“Who are you looking for?” came a voice in the night.
“You,” I responded. “This, us, everything.”
This is how it happens for me. In the darkness of night I hear her, and in the throes of my slumber I can feel her. There, I can look into her eyes and feel it, and there I can touch her hand and know a truth that is, and has been, a certain reality.
“I’m happy you were patient,” she says, touching her hand to the place where my heart resides. “I’m happy you were there when I called for you, and I’m happy I was here when you finally arrived. I’m happy your arms were empty when I reached to embrace you. I’m happy we both were tested, and that we have finally reached our place, our time.”
The look in my eyes spoke total agreement as my beating heart sung the praises of a moment fought for, a moment cherished.
My mind first wanted to travel backward, to the scattered remains of lessons learned and of things lost. It screamed for attention to the bandaged places, but when I looked there all I saw was light. It wanted me to revisit old pains and distant agonies, but my heart had set the bridges to those places afire, turning them into impassable piles of ash.
Her lips drew my attention back to the place on where we stood, together. I could feel the sturdy sands of our beach give way slightly to my bare feet as we kissed, the warm surf surrounding us in our moment of pleasure. The sea tugged at us, wanting to pull us away from our place, but our root held firm as our passion grew. There was no other place out there; for us there was only the here, the now. As the Earth held us tightly, the air embraced us gently as the sea issued its sweet song of surrender.
Here is love, and here is where it will be.
My mind then wanted to travel forward, into times not yet created but certainly well-known. In the fear of a moment never seen before, the mind wanted to find security in what it had known, and in the process created tomorrow out of yesterday. For a moment I could not feel the soft sand beneath my feet, but only felt the stony beaches of yesterday. I wondered if those rocky coasts were my future paths, and if the lies uttered by a hundred mouths before would one day be said by the lips I so eagerly tasted now.
Now. Come back, now. Please listen…
Her hand on the back of my head brought me back to our place. It is said that tears are a release of stories kept deep within the soul, and I release mine as my mind surrendered to what the rest of me was screaming. I listened as fear raised a white flag to the moment, surrendering to the passion, to the promise, to the reality of a moment cherished. There were no more footprints in the sand save the ones we were rooted in, and there were no more doubts in the bedrock of water and sand in which we now stood. The miracle was that the sun had risen as though it had never, ever set.
Our lips parted and we looked deeply into each other’s eyes. I could see the trail of tears on her cheeks that framed her beautiful smile, and I smiled in return as she wiped the last vestige of old stories from my face. I knew, then, that she had traveled far as well in our cherished moment, and that we had not only shared a collective peace there, but also an individual journey in the seconds we first felt a new reality. Some connections cannot be explained, or reasoned. They can only be known, and when two hearts know that connection as truth, nothing can stop the dream from becoming real.
“Thank you for waiting, my love,” she whispered.
“I had no choice,” I responded. “You were always speaking to me, always there. Even in the darkest hours I could hear your voice begging me onward, reminding me of things not yet done, and places not yet seen. Thank you…”
She hugged me tight, no other words needed to be said.
We looked down the beach, deciding silently to head in that direction, to everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Our hands embraced as we splashed along the way, laughing and talking the entire way toward each sure footfall, each telling footprint in the sand. Our night was drawing to a close.
I awoke with a smile and a renewed feeling that change was coming. The emptiness in my room became filled with birds singing from beyond walls through cracks the windows would provide. I had never seen it so bright on such a cloudy morning, and even as the humid air stuck mildly to my naked form there was a sense of comfort there. There was always a sense of comfort in surrender, in knowing that control was only possible over the choices I would make. In those moments my anger over the lies of others in their untrue testaments of truth and promise would end. It appears those souls were simply unconscious leaves from the tree of life that the wise wind had taken away. They were malformed to my purpose but certainly valuable to another’s, and the release became a testament to the promise kept to the one who will be waiting.
There is great service in truth, in surrendering to the will of the wind and the great sands where we stand. There is a great love shown in letting go of the pieces that just don’t fit for they, too, deserve a true moment cherished. How many square pegs continually grasp at round holes believing that with great effort will come a perfect fit, all the while finding the work undertaken is destroying both pieces. We deserve to be honored, to be cherished, for who we are by those who need not change to cherish us.
We all deserve our truth. Once we discover what that truth is, I mean. Until then, we all deserve our illusion separate from those who can’t live within it.
As for me, I have vowed to remain true to that which I am seeking, knowing full well that it, too, is seeking me. I cannot return to the human expanse of barren promises and broken dreams that I know all too well. I not only burn bridges that would take me back to those places, but blow them up with an abiding attachment to my own sense of truth. It has taken me a long time to arrive, and I’m not giving up the hard-earned ground I’ve traveled for a sense of human security which is, of course, a human frailty. Each experience teaches me, each dream fulfills me, and each cherished moment reminds me of who I am.
I love even the round holes to my square peg. They are beautiful, which is one reason I don’t seek to change them more to my liking. While I do wish they’d stop trying to change me to theirs, I understand who they are and where they stand. We often seem to fear uniqueness, we seem to fear that which reminds us of what we’ve created as a painful truth. We seem to fear aloneness and become fearful of those who don’t. We fear being different, and work hard to fit into places we truly do not belong. “If I need to change to make them happy, why don’t you need to change to make me happy?” seems to be a mantra of leaves unaware that they, too, are simply blowing in the wise wind. We often don’t seem to learn that the “one” will never arrive if we are busy holding onto the “wrong one”.
So, yes, my lover, I am letting go. One day there will be a light so bright as to blind us both to everything not within it. There I will go, even if only within the confines of my slumber, to let you know that I, too, am waiting for our moment cherished. I know it is coming.
