The fragile dreams, the strength in tenderness. Waking up in the morning and knowing that the one you love is right there, even before you open your eyes. Feeling the warmth, the body close, the skin so smooth. And yet it is just the body. Waking up much earlier, I baked some bread rolls. And coffee. Waking up to a kiss, the first kiss of the day, the first kiss of the universe, for this is how the world begins, in a flash of love that stretches through the day, the dream that keeps on becoming life.
And yes, it may be an autumn day, gray and rainy, but it is made all the more lovely by the contrast when you are aware of the warmth inside, the gratitude; thank you for letting me love you. It seems too glib to say it out loud, or wrong in other ways. Love is a choice, and letting someone in is a choice. Thoughts and impulses are seeds that you may choose to nourish or wilt, and the tree grows into heaven, here in the bedroom, the mornings spent together, holding each other, whether it is for a long time or just for two minutes before the breakfast. It is a choice made each day, and yet it doesn’t feel like a choice but something inevitable because it keeps happening every morning until you can’t imagine a future without this intimacy that makes the world more colourful, the sounds brighter, the scent of the loved one incomparable to anything.
There are no demands at this moment, and gratitude of your existence, of your presence near me, of your willingness to stay beside me, is not a demand either. If such a thing as purity can be real in the human condition, it is this hazy mood, the feeling of surrender and the experience of our souls blending, the secure feeling of always having someone on your side which makes you all the more independent. Because you can dare to do anything, or attempt it, to dream, to fall. No requirements except the willingness to be loved. How ridiculous people’s demands seem: must have certain height, certain weight, a job with good salary, personality traits that are compatible with mine in some internet questionnaire. Yet this is all that matters, the humour of it all: the recognition of value in what we cannot value in ourselves, the shape of your hips compared to mine, the femininity, the masculinity, the different places of softness, the subtlety of shapes, and the sounds you make when breathing happiness, a kiss on the neck, fingers slow on the thigh, with no aim but to express this desire for unity, for connection. How the day begins. How life begins.
We discover each other, discover ourselves as lovable. This is what we could be. One is capable of feeling complete in solitude as well, but as a couple it is something more, shared completeness. The recognition of beauty in a universe in which all beauty is a subjective experience. There you are, opposite me eating the bread roll. Touching your hand, smiling. This is real. I am more real at this moment, being seen, being loved.
And all it takes is letting someone in, though it has to be mutual, otherwise there’s nothing. Touching the skin, but more importantly, touching the soul, how vulnerable it makes us feel, how complete.