Mike's Story Part 8 - Orinoco

   As mentioned in previous posts, before Mike left the US, he disbursed his worldly affects among his loved ones, his FTW (Fromthewilderness) colleagues who were the closest thing he had to family, with the stipulation they be returned to him should he ever come home again; and that for the most part, they were.
   The exception was me.  My gift, which Mike never asked me to return, was, to all appearances, a small envelope of the size to hold a key, with the imprinted legend, "Thank you - It has been a pleasure serving you;" then, in Mike's scrawl, "For Jenna.  Two diamonds."  I smiled uncertainly when the gift arrived in the mail, thinking it was an obscure joke.  But with this envelope was another one from Carolyn marked, "Please read first."
   Carolyn explained that the two diamonds enclosed, which, having no idea of their worth, she'd insured for $1000, were from Mike's father's wedding ring.
   It was a while before it occurred to me to look at the diamonds but I knew what they meant:  Not real love; he didn't know me well enough for that.  But when he fled the US, he needed to feel he was leaving behind someone to whom he was truly close.  I fit that role at that moment.  The gift was an expression of what might have been.
   Like everything else he'd ever known, I had receded into his past while he set about to remake himself as a hero of the Bolivarian Revolution. 
   If anyone could pull that off, it would be Mike.  But one day, I sensed, his past would catch up with him.

Email to Mike:

   "what you leave behind will not sink in 'til you've established new roots.  a joke will occur to you which no one around you will appreciate.  or you'll see a favorite American movie dubbed into Spanish and you will be overcome.  by the waters of the Orinoco, you will sit down and weep as you remember us.

   but you are home.  it is we who are homesick."

   That moment by the waters of the Orinoco came sooner than I had anticipated.  During the radio program with Eva Golinger who acted as both interviewer and translator for the show's two hour duration, Mike finally broke down in tears when a call-in came from his Portland buddy, reknowned blues singer and bass player, Lisa Mann. 

Email from Mike:  9 - 10 - 2006

I couldn´t function for hours after that interview...  I had a serious crush on [Lisa] for a while and she is very, very special. She didn´t even know that [[his fiancée] and I didn´t get married or why.

   Months later, at my apartment in New York, we were talking about the Venezuela episode.

   "Why didn't somebody stop me?" Mike asked, in wonder.

   First of all, because almost nobody knew.  But of those who did, there was at least one effort to take Mike through what such a move might mean, step by step. 

   "Carolyn tried to slow you down but you brushed her off," I said.  "You weren't in the mood to listen to anybody."

   "Yeah," he agreed.  "I knew that as soon as I asked the question."