There was a room, nestled between the expanse of everywhere and the confines of nowhere. It was our meeting place, that place where love’s great search ended, and where eternity’s flower began to bloom. When the earth would shake and the storm clouds gathered, we would meet there and find shelter from our torments. There, we could enjoy the fragrance of love, those sweet golden marigolds in bloom beside a soft fire burning in the hearth. Such a scene, played out in the forever notes of two lovers born to be here, light the world on fire.
Once, I met her there. I was staring at a wall, wondering what scenes we could paint on it that day. I could sense her presence there as I always could. I so love those moments when she is near, when the Universe seems natural and everything makes perfect sense.
I could feel her hand on my arm, taking me from my moment of thought. I turned to look at her, and it began.
I could feel her, but I could not find her. I kept turning to try to look for her, but I simply could not see her despite by best efforts. I was turning, trying to see her, and getting dizzy in the process.
“Baby, I’m going to fall,” I said to her.
“Fall. Go ahead. I’ll catch you.”
“Please, no.”
Fear began to take over, as I felt control leaving my spinning body. The more I stayed standing, the dizzier I became. The room was soon spinning and I felt I was losing my balance. I wasn’t sure if I was moving or the room was. What I did know was that I felt desperate to see her.
“Baby,” I said, “please don’t let me fall.”
“You’re scared. I know. We both are. Please trust me. Let go, I will catch you.”
In the swoon came haunting memories. The ghosts of a past long forgiven began laughing. Yet I knew they were but tempting me without much in the way of real power. I had left them behind long ago.
“Baby, please. I am here. You can trust me,” she said.
I remembered her heart, her smile, and the passionate love she inspired in me. I closed my eyes and, in my dizzy state, felt myself falling in a way I had never fallen before.
A lot can happen in a dream. Most will tell you there is some subconscious influence on the scenes we live through in our sleep. I say, on this night, it was something else for me. I recognize something about this dream. While the subconscious forces of insecurity and fear rained down on me in my slumber, something else spoken even louder.
See, I let go. I could feel my entirety falling fast through the darkness. I feared the landing, and the damage done there. I waited for impact, for pain, and for the unbearable infliction of gravity on my soul.
Yet then something remarkable happened.
She caught me.