Through the Woods

I sit for thirty minutes and stare at the white page. Close my eyes. Open again. Gently swirling music entwines with thoughts of the beloved. It takes that long to make my way from the first syllable to the last: be-lov-ed. Thirty minutes. In that time - years, eons, temples, lovers, and the rage of birthing into a sensibility for partnership.

Partnership. Another twenty minutes. But, really, years and years.

My dear, beloved friend visits.

We’re driving across the bridge, headed for the woods. “I don’t let anyone too close anymore,” he confides, “I’m tired of merging.” With my eyes on the road, “What if it’s not about merging at all?”

I can’t see straight in the downpour, seeing instead a beautiful gilded chair in the center of the heart’s chamber. “What if you take your seat inside, find your balance, and then from that place, behold another.” He stares out the window, smiles, and turns to me, “Ok, I follow. I’m just admiring that you are able to do that.” I return the glance, funny now, “No, I suck at it. I’m just saying, what if you try…”

The conversation continues as we climb the front of the mountain, traverses as we cross the top in full fog, dropping over, dropping down the winding hill to the Redwoods at the bottom. The rain doesn’t let up. No matter, we enter the woods with delight. After walking for an hour, we peel back our hoods, tip heads to the sky, tongues out, drenched.

He bursts, “I feel completely high.” By this time I am jumping up and down, laughing, free. No longer a mother or a wife. Just me. My beloved friend and I haven’t seen each other truly for years. It’s been maybe this long since I have known myself in such a liberating light. But on this day, as we sip wine in the rain, pass chocolate, steady the slippery pear and knife, exchange slices of soft cheese, we hold a love that just keeps opening. In the midst of, around, and through the middle of roles and labels - straight and gay - this love endures. And we have no words anymore.

Days pass. We’ve seen coastal mountains, deep forests, bays, a wild lagoon, lush pasture, cities, bars, restaurants – complete with homemade chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and bad TV. What I am filled with? A marriage of sorts.

Out of time and culture and social definitions, the soul.

My friend and I, we met at an ashram, two shawl-laden young people, chanting Sanskrit, so seriously meditating, and all too eager to break out, to speed down back roads in the Catskills, in hysterics about nothing in particular, riding high on life.

And now. We walk in the woods; I put a hand behind my head, “Oh, my neck.” He puts his hand on mine, “What? Your neck hurts?” I say, “It’s the weight of the hood. It hurts.” He stops. He looks at me. Nothing said, but he’s thinking, “Girlfriend, where have you been?” And I know. I look down and follow my feet, one step in front of the other, habit from heartbreak. I haven’t told the stories and neither has he spoken the unspeakable things between those days and these days. But he keeps his hand on my shoulder. In this way we will remain devoted.

Sun just up this morning and River says, “Bye, bye, Dim.” He leans in the window, “Bye, sweet girl.” She cries as he walks away. And we drive.

The day is about cleaning. Rearranging. Putting everything back in its place. “Mama, mama, mama.” All day. I am a mother. Four phone calls through out the day, and I am, again, a wife.

I say, “The sun is going night-night,” as we stroll through the neighborhood. Round the corner, we head home before dark.