She would say, months and months later, after she had settled back into her own country and found time to get the film developed, that she knew I loved her because she came out beautiful in all of the photos I took of her. Over the phone she told me that she rarely does. This is one of those photos, although it is of course impossible that I am the only one who saw the light she radiates.

I took time away from work to be with her on this beach. It was late afternoon and she had gone out to pick rocks on the shore. I was playing around with her camera, an SLR that both intimidated and fascinated the geek in me, and when she came near, I took this shot.

I knew full well what I was photographing—the quiet sky, the calm ocean, the moment shared with and the curves of somebody I love—and she did not need to send me the photo: I had already captured it in my mind, and it was bluer, more vivid, more tender than the print.

In another time, in another island, in another beach, things would be much different. The late afternoon would be filled with frustration and heaviness, with words you could hurl like rocks. The days that followed would be the last time we would see each other. Between us were different passports, different dreams, and all the other dissimilarities we used to delight in.

It has been half a year since we saw each other, and like many things between us now, this day shared on the beach, this quality of light, this old photo, is a memory that fades.

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