Who ARE you?

The email subject said “Who ARE you?” I thought it was one of those cleverly-designed teaser lines that spammers use to get you to open their offers, scams and viruses. But still, I took a closer look, proving once again that we are all always on edge, waiting for that message from the deep and willing to chuck prudence (and the integrity of our computer’s data) to the wind at the first scent of it.

But it wasn’t spam, it was the Holy Grail: a message from a woman and a writer who had read my last column (“Women are my guides”) and wanted to know who was behind such a piece.

A couple of people have reached out to me after reading that piece and – I confess – it feels really good. If you only knew how much of this scribbling year after year is just my desperate attempt to make connection, then you would know that this is a two-way street and how much I suffer the solitude.

Writers have a reputation for being loners and I do enjoy my time alone. But, at least in my case, the aloneness is because I cannot bear the superficial connections that are so much a part of our daily lives, so I go back into myself in order to try to reach people on a level that takes us someplace worth going.

But if there is no message coming back, then the pleasant solitude becomes solitary confinement.

Still the question remains: Who am I?

I am a descendent of Adam, designed for contemplation and valor. Thoughtful and passionate, trusting, exuberant, careless with money, a dreamer, I am also a warrior whose epic battles have raged within me for eons. Yes, I have been battling for eons.

I am on a path strewn with words. As a little boy, I was a battleground. I was the bounty over which other people fought. I found refuge in words and created a quiet glade for my soul in them. Later, as a man, I discovered that words could put me inside another person’s soul and bring us together.

So who am I? It is very simple: I am the man who wants to be with you.