off my bike. I fell onto the sidewalk and scraped my knee. Blood trickled out and was diluted with water. Where was the water coming from? I then realized it was from my own tears. When I looked up, Krista was standing behind the boys.

"Leave her alone! She is my friend. Why do you bother her everyday? If you don't leave her alone, I will not let my brother play with you!" she exclaimed. She grabbed my hand and picked up my bike. We were a block away when she turned around and faced me.

"Don't show it. When you do, they win. Ignore them. You are giving them what they want."

"Show them what?" I asked confused.

"Your emotion. Do not react. You are playing right into their hands," Krista reasoned.

I went home after school that day and looked up at my mother's face as she stroked my hair. I told her the whole story but she disagreed with Krista.

"They stop you because they like you, my dear. You are smart, pretty and fun. They just want to be part of your life," she smiled. Somehow I was unconvinced. I assumed my mother had no idea what I was going through. She lived with all her friends in Pakistan where everyone was brown, girls had moustaches and unibrows and no one asked what cricket was. Here in Canada, blond hair was easily camoflaged with fair skin, people had roast beef with mashed potatoes and drove cars that did not need a coat hanger to keep the trunk closed. It was hard to believe that any boy wanted a part of my culture where tandoori chicken was the staple, riding a boy's bike spray painted pink was normal and my clothes were that week's KMart special.

I so desperately wanted my mom's conclusion to be true. Maybe they liked me because I was not your run-of-the-mill type of girl and that my differences appealed to them. So from that day on, I endeavoured to test out this hypothesis. Only to be humiliated once again.

The next day, I went to school, happy about my new-found appeal. My confidence shot up and I walked onto the playground with a renewed spirit. I had a crush on the most popular boy in our Grade 5 class. He was a soccer player and all the girls swooned over him everytime he played. I still remember his name. David. We watched from the bleachers during gym class. I was sitting at the end with my one friend, Krista. I told her what my mother told me and she shook her head sadly. I didn't care. I was going to tell David that I liked him. When the soccer ball came towards us, I grabbed the ball and walked over to David who was coming over to retrieve it. He looked at me oddly as I stood proudly, holding the ball and smiling over at him. When he was close enough, I was prepared to deliver my speech.

"David! Here is your ball. I wanted to tell you that I really, really, really like you. I play soccer in my backyard and I would love for you to come and play with me," I asked.

David looked around and noticed that his buddies where now in earshot of my proclaimation. They all looked at me incredulously, with my pigtails, eyeglasses, unibrow and moustache...looking back at all of them with satisfaction. I felt liberated and extremely giddy. I was sure he was going to accept my invitation and I waited breathlessly for his answer.

Instead, he snatched the soccerball from my hands and whipped it at my head! Dumbfounded, I took two steps back. Everyone was laughing on the bleachers. The teacher came running over and yelled at me.

"Why did you pick up the ball? It was still in play!" Mr. White exclaimed.

"Mr. White, Dave hit me in the head! Aren't you going to do something?" I inquired. This was not how I anticipated the scene to play out. I looked down at my feet. The teacher blew his whistle and asked us to line up outside our portable. Krista grabbed my arm.

"I told you so." She walked away and I struggled to grasp what had just happened.

We were in line and his friends heckled me. Dave kept a far distance and cursed at me from the front of the line. "I wouldn't come to your house if you were the last girl on Earth!" I swallowed the lump in my throat with a sunken feeling in my chest. When Mr. White came around, I tugged at his arm.

"Did you hear them? It's not fair. I get this everyday and no one does anything. This is not right. What do I do?" I pleaded. He gave me an icy stare that made me stop.

"Ignore them. That is all I can tell you. Just ignore it!" and he walked off to open the doors for us. Back then, bullying was never an issue. Nor was racism. There were clear favorites in his class and I was not one of them. I was always picked last for team sports, even by my teacher and when he selected students for school events, I was an afterthought.Even though I felt it, I never let it get the better of me. The principal elected me to be the year long morning announcements girl because I was the best speaker and reader in my school. Upon hearing me every morning, Mr. White, despite David's protests, made me his reading buddy because his reading and writing skills were so dismal. Divine retribution.

From that day on, it took me a long time to trust any boy after that. Even when I was complimented and asked out in high school, that chip remained on my shoulder. After enduring four years of bullying, it took high school to change my adversaries who once, after maturing, accepted my differences. But I never changed for them or anyone. I stayed true to myself and I owed it all to my mother.

When I went home that day, explaining to her how Dave had hit my head with a soccer ball, she did not change her reasoning. She told me, one day, I would realize that he truly did like me but was too afraid to show it because of peer pressure. Even though I was on the receiving end of much bullying and blatant racism, I became a champion for the underdog. I never forgot that girl on the soccer field who just wanted to share her happiness with someone else.

The boys came and went in high school. On the surface, they were my friends. However, a few captured my heart. In the beginning, the chip on my shoulder was, in actuality, a huge rock which took many boys to work on, mainly because of my trust issues. Their friendliness and compliments I mistook as a ruse or attempts to toy with my feelings. The bullying of the past would resurrect at these times. I was a late bloomer - when guys liked me for more than my mind, I became shy and unsure how to react. On the other hand, my mother, seeing all the attention I was garnering, always maintained her inner beauty argument.

"You can prick the skin of anyone: black, brown, yellow, blond and blue-eyed. But we all bleed the same colour. Never be red like anger or envy. You can beautify the outside but if the inside is sick and black, no amount of makeup will ever mask it from the truth."

Back to the hospital and the doctor.

Salma was told to wait outside with my sister as the young doctor pulled back the curtain. She begrudgingly left but winked at me on her way out. I was utterly mortified. Was he my doctor? He must be a nurse, I reasoned. Despite the pain, I was conscious enough to assess the situation.

"Are you going to treat me?" I asked. He had called over a nurse.

"Please undress her and get her into a gown. Yes, I am Dr. So and So. I am the emergency doctor on call right now. Don't worry, we will figure out the source of your pain." The nurse came over, pulled back the covers and unzipped my pants. I was in too much pain to remove my own clothes but extrememly aware of the fact that I was being stripped down in front of a good looking doctor. My problem? Pride? Embaressment? Chastity? All my doctors until this point... had been women. My pediatrician, my family doctor, my dentist, my orthodonist...you name it. I was in too much pain to bargain for a female doctor. I closed my eyes and pretended he was not there. She had stripped me completely and I felt her tying the gown behind my back.

"Darling, am I hurting you? Please open your eyes," the nurse asked me. I opened them slowly. The doctor was not there. The nurse watched me as I looked around and then understood.

"He is a professional. I know this is embaressing for you but we really need to figure what is wrong. Don't be shy. He has seen many naked bodies!" she laughed. I tried to smile. Mind over matter. The pain was less but was it because I was more worried about being examined by a male model pretending to be a doctor? Before I could psychoanalyze the situation further, he came back.

"Alright, let's examine your stomach. He placed his hand over my abdomen and pelvic area. I looked at him directly, searching his face for clues. He looked back.
"Wow. You have very nice eyes. Almond-shaped. Very different." I turned and looked at the wall next to me, wondering where this was coming from. My defenses were on high alert and the chip on my shoulder returned. I stiffened as the pain surged through my body when he touched my right side.

"Where do you feel the pain?" he asked. He was smiling at me. I knew he was trying to distract me. All I wanted to do was clock him!

"Everywhere," I moaned. I tried to focus my attention on the nurse. She had pulled out a needle and was tapping it with her finger. I looked back at the doctor. He spoke some medical jargon to her. She put the needle down and then collected some vials. She instructed me to give her my arm for bloodwork. I nodded and lay still. The doctor disappeared and went to check on another patient.

"Seriously, what do you think it is?" I asked. The nurse swabbed my arm and gently inserted the needle. I watched as she emptied out my blood and pride.

"We will figure it out from the blood work. Then he will come back for a rectal exam. He should be back soon."

SQUEEZE ME?! Did she say RECTAL? No, I pretended not to hear her. I am sure she meant...no, that is what I heard. This was not happening. It was a surreal moment. Under ordinary circumstances, I certainly wouldn't have minded his prodding and observation but I was wary of the fact that I had no choice in the matter.

The room become blurry and the old pain returned. I winced and pulled at the sheets.

"I am going to give you a shot of morphine for the pain, my dear."

The doctor came back. He motioned for the nurse to pass the surgical gloves. I closed my eyes and left my body for a second. I travelled to the ceiling and looked below as this poor, limp, pale girl lying motionless on a stretcher while GQ doctor fitted on his gloves. I felt a prick in my arm.

I became woozy and dizzy all at once but I fought the feeling as long as I could. He explained that he had to administer this last test to understand the source of my pain. At that point, I did not care how good looking the dude was. All I knew was that he was not coming near me. I violently shook my head side to side.

"Are you telling me I am about to get it up the a**?!" I exclaimed. He looked at the nurse in shock and then back at me. Take that, you minor. How do you handle patient outbursts? He was trying hard not to laugh. He smiled and I knew it was no use.

"Close your eyes. They are so nice to look at but you need to close them now and focus your mind somewhere else."

There it was again. The toying of my emotions. Empty compliments. I didn't need the test. The blood exam would certainly show the results. I wasn't about to be bullied into this.

The room went dark. Yes, I blacked out at the most opportune time. I don't remember if it was me or the morphine.

All I remember was, in the next moment, he was right beside me, telling me to open up my "beautiful" eyes.

The Romantic Elliptical, Part 45: Pain in the ....

My binder in Sociology was neatly decorated with scribbles and odd-looking flower shapes. Every Monday and Wednesday night, I dreaded going to class to listen to the professor talk about the economics of marriage. That week's topic: Sex in marriage in exchange for money. I looked over to my 40 year old friend at the time (ironically I write this blog now at the ripe old age of 40) and raised my eyebrow. She laughed it off. After I told her my story of my arrangement, she was probably the most understanding of all my twenty-something friends. Was it her age? More open and wiser because of experience or just accepting of different cultures and religions?

Yvonne and I would pass notes to each other during the lecture despite trying very hard to follow the monotone drone of his voice. He was an enigmatic lecturer and many nights I saw quite a few students snoring it up. He bounced from one topic to the next, with no clear connection, bent more on finishing the course that summer than enlightening us on first year sociological aspects.

Yvonne and I would take turns meeting up for tests and midterms. Each time, one of us would bring coffee and snacks to allow for the caffeine and sugar to take effect so we could sift through our large textbook and drill each other on terms, definitions and possible essay questions that bore us incredibly. When we took breaks, Yvonne would ask me how the wedding preparations were coming along, asking me cultural and religious questions to understand what each stage entailed. She poured over my engagement pictures, asking about every detail. We became quite close over a course of two months and I elected to invite her to my wedding. She became a sort of mother-figure to me, helping me at times, to grasp the reality of the situation. No matter how hard I tried to not think about what was going on, drowning my thoughts by keeping myself busy was not helping. In fact, I relied on Yvonne to get my through the summer. I would come to class with cold feet on Monday. By Wednesday, she convinced me that I came this far to back out.

Squeeze me?

Oh yes, I had many nights, waking up with a cold sweat wondering what the hell I was thinking. And what was worse were the crank calls. My husband-to-be was getting calls at work from a girl who claimed to me one of my friends that attended our engagement. She would warn him against marrying me. When he heard this, he immediately hung up the phone. His frantic mother called my father one night, complaining about the calls.

Our wedding was to be the first in our small, close-knit community and the first in his large community. It was not uncommon for people to be jealous and try to sabotage the wedding. It could be a mother who wanted him for her daughter or vice versa. But I knew better. I knew exactly who the culprit was.

When my father came and told me about the crank calls, we both confirmed our suspicions. It was my ex-fiancee's sister. The last call I had with her came back to mind. She was furious over our breakup and I was sure she got wind of our engagement. Our wedding was on the social calendars for over 450 people.

I went to class one night, unable to focus.

"Yvonne, what if she crashes my wedding? She has been calling three weeks in a row now?" I wrote in one of the many notes that we passed that night.

"Listen. Be patient. If its meant to be, then what can you do? But it seems that your inlaws and your fiancee are not bothered by it so leave it. Don't let it get to you," she whispered in my ear. At break, we met outside in the warm, breezy night.

"Do they know about your ex-fiancee?" she asked. I shook my head.

"How come?" I struggled with an explanation. I looked up at the summer sky, feeling dizzy.

"It doesn't look good to come out of a broken engagement. I get the reputation even though there was no formal agreement. Its just a cultural thing. Even if we didn't date, it always looks bad on the girl." Yvonne looked at me confused.

"Well, that is not fair. If you didn't do anything, why should YOU be blamed for it? Is it because you broke it off?"

"I know she is crank calling because I broke it off. She is now trying to come up with lies so my inlaws will call off the wedding. I think they know that this is a common occurence so they are not taking it seriously but they really don't realize that its coming from a 'scorned lover', so to speak." I shook my head. I was feeling very weak but did not know why. I figured it was from pre-wedding stress.

"Are we meeting to study tomorrow morning," Yvonne asked?

"Yes. Meet me at my house at noon," I said.

I drove home feeling down. I am supposed to feel happy. I am getting married. But with the bouts of doubt and worry over the crank-calling, I wanted to dive under my bed covers and not wake up the next morning.

But I did wake up and prepared my notes for our study session that morning. While I was cleaning up my room, I felt a sharp pain in my side. I sucked in my breath and exhaled slowly. I walked around for about ten minutes, but the pain was relentless. My brother came up the stairs and saw me clutching the staircase railing, my face pale and my knuckles turning white.

"What is wrong with you? Did you eat too much?" he asked while I massaged my side. I could barely speak. I felt like I was dying. At this point, I could not walk. I lay down on the landing above the stairs while my brother prepared a hot water bottle. He placed a cold cloth over my forehead and the water bottle on my side. I was sweating profusely. He tried calling my father but he was stuck in a court case all afternoon, with no way to contact him.

"I am calling Salma to take you to the hospital." With only one car in the possession of my father at the time, my brother made the executive decision to phone my friend. I begged him not to call her but he saw me gasping for air and I saw that he was clearly frightened.

"You better not die. We still have to pay the banquet hall," he joked. Unfortunately I could not even smile. He knew it was serious now.

Salma came within 10 minutes. My brother had to carry me to the car and my sister jumped in the back with my purse and health information. She drove like a maniac to the hospital. I remember looking out the window and wondering what God had in store for me. I wallowed in self-pity and thought maybe I should be put out of my misery so at least the crank calling would stop.

We reached the hospital and both Salma and my sister had to carry me in. When we got to the front desk, the nurse passed me a urine bottle. I almost let her have it. I could not walk, or barely talk, let alone sit for a urine test.

I was admitted immediately and waited on a stretcher in the hallway outside emergency. Salma and my sister stood next to me, calming my fears. The pain was still there but not as bad. I stared up at the ceiling. Salma asked me if I was pregnant and I let out a laugh. My sister shook her head and waited outside.

"Immaculate conception, my dear," I smiled. At this point, I was trying to self-diagnose myself but I had no clue of the cause. Salma turned around and announced that my doctor was coming. She turned back to me and started giggling nervously.

"HOLY SH**! May the Lord have Mercy on you. The man is HOT HOT HOT," she kept mumbling under her breath. Her face had turned scarlet and she kept bumping into my stretcher. Each push sent jolts of pain in my side. She grabbed my wrist, trying to calm herself down.

When my doctor pulled back the curtain, I almost fell off the stretcher. Despite the pain, and the horrible physical state I was in, I could not ignore the fine specimen of a man standing before me. Too young to be a doctor and too good-looking to be treating patients in any emergency room.

And for the next ten minutes, despite his attempts to get rid of her, Salma was glued to the floor next to me. And the rest, was a heavenly blur.

The Romantic Elliptical, Part 44: Flowers and Gypsies

I have been known not to sit still. It has become an inherent trait from birth. And I have heard many stories from my parents about being this restless soul.

Childhood and utter restlessness went hand in hand. I was six years old and in Grade 1. A family friend was visiting us that summer and we decided to take him to Niagara-on-the-Lake to the flower clock garden. I was excited to go but then completely dismayed when I realized that we were not going to Marineland. My father said that we would only see the Falls and then the garden. How boring! I defiantly took off my seatbelt and rolled around in the back of our station wagon, waving to cars as we headed towards Niagara Falls. When we arrived at the garden, there was a delegation of people from China who were going on a tour of the city that day.

My father was talking about the history of the garden to our visitor and I became bored and walked away. My parents claim that I slipped through their fingers undetected. Oddly, I struck up a conversation with an older Chinese gentlemen, who spoke not one word of English but seemed to understand everything I was saying.

After about ten minutes, I realized that my family was nowhere to be seen. The older man sensed my panic and seemed to point in many directions. All I knew was that I was abandonned. I had dreamt many times about running away - the aura, the allure, the ultimate fantasy of having freedom away from parent's rules and regulations. All at the tender age of six but the reality quickly sunk in. I had no backpack, luggage or extra underwear for that matter. I was ill-prepared to leave the family and trek to Marineland. The delegation moved on and the older Chinese man looked at me with sad eyes. He tugged at the sleeve of an organizer and pointed to me, while waving his arms in all directions. The organizer briefly looked at him and then me and shrugged his shoulders. And with that gesture, the old man waved goodbye and set off with his clan.

I looked down at my worn flipflops and shaded my eyes from the sun with my hands. I looked around and did not see my family. How could five people vanish in thin air? I crossed my arms and began to feel angered. Maybe they left me. My father had always warned me if I did not behave, he would leave me some place where the gypsies would pick me up. I walked over and sat in front of the flower clock, pouting. I am supposed to leave them...not the other way around.

Half an hour later, my father plucked me out of the garden. I could see the frantic look on my mother's face as she held the hand of my sister and carried my brother on her hip. I had dirt on my knees and was missing a flip flop. Flower buds were tangled in my hair and my dress soiled from the back where I had fallen backwards into the garden.

"Where have you been? We have been looking everywhere for you! Why can't you stay close by?" my father yelled while his friend, with his hands behind his back, shook his head. He looked very angry--his eyes had bulged out and he was wiping the sweat from his forehead with his hankerchief. Our foreign visitor looked at me sympathetically and turned to calm my father down.

"Its ok, Sahib. We found her and she is safe. Let us carry on and keep her close," he reasoned. But my father wanted an answer. He turned to me again and asked where I had gone.

My father was teaching me at the time how to greet and address elders--a natural requirement in our culture. I was about to tell him about the nice chinese man and how we had this great conversation but I had a feeling that it would not count as a good excuse to be on the MIA (missing-in-action) list.

I grabbed his hand and exclaimed, "The gypsies grabbed me but I got away!"

My mother recounted this story to me years later -- I had confided in her about my short-lived adventure and she said that when I responded to my father with this answer, it took her everything in her to stifle laughter. She never liked the fact that he threatened me with conspiring gyspsies but she also said that my restlessness and lack of attention was a force to be reckoned with.

In order not to think much about my upcoming wedding, I elected to take a summer course at University. It was first year Sociology and I had a boring professor. Here I was, back in school, completely restless, wanting to focus on multiple things. You would think that I had enough to do but I figured why not squeeze one more course on my roster before getting married? My friends thought I was smoking something illegal but I explained that it would be only once a week, for three hours at night. How hectic could it be?

I was running around like a chicken with its head off. Hectic enough...not to land in an idyllic flower clock garden, but actually ....in the hospital.

The Romantic Elliptical, Part 43: Empty words

With my last course finishing at the end of April, all sights and sounds were dedicated to my impending marriage. We had just dispatched the wedding invitations and my heart skipped a beat.

With the words embossed on the card, it became official. I was to be married on August 31, 1991. From the time I met him in November of 1990, it was like a blink of an eye. Here I was, in the beginning of the summer, getting ready. My last summer as a single girl. And I was only twenty.

In early July, we went to check out the wedding hall. From my recorded memory, this was probably the first and only time that we were alone. My father and his parents took one car while he insisted that I accompany him alone in his. We got into his small Honda hatchback and drove a half hour to the hall. By this time, with the marriage happening in seven weeks, my father obliged for me to travel with him unchaperoned.

It felt surreal. Here I was, in a car with him, after many months of trying to be alone together, and ironically without words to speak.

Those who knew me, would say emphatically, that I was an expert in the art of speaking. Silence for me was awkward except if I was alone. When I was alone, I would block all noises and search deep within my soul for answers. But being in a crowd where no one was talking seemed alien to me.

He drove for about ten minutes in complete silence. I sat back and looked out the window. I am not going to start the conversation, I told myself. I wanted him to start rather than me babbling about frivolous things--something I did when I was sensing the other party's difficulty initiating conversation. But he remained quiet. Once in awhile, I would look over and we would smile at each other shyly, however this did not instigate conversation.

I began to despair. If he doesn't start talking then maybe he is not a talker to begin with! I began to imagine us together, at pivotal times in our marriage--anniversaries, birth of our children, starting new phases in our life with me holding up the entire marriage through incessant chatter while he sat back, quiet as a mouse, smiling adoringly. I needed someone to share in conversation, challenge and fight with me!

I could no longer wait.

"Is it me or are you waiting for me to start the conversation, as usual?" I asked, addressing the windshield in front of me. I continued to stare ahead, afraid of his answer.

"You normally start talking before I get in a word edge-wise," he smiled sheepishly at me. "I thought I would steal your thunder if I started talking before you did-- since you always make an effort to begin the conversation."

How wrong we both were! I squirmed in my seat, thinking of how to respond.

"I am so sorry. I guess I am just a filler!" I retorted excitedly.

"A filler?"

"You know...when there is silence, I need to fill it with something!" I said, expecting him to understand.

I cannot speak on his behalf but I knew that I was avoiding the inevitable. And the inevitable was the truth.

I was so conscious of revealing my true self to him that I built a wall around me and pretended I was being open with him, when in fact I was just protecting myself. I was scared to BE myself, fearing rejection even before we were married. My words were building a wall and in the end, they were just empty words.

We ended up driving to the hall in relative silence, apart from some fact sharing about where our nuptials would take place.

I could not explain it but for some reason, just being together alone, for the first time without talking, was a milestone in our relationship...because we were both comfortable. When we arrived at the hall, I realized my body language had even changed. I was turned towards him, in the passenger seat of the car, with my arm resting next to his.

We got out of the car at the same time our parents arrived. And the chatter began from the time we entered the hall until we finalized all the details and came out.

We walked back to the car in silence. My father looked over at us and asked, "Why are you two so quiet? Fighting already?" he joked.

I looked over at my husband-to-be and let him take the lead.

"We will have a whole lifetime to talk about everything. Why spoil it now?"

A part of me fell in love with him right then and there.