Tamed

I only remember ever having been read one book as a child. My daddy read me The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I remember being snuggled next to him on his bed (he would read to me during the day) and listening to him read me this most fantastical story: the boa that ate the elephant and looked like a hat; the baobab trees that seemed not of this earth; the Little Prince on his tiny planet in love with his proud rose; the businessman and the tippler. But I want to talk about the fox.

Do you remember anything about the fox? He is the character who has what is probably the most well-known quote of the entire book: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Where did this quote come from? Ah... this is what I want to share with you.

The story goes like this: The Little Prince is sitting in a field on Earth. A fox greets him from afar and the Little Prince tells him he is lovely to look at and asks the fox to keep him company since he's sad. The fox explains that he can't because he's not tamed. The Little Prince asks what that means and the fox explains:

"To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

Isn't this a beautiful idea?

The fox continues:

"But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

And how does the Little Prince tame the fox? With time and patience and consistency.

To be tamed, as the fox explains it, is to love someone.

There are over 7 billion people on earth. We will never know most of them, but our paths will cross with many. Sometimes, those paths crossing are literal: the mother with her son in a stroller passing in front of me at the mall; the pedestrian that I stopped for. Other times, those paths are more significant. There was a neighborhood girl who was my frenemy for a couple of years when we were children. I found her on Facebook a few years ago. She remembered me, we exchanged 2 messages, and then we never corresponded again, so I unfriended her, not out of spite but because we clearly had nothing more to say to each other. She crossed my path in childhood. She taught me lessons. She has no part in my life now. And yet, I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't been her frenemy back then.

Then, there are the people who don't cross our path so much as join us on our path and walk with us for a while. These are our friends, our significant others, our families.

A week ago, my Main Squeeze messaged me on WhatsApp when he woke up (which was 5:30pm my time - he was still in the US).

Here is our conversation:

Main Squeeze: Morning love

Me: Hello gorgeous man I love

MS: Calm down. Lol

Me: *Bug-eyed emoji* Why? Why can't I love you as enthusiastically as I do??

MS: Yes, you can. Its just unbelievable for me.

Me: Unbelievable? How come?

MS: I'm just a normal guy.

Me: And I'm just a normal gal who happens to love this normal guy like crazy!

MS: Takes me some time to understand that.

We've been together for two and a half years. Just how long will it take him to understand that?

My Main Squeeze is a tall, blond, stoic-looking European. I suppose he is like a hundred thousand other tall, blond, stoic-looking Europeans (I haven't traveled enough in that part of the world to say with any authority, but I'm guessing). And yet... he has tamed me, with time and patience and consistency. We need each other. He is unique in all the world to me. No one has brown eyes like his brown eyes. I can identify him by his slouchy walk from far far away. No one's laugh lights up my day like his does. I know the rough texture of his hands and the tender squishiness of his heart. I love how he smells. When he's talking to me about serious matters, one of his eyebrows gets higher than the other, almost as if he's raising an eyebrow, but he can't do it deliberately.

My Main Squeeze will still sometimes tease me that I look at him through pink sunglasses (his words), but I disagree. I see him as clear as day. I can rattle off a list of every annoying trait he has and I could tell you exactly why he is not perfect. Of course, he could easily do the same for me. But why? I know him and I love him as he is, annoying traits and imperfections and all.

We get tamed, just like the fox. That's what it means to open ourselves to someone's uniqueness and allow them to see our own. That's what love is. And that is what the fox meant: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." What is essential about my Main Squeeze? His beard that my mami insists I cut off? His long, long, long legs? His big hands covered in cuts and scrapes from working in an engine? All those things are part of him, yes, but are they essential? I think not. What is essential is that I know I can count on him. I know that he loves me. He misses me when I'm not around. He loves talking to me and trying to figure out life together. None of those things are visible to the eye, but I see them so clearly with my heart.

I have been tamed.

#Whatislove #Youknowyouwanttokeepsingingthelyrics #TheLittlePrince