I'm going to tell you a little love story. Actually, it looks more like a script. I found it lying around somewhere. In this script, a certain Adán recounts his life alongside Phía, like a film, somewhat confusing, and this is more or less what I understand from it;
Strangely, Adán starts off by making clear that the footage was filmed, and that those times with Phía were a transliteration of true love. Today that recorded tape holds great value — he says —. Very beautiful to look back on. He has a copy of it, but he doesn't know what copy she has — he implies there's more than one version —.
Watching the tape play out today, it seems obvious to Adán that she has a very similar version. He suspects that in many things they line up, almost as if it were a single tape, though not with extreme precision. At one point, it seems, it's revealed that the male character's pace through it all was a bit clumsy. Though that might cover a good part of the tape — Adán implies as much, somewhere between laughter and tears —.
It all began very young, there was a very special connection. But he mentions that over roughly the last seven years, Adán's character loved flaunting his love for Phía. That love had already grown so big and so pure that he didn't know how to handle it. The obsession born from an inability to handle love can take you anywhere — Adán tells it —. The character managed to channel that obsession fairly well, though passing through great entropy. It was good in the sense that it didn't involve her directly. It was him against himself. His obsession led him into erratic lustful dreams and thoughts, both material and erotic. There was no clear focus, and everything blurred together with his existential crisis. At the same time, he was aware of all of it. His psyche was fragmented. On the edge of collapse. He kept demanding coherence from himself.
If there was something that gave him strength, it was his coherent side, and clearly, the love he received from her. Adán was capable of anything to make Phía happy. Even her life being spent beside someone else. That didn't stay just in theory, because their first separation — the one where she walked out the door with her clothes — was a great experiment for Adán. After feeling like the world was collapsing on him, crying oceans, and being completely disoriented, he was able to find his footing again and fill himself with confidence, courage, and enthusiasm to rebuild his life alone. But the most surprising part — he says — was that his acceptance of rebuilding his life alone was rooted in accepting that she could be happy without him, that nothing bad would happen to her, and therefore nothing bad could happen to him either. And on top of that, Phía could still count on him for anything, just from a different place now. Because the love hadn't left, only the circumstances had changed. It felt like a great friendship, great respect. He says he saw it that simply and with real enthusiasm — of course, after spending thirty days of torment, flooded with tears, without seeing her.
Even more surprising was that after that period, Phía came back very emotional, intending to get the relationship going again. Adán, somewhat cold from having managed to get through that entropy, and now holding the fortitude and confidence to keep going alone, reflected and asked himself, "if I love her, and I already trust myself to keep going alone, maybe we could try a new way of relating, more coherent, more powerful, maybe we could create new things, couldn't we?" That's when the two of them, moved by the depth of the circumstances, began a new path together.
This new path led Adán to perform the greatest ritual of his life. Without a doubt, that was a key turning point. That rite was choosing a life beside her, choosing love, literally, leaving behind the mental noise and that laughable anxiety. He started to understand what had been confusing him, and his eyes no longer had the same effect when looking at other female figures. The fleeting nature of it all revealed itself, and he little by little regained balance. In that ritual moment, alone, looking up at the sky, he was able to discover empirically that this mental function tied to eroticism was meant to answer to something greater, not to control. He understood that if it acted automatically, one would turn into a puppet, into something ridiculous, and it made no sense. The wild was only one part of being human. Acting in that instinctive way, then, meant for Adán denying what actually took precedence — love, which he would later come to understand as freedom —. That's how he was able to detect the pathology in that wild function — Adán says — but that clashed with collectively agreed-upon reality, so he was already starting to feel out of place and to isolate himself socially. He just wanted to share moments with her, and keep trying to find clarity in his life.
After that it was as if love exploded, and with it — paradoxically — Adán's life began to crumble, bringing huge shifts in how he perceived things. It was literally the Tower card from the tarot. For a moment, he thinks Phía is suffering the consequences of this too. But years after their final separation, Adán comes to understand that everyone bears the consequences of their own actions — responsibility, without guilt —. Despite that, not knowing how to keep that crisis from affecting his beloved made him suffer all the same, and his ego, fairly well-aspected at the time, didn't let him wallow in victimhood much either. In some way he wanted to rise above it. Incoherence was still wandering around.
That rite of union later played out in the classic wedding. Adán tells how, from this new union onward, each of them starts finding themselves individually, and the couple begins turning into something more like a friendship, with deep respect, affection, and admiration, but with traces of sadness, because a farewell was already in the air.
He confesses that, in the last few years, he still didn't quite know where his life was headed, but he was already seeing where it wasn't going. As for Phía, she already had a clearer direction, and Adán was very happy about that. His conscience on that front was quite at peace, because he'd always pushed to strengthen her abilities. An admiration that had been there from the very beginning.
On the other hand, being lost was sad for him, because he was starting to realize that, as a man, he couldn't bring to life the family dreams she was hoping for. And within him, a kind of disruptive, justice-seeking hermit had already begun to awaken, one that questioned everything. Not as a complaint, nor with anger, but as his own cosmological vision taking shape. A kind of life philosophy emerging. Little by little he was becoming more minimalist. Years later that would lead him fully into unknown, parallel dimensions, to study the forces of love from other angles, being his own lab rat. In contrast, her simplicity was a family life, a transliteration of love, much like what she'd been living out in her relationship with Adán, though now very excited about her new artistic and creative profession.
Even today, he can't help but admire her. So capable, so beautiful, and so resilient. She later started a family, and Adán tells how, upon meeting Phía's beautiful child, his eyes lit up — Adán's eyes —. He felt very happy, though in her eyes he sensed a certain sadness. Maybe it was just a reflection of himself — he says —.
This tape is his study — Adán says — and it's proof that love is eternal. There's no obsession in it. In truth, love is stubborn, with just a pinch of obsession. If you doubt that — he says — ask yourself: why does it fill you with love to see your beloved happy with someone else? That's beautiful, and irrefutable.
Looking back on the past to rewrite it — Adán says — he notices two very sad things. One is that, in that last stretch before separating, he couldn't stop writing this script, even in the early morning hours, while she went to bed alone at night, saying "I'm going to bed," hinting that Adán should stop doing whatever he was doing. That foolish attitude of his has cost him many tears today, and a karmic repair that forcibly brought order to his life. Good fruit in the end. The other thing was being so slow to gain clarity, which led to very little interaction, very little dialogue between them in that last stretch. In fact, the proposal to end things came from Phía, and Adán simply agreed. He didn't even have the courage to face it himself, until it was shown to him.
Some time after separating, he dreams that she becomes seriously ill, and he understands it as a premonition. Phía tells him not to worry, that she's fine. A month later she falls ill. For about thirty days, Adán accompanies her with love through that intense karmic entropy, until she manages to recover. Then they drift apart again, reaffirming their decision. Separating while still loving each other.
He finishes this script after a great deal of self-therapy; what he sees today, he didn't see so clearly before, so Adán couldn't apologize the way he would have liked to, but he also understands that such a detailed gesture isn't necessary, and that his love for her stands reaffirmed. In the end, he concludes that he's been fourteen years in love, since true falling-in-love transcends hormonal chemistry, transforms, and comes to be lived as "the love that sustains itself" — miento [I lie], from mente [mind], means that which sustains itself. The lie is that anger which sustains itself through obstinacy, but true falling-in-love is understanding that the chemistry is the lying part, and that behind it lies the absolute truth (love). —.
The film seems to close with a few pieces of advice from Adán. Where he says;
If your beloved asks you to come to bed with her, stop whatever you're doing, because your heart is surely saying the same thing she is.
Don't be afraid to try to clear things up, even if you don't have it clear yourself. Between two people, some light will illuminate the dark picture, and that's healthier than holding on to an old picture that's now harmful. One that maybe used to work.
Don't blame yourself for what you couldn't see before; be glad for what you see now.
We've reached the end of the story. I hope you liked it. I think this Adán is a bit crazy, but mysteriously, something about his film resonates with me.