Double Dutch

I spent three days in Germany at a conference. The world was white and grey.
There were so many familiar faces and old friends. How strange to have friendships with people on the other side of the world: Senegal, Tanzania, Seychelles, Gabon. I gave a presentation and, as I looked around the room, I realized that here and there were people who liked and cared about me; people who would be genuinely sad if something bad happened to me. They would come to my funeral and say nice things. This is a good feeling.
Some of my newer friends are Dutch. There is Patrick, the most profoundly "alpha" male I have ever known, and John, who met Eve and myself up in Senegal last month and worked his bum off for the program. I find that I crave the company and attention of these strong military Dutchmen. Maybe it is for themselves alone, but what portion of this hunger and open affection is the echo of Sjor's soul and the memories of Hans? I am somehow more receptive to these men, more open and full of joy than I am able to be with others in my life. I can access that part of me which rejoiced in the comapny of Sjors. It makes me feel that I am close to him, that I may (as stupidly unreasonable as it sounds) be with him again.
Regardless of the origin of this feeling, these men respond to the lucid and joyful and engaged person I become. They want my company as well and this has forged a strange bond which I do not share with many people. I have confessed myself to them in ways I could not do elsewhere.
On the first day of the conference, Patrick invited me to run with him and the other Marines. I am not fast and he knows it (I trained with him in September after we met and we played "Simon Says") but I said yes. It was icy outside and difficult to run on the snow. But I ran anyway. The four men (two Dutchmen, an American and a Brit) soon gave in to the Testosterone-fest and I watched their tight bums and running tights moving rapidly away. The female marine ran with me and we had good conversations and arranged our next work together in Cameroon. We ran past the frozen Reissensee lake and back down to the hotel.
Because I had come on that run, I became the team "mascot". For a while I deluded myself into believing that they thought of me as a little brother, but this is truly unlikely. I'm still on the outside of the brotherhood, looking in, but they called me when they went to the bar, went to dinner, and skied. I was invited everywhere. And the part of me which was discarded and neglected by a frightened man who thought he could live two lives, begins to feel cared for. Begins to heal.