Stardust

Wanderlust has directed my life… I was always the first in line, always the first to take another roller coaster ride. In 2019 I made the decision to end the nomadic lifestyle I had become addicted to and find a place I could call home. While the idea of sleeping in the same bed was a tempting alternative to the chaos, I questioned my sanity to want stability.

With the swiftness of a shooting star, my quest for stability made an unconventional turn when I landed a job in Hawaii aboard a cruise ship. Addiction is hard to break so I compromised. I would be in the same bed every night but wake up on a different island thus soothing my desire to roam. Mad amounts of money would be flowing, and I would be sailing rent free.

The excitement of a life on the sea ended before it began. The headline of every major news story resonated the unthinkable. Shelter in Place – Government demands the shutdown of businesses and enforcing a stay-at-home order cancelling all travel. The entire world was in a mandatory lockdown facing a global pandemic called the Corona Virus. COVID-19 would be the cure to my nomadic lifestyle. I was devasted.

Just before I had taken the cruise ship job, I was living in Houston, Texas the 4th largest city in the Southern United States with a population of over 2 million. I’d been spending the summer slaving away in a 300-degree food truck in 100-degree temperatures on the streets of Houston.

Fortunately, people had to eat and while many businesses closed during the pandemic, restaurants were able to operate at a scaled-down capacity. With the call of the sea in my ears, I felt the need to leave the concrete confines of the city to be near the water on Galveston Bay. At least I would be closer to the waters should my dream ship come in.

While remaining on shore, I landed a job at a restaurant near the port of Galveston. Being near the water somehow grounded me with a mystical urge to stay in one place.

What I didn’t know yet is that the stars had already begun to align. My recent choices were placing me in the line of energy; spinning and swirling like the wind on the waves.

Jhon arrives in Galveston on March 1, 2020. He was chasing a dream to become an American citizen. He had travelled from his home in Ecuador on a J1 Visa work program. Allotted a certain amount of time to work, if he didn’t return to his home country before the expiration of his Visa, he would become undocumented and unable to return to his family.

Jhon had just turned 21 when his wanderlust landed him in a foreign country with limited resources, no family, and the onset of a global pandemic. Ideally the practical solution would be to return home and deny himself the opportunities he had dreamed of his entire life. His family encouraged him to come home. They were proud that he had the courage to make this trip on his own, but the uncertainty of the pandemic was frightening and unpredictable.

Jhon would not be deterred and while he considered his options, the nature of what was to come began to play out. The American borders shut and most air travel was suspended. Jhon was literally stuck. There was no going home for now.

He connected with two other J1’s who were living in Galveston. They offered him a room in their apartment, and he began looking for work. He landed a job at a restaurant near the port of Galveston and begin living his American dream. With no car, he had to ride a bicycle to work. Hot, cold, and rainy weather conditions battled one another and Jhon hit the streets on his bicycle to work every day. Sometimes seven days a week until COVID limited the hours in which restaurants could open. He was able to save most of his money. Several months later he had saved up enough money to buy a used car and a dog. Both of which made him feel a little more American.

I enjoyed my job at the restaurant. Most of the customers were locals since the pandemic had closed off the tourists. It was a strange feeling being in one place for so long but there was also a tinge of comfort I had never experienced. If I had the inclination, I would have called it a cosmic alignment. Stardust had begun to fall.

One evening near closing, a co-worker whom I had not really noticed before walked over to me as I was entering my last orders of the night. I’m a big guy about 6.4” and I caught the top of his head and thought it was a child looking for the restroom. I turned around and my mouth opened wide as I glanced down at who I thought was Jose Altuve. You know, the baseball player for the Astros.

Jhon looked up with a grin and said in very broken English, “You es hungry?”

He could see the confused look in my face and reached up to put his finger to my wide-opened mouth.

“Me small guy. Pero por favor no me comas!”

In the two seconds it took me to realize he was not Altuve and that my mouth was wide open, I burst into a rendition of the National Anthem.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light.”

“You love America too?”, he asked.

“What? Yes, I guess. I mean, I love to sing and, of course, America too.”

We both started laughing. He introduced himself and asked me who Altuve was.

“You don’t know Jose?” I laughed. “Where the hell have you been?”

Jhon told me he was from Ecuador and was learning to become an American. He and I began to hang out regularly. He offered me a ride home from work one evening and as it turned out we lived near one another. We arranged regular carpooling between the two of us and began spending time together outside of work.

Jhon said it was easy to talk to me and it helped him become better at English. With the stars shining brightly at night, we quickly discovered there was something unusual in our relationship. Our friendship had blossomed into extraordinary intimacy without the romance, sensual but not sexual. Love but no lust. It was different, but very special. It felt natural and secure. Instead of a spark attraction, there was a field of energy pulling us together.

I soon learned the dilemma Jhon was facing about returning to Ecuador. He was caught in a weird space of losing his right to be in America but not being able to leave due to the coronavirus. He was filling a void in my heart and I didn’t know if anything would come of it, but I was sure of one thing, I couldn’t let it go. In a quick and hopeful decision that Jhon would be willing to take a chance on life, I asked him to marry me!

He said to me, “Aryn, I’m straight!”

I replied, “You’re also in love!”

It would not be the most conventional route to marriage, but we both felt for certain it was what we wanted. The next day, we went to the court to obtain a marriage license.

Several days later Jhon and I tied the knot at a courthouse in Galveston. We exchange our own vows.

Jhon spoke first.

“I need you to know this. I am very thankful with God because he put you in my way. You’ve become an important person to me. I think that I don’t have time to lose in my life, I don’t have time to lose with people that don’t know what they want. You are like me; you know what you want. We have our goals clear. I think you are the motor that I was needing to push my life. Thank you Aryn for being in my life. We can do many things together. You are my love, Aryn”.

My vows followed.

“We are practically strangers. There is so much we still do not know about one another. We are basically playing with fire. You may end up hating me and this could be the biggest mistake of our life, but at this moment I’m willing to take the chance. I promise to protect you and support you in your dreams. I know what we have is unconventional even in my world, but I believe marrying you is the right thing to do. You have given me a purpose other than myself. You are the friend I didn’t know I needed. You were the answer to so many questions. Every moment that didn’t make sense, the synchronicity and happenstances that led us both to this moment are part of the plan of the universe. We have been brought together for a purpose.”

The next week brought more uncertainty with the weather forecast predicting a freeze coming to Texas. We stayed at Jhon’s apartment huddling together for warmth during a three-day power outage. Many homes were destroyed. Pipes burst, ceilings collapsed, spaces flooded. This was a pandemic of another kind. It seemed that everything was happening to push Jhon and I further from our dreams.

Both of us had been wandering and searching for our dream and didn’t realize our dream had found us. We were the dream. The two us together would make both our dreams come true. I felt it with all my heart.

The day our power came back on, Jhon came to me with a gift. He said he was sorry he had not given me one the day of our wedding and wished we could have taken a honeymoon. He didn’t know what to buy me so he decided that a check for $20,000 would allow me to have whatever I wanted. I was surprised as hell, ecstatic, and highly confused. How could he possibly have $20,000? I questioned him and asked why I did not know he had that kind of money. He claimed he won a bet on the Superbowl. It sounded lame and somewhat questionable but hell, I had $20,000.

I decided to put the money in a savings account to save for my dream career in music and his dream to go back to Ecuador with a permanent American Visa. I needed Jhon’s passport and ID and went to his bedroom to look for them.

What I found instead was a little black book filled with letters of a correspondence between Jhon and a woman in Ecuador. My first instinct was that he was in relationship with a woman back in Ecuador and was operating under a charade with me for citizenship. Then he would divorce and bring his true love to the states leaving me high and dry!

That evening while Jhon slept I took to the dining room table with a bottle of whiskey and a google translator going full out CSI. I discovered the letters were between Jhon and his mother. Jhon as it turns out is the heir to one of the wealthiest families in Ecuador.

Deep into my bottle of whiskey Jhon had woken and joined me in the kitchen. He knew I had his book and decided to allow me to discover the truth. He explained he couldn’t tell me who he was initially. He rightfully didn’t want his family’s money to be the reason anyone wanted to be with him.

The stars had aligned shining down on me as a little black book changed the course of my journey. Jhon was well on his way to become an American. Our dreams collided like diamonds in the sky. Twenty-thousand dollars-worth of diamonds in our sky to be exact.