Alone, together, beyond

Gemini on the rise, and I’m longing to travel. I follow deer paths into the woods to be lost in the greening. Today the land was friendly with me, and I felt blessed. Calling out to the dearest of the trees, resplendent now in delicate green, just the whisper of the pride that will come with Summer foliage. How different the trees look when clothed; full of life the expand outward to meet my gaze, secrets replaced with expression, impression with radiation. Who is this shadow in front of me, walking jaggedly between emerging grass? The hair I recognize, the twining fingers and slouchy gate. Beyond this I need know nothing more when immersed in greenness; just that I exist is plenty, just that everything around me exists is plenty more.

I feel like there’s a dam in my heart. What put it there, I don’t know, but it’s quite possibly me. Somehow I haven’t let it all out, yet. Somehow I’m tied back from letting the back flood of emotion flow forward and out, flow to some, and away from the pool gathering ominously around my being. Some days it breeds unhappy things, some days it’s calm and peaceful, but ever am I carrying something gathered behind a clamped valve.

It’s been seven years since I set out on my own; the seven years of living. I took my first step into a Philadelphia row house on a heroin-dealing cross street with four roommates. There was a goth band in the basement, gender-bending partner swapping, drugs, and schizophrenic delusions. I broke out to live out of my car with my boyfriend. We traveled up and down the east coast for a month, following our favorite band. We lived off animal crackers, peanut butter and jelly, the charity of strangers, and our sense escapist fantasy. All that remains from then is my cat, Bean. I had taken a big leap into the deep end; feet first, and arms flaying, I waited for the bottom to reach up and take me home, as it always had done before. Instead, I started on a path that lead me here; recovering, and finally learning to let go of the feeling that something must be inherently wrong with me. Let go of this, and life seems livable, lastingly livable, like I’m at home here after all.

I feel the bond between my partner and I, one that runs deeper than emotion, deeper than circumstance. Though places change we are together, paired as we ought to be by threads of tender beauty. He loves me, and part of me reaches out to pity him, but is halted by the greater part that loves him, too. He cannot hide it, nor should he, it gurgles irreproachable against the surface, like surging water hiding under the faintest of reflections. We share a common movement, and when it’s time for anime we both agree, tentatively at first so as not to burden the other, then with all clear gusto as we realize a new experience to be had together. Even if I were to try to ruin it with thoughts, I cannot deny the life we have to lead together, the help we are meant to give to one another, the earthly work, the inner deepening. Where would I be if not his wife? Out in the world, searching for what he can give me, taking it in pieces from Nature, friends, family and my own heart. A gift is marriage, and an undeniable fact, a reason for living, a chance to become something that would not otherwise be.