I think I can say that what I love most about him, by far, is his weirdest characteristic. He likes to climb trees. I like that. I think I mainly enjoy the peculiarity of it. It's a different hobby, quite unique. It's amusing. I also enjoy watching. The actual action is fascinating. First, he places his hands on the trunk, the skin in direct contact with the dry bark of the tree. He scratches the tips of his fingers in a rough caress over its surface, measuring age and resilience. It's important to know the path he's about to venture. This is also a ritual of concentration, hands on the plant's body and his forehead resting on his wrists. He takes a deep breath once, twice. A small jump is necessary to gain momentum. His knees are bent, and his body propels upwards, floating in the air for milliseconds as if he could fly. Before returning to the ground, however, he defies gravity. It requires a lot of strength. When he jumps and embraces the tree, every part of his body needs to exert force. He remains there, suspended for a second, clinging to the large trunk. The next step is made with his hands. He grabs the nearest branch, carefully ensuring it doesn't break. His feet begin to find imaginary footholds, and the tree could easily be mistaken for a ladder. He touches the dirtied shoes against the trunk as if climbing rungs, but all the force is in his arms clinging to the tree's rough skin as he pushes upwards, stretching his fingertips to grasp the next branch and support his elbows wherever he can. His body rises as if it had no weight, or as if all the world's strength resided in the arms pulling him up. He climbs, each movement calculated to maintain the rhythm and avoid making a mistake. Falling from such a high tree is unpleasant and borders on dangerous. From there, he smiles, his feet in the air, sitting like a child on a swing. He looks down, one hand on the branch where he sits and the other resting on the tree's surface as if thanking the host for the warm welcome. His eyes shine as brightly as the sun casting light through the leaves. He lets out a childlike laugh, happy for another success. He enjoys the view from afar, every corner of the city visible from that height. Being at the top of the tree he climbed is a rewarding exercise, a way of planting his flag on new ground and declaring success. It's an accomplishment he takes time to appreciate. He rarely tries to climb the same tree twice. He knows that most trees allow reaching the top only once, paralyzed by the great surprise of being used as a toy. Next time the tree will be aware, already expecting the attempt as soon as it senses his presence. It will know how to break the right branch that will cause an inevitable fall. Every tree becomes aware after the first time. So, after declaring victory over one, he seeks another novice, some innocent plant distracted by the monotony of everyday life. The thing is... He has never climbed a tree. At least I have never seen him do so. I don't know if he likes it, or if he has ever done it in his life. I only know that I don't know if it's true or not. I've never seen any of this happen, but I described every detail. Why? In the vastness of my love that doesn't define itself, doesn't diminish, and doesn't change over time, I often feel the need to write about him. Him, who is my favorite person in the whole world. Him, whom I love so much, and who, by loving so much, takes all my words away. Sometimes I want to write so much about him, that I don't know what to write about, and with no ideas left, I am left only with the incredible urgency and need to describe him with my poor words. I feel so suffocated by what I want to say and I don't know how to express it. Anything will do. It might be this. The activity of climbing trees, something I've never seen anyone do, not him, nor anyone else, but the poetry within me reinvents it into real scenes and makes me see. I can describe something that never happened because creativity flows through my body until it reaches written words. My love flows and invents stories like this, which are infinite. And for him, who taught me to live independently of life and that each moment is a farewell, I can write a million words, even if they can never be eternal. It's okay, I keep in my heart the certainty that my love doesn't end, and I will continue to love every characteristic of him, even those that don't exist and I invent, like his fondness for climbing trees. He has never climbed a tree, but he might as well try.

Staring at the screen before me, endlessly morphing faces and changing voices, it kept me there, transfixed into a deep lul, neither growing nor regressing, a perfect channel filled with nothing in an empty package. I was still, my spirit was still, filled with static, calm without peace. A notification popped up on my phone as if it were to interrupt this stillness. A coworker of mine was invited to go rock climbing with some acquaintances, and he did not want to be among too unfamiliar a company, so he extended the invitation to me. I became an unwitting participant. Staring at the 15-foot wall, I decided to go forward, scaling a more difficult route, and I began by placing my feet on the proper holds, both hands where they were meant to be. One step at a time, reaching for what's just barely in my reach. Placing my right foot on the hold that was between my knees. Grabbing that U-shaped rock by stretching my body to its limit. Bringing myself up, until the final rocks of the route are at my hand. Looking down, bracing myself for the fall, and letting go. A fall, cushioned, a surreal feeling washed over me, in spite of my tired body, my mind was more than ready to tackle the next route. Hours later my body could barely move, even forming a closed fist was difficult, and when forced, painful. This pain couldn't even bother me, and as I left the bouldering wall, and went home I decided to do something more with my time. I had come to the realization, a simple one, yet one that rarely presents itself, the viability of failure. I didn't succeed every time I tackled a new route, sometimes falling midway, sometimes right at the beginning. I could feel myself becoming discouraged at times, but that feeling was supplemented with determination. The determination to eventually conquer that wall, and move on to the next one. I had come to realize that in my own life, I had come to forgo those difficult walls, the hard problems that life gives you. I grew discouraged by the initial failings, while at the same time envying those who had seemed to naturally excel. Only by falling again and again, and seeing others fall with me, did I realize there was not a single person who was the best from the beginning, we all learn from our falls more than our rises. The line that divides the competent from the incompetent is if we rise back up after we fall. I remember the first time I tried to play the piano, and considering I was only at the tender age of 7, you can only imagine the beautiful melodies I produced, which is to say, none. I stopped playing after the first time I touched the keys, yet years later, I decided it was an appropriate time to start playing again. I had no nuance, no accents, nothing to speak of, I fell over and over, stumbling upon the keys, yet it was when I struggled past my failings that I began to truly learn. That's when we learn, when we accept our failures and move past them, to gleam lessons from our falls and use them to climb just a little bit higher than before, one step at a time, one outstretched hand at a time, and one note at a time. Failures cannot define us, it is what we do with them that becomes us.