I said to her ahhh come on! Ok you want mystery! but you cant spend you life with reactionary bastards! When some when opens their heart to you thats a great thing you know? We laughed and nodded. It was past 5.00 , time to go home and we were all listening to a the philosophy from that self confessed crazy guy from Pakistan. He isnt crazy, he just says everything he thinks. He turned to me and said: I tell this to people who are younger than myself, it takes more brain power and a bigger heart to maintain the same level of intimacy with a single person than to play the same set of cards with different people. It made me think. I thought about my grandparents house in the town by the sea. I thought about the smell of the sea, and roses, and the freshly baked pastry. I thought about the dark green carpet, and the garden with shells dotted about and I thought about summer morning when me and my sister would get up before my mum and dad. We would creep downstairs quietly and into the kitchen where my grandma would be at the sink peeling vegetables, or preparing a cheese cake or cutting jelly into cubes. We would sit at a table that was just high enough for a 7 year old and a 4 year old. My grandma brought her marmite on toast and sugary tea. We wore our nighties and brightly coloured straw hats that my grandma had brought especially for our visit. My sister would do most of the talking and we would sip teas as we enjoyed the ambiance of Rainbow Café. As we were finishing our tea and toast my Granddad would come down stairs. Each morning without fail, the first thing he would do was to give my grandma a kiss. When I was 7 I dont think I took much notice of this. Just another one of the strange things grownups did. I grew older and began to take more notice of this ritual. It wasnt the kiss itself, anybody can kiss another person. It was the look in both of their eyes. A look of warmth and of love. After all those years their love didnt weaken or die. It was there bold as brass and as strong as ever. The crazy guy from Pakistan isnt at all crazy. He is right it does takes a lot of strength of character to maintain so much warmth over such a long period of time. I just hope that I will find I have enough brainpower and a big enough heart to love someone for the rest of my life. I just hope Im lucky enough to find someone who will look into my eyes and kiss me gently each morning. Take Care, Rachel _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+