The Moment of Our Quickening

Do you ever just want to know that you are loved?

That she’s got your back, that he’s standing firm in your space? That whatever happens the truth that flows between you is real, and that you stand on solid ground even if the Universe around you seems to quake?

I know, you do. I know you want to feel hands made strong by a lifetime’s journey hold you in the middle of your back. I know you want to feel the hot breath of a life well lived sweep hotly across your neck. I know you want to feel held. I know you want to feel safe. I know you want to feel honored.

I want to know what brought you to me. I want to hear the stories of footsteps taken and stumbles made. I want to hear your tales of survival, of grit, of wild determination and tame resignation. Mostly, though, I want to hear your moment, your ecstasy in the space we share, your joy in the gift you are to the warrior you are with.  I want to feel you are present in our time, in our space, without surrender to the past or mercy on the future.

There are no guarantees around the corner. Connections are in the moment, and aren’t a surety in the next. Storms come, rains fall, and lightning burns the forests on which we’ve built our home. But now, yes now, I bask in the sunlight and in the lively green around me, hoping you are too, knowing in my soul that we could live, or die, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.

Someday we may touch that place where connections meet. Someday we may hear the same stream rush past, and see the Sun rise high about the same wily peaks. We may make love in the soft grasses laid out before us, and wash each other in the chilly falls made warm in our embrace. We may find an indestructible in our intertwined fingers, in our gaze that looks beyond the flesh and into something so much deeper. We may know all we’ve been searching for as our sweat puddles united on the ground. We may…someday.

Until then, I walk in purpose, looking intently on the path ahead but feeling everything that is around me. I clearly mumble my mantra, reaching far beyond my mortal confines in awakening, while feeling you in each and every breath.  I wonder then, do you feel me too? I guess we’ll know in the moment of our quickening.