5.23.05
Waking up this morning in a place not only nicer than I have ever
stayed in, but likely nicer than places Queen Elizabeth stayed
in wasn't at all bad. Waking up this morning in said place, cradled
in tufted bedding and opening my eyes to see the sweetest face
I could possibly ask to see sleeping right beside me was even
better. And waking up in said place, with said face opening his
beautiful blue-green eyes at me and smiling to see my face was
basically as good as it gets. If it gets better than that...
... well, I'm not sure I even know how to process that.
This has been a brilliant trip, and it's only Monday morning.
I'm en route via ferry to see a friend and mentor I've never
met, it's a gorgeous sunny day, and in the last 24 hours alone
I have had three magnificent baths, only one of which I've taken
alone. I'm silly, spaced out but centered from all the hot water,
from many long, orgasmic bouts and from several days solid spent
basking in the glow of this incredible thing I'd never really
anticipated having, and was fairly sure, my weary, but tenacious,
romanticism aside, did not truly exist.
One of the things that is so amazing about this is not merely
that I find myself unbearably happy; that when standing on a street
and having Mark walk up beside me my heart flip-flops in my chest,
doing a few somersaults before giving my head and my history an
enthusiastic high-five. Rather, it's that I feel the way I do,
I get one look into those eyes looking back at my with the same
giddy and I know it's absolutely, positively, 100% real.
Last night we had dinner with a wing of the Heather Corinna Seattle
posse (and it is a bit funny that in cities I don't even live
in, and have never lived in, like this one, that I have a posse
at all, let alone a group of people I know fairly well who need
be divided through three different evenings, no less). Peter
and his love, Molly, Jonothon, Ross and Caroline, Jhames and the
current object of his affection, Becka and Darius. Near the end
of the meal, Ross and I were discussing something I'd brought
up with Mark not long before.
That is this: when you have this unbelievable thing happen, this
bit where you feel you have very clearly met Your Person, and
they you, how much of it is harmony, commonality, the two of you
simply having natures and characters that simply make for natural
and effortlessly graceful dancing partners; how much of it is
something to the tune of fate, destiny or some divine design,
and how much of it is simply timing?
In other words, when any two people met who have this feeling,
this nearly instant and inarguably natural partnership, even if
everything else were intact and "meant to be," for lack of better
words, if the timing were off in terms of how they approached
one another, would it still happen? If both parties were not,
at that precise moment in time, able to approach each other with
at least one simultaneous moment of complete openness to the whole
works, with an acceptance and belief that this sort of thing truly
can be, could it be at all? I'd not only suspect it couldn't
be, I would also suspect that that timing, that blip on the screen
of serendipity is probably an incredibly large part of the equation,
perhaps to a degree far greater than the other parts of the whole.
Saturday evening, Mark got the fine, fine idea of catching a baseball
game in the city -- which was a fine, fun adventure, involving
both of us doing the occasional happydance that on top of everything
else we both got out of this deal, we got a ball game boyfriend/girlfriend,
and me doing an extra happydance because I got a new cap for my
team, a selfless act, I might add, on the part of my dearie, whose
team is not the same as my own. Standing atop the stadium outside
having a smoke, I wondered for a moment that if I hadn't yet met
Mark, and he myself, if in a venue like this, perhaps standing
ten or twenty feet away in a place as populated as a baseball
stadium, if we'd have known one another on sight or not. Could
we have had any clue in a glance, or might we just have passed
one another by? And if we'd have met at any other time but the
time that we did, perhaps right down to the hour that we did,
would this have happened at all?
Of course, I'll never have any way of knowing that, and neither
will he nor could anyone else in a similar situation, but it's
compelling to me.
It is, of course, entirely possible that I am simply devising
more unanswered questions for myself because Mark appears to be
the answer to one of the biggest unanswered questions I've had
through my life, one I was fairly certain -- as likely a good
number of big questions one has in life will be -- would simply
ever go unanswered.
* * *
In the middle of the sound on the ferry right now, the sun gleaming
on the water, the scents of the water incredibly crisp and clear,
the deep greens of the islands spotting the landscape. It's so
lovely. But I digress.
* * *
I can already tell that leaving this time is going to be difficult
for me.
The other night, sitting for one of many times in the hot tub
in the yard of the house he shares, we stayed up late talking
and talking, and I told Mark some things about myself and my history
which I have never told anyone save whatever other parties were
involved. Not good things: things I have done or been that were
my least proud moments or things that are diffuclt, even scary,
and certainly very loaded. Some of why I've not told anyone else
these things before is a matter of trust for keeping them private.
But in all honesty, the bigger issue is that so often the love,
like and connection I have felt with other people has felt to
very tenuous and conditional that I have never felt safe enough
to share some of this stuff. I haven't wanted to tell anyone
because I was never 100% certain I wanted anyone THAT close to
me before. In some ways, it didn't feel fair for him not to know
some of the bad stuff, too. I think, too, that some of this
unreal realness of this means that I have to risk (and not just
me, mind you) showing the whole enchilada: not just the parts
of me or my history I know will be liked and respected or admired,
but those which aren't admirable in any way.
So, I did. And he listened (and we both did some of this). And
he by no means was impressed, and yes, had a moment of looking
a little amazed and perhaps even a little apalled, which anyone
would/should be for certain things unless they weren't giving
them the proper gravity.
And he took it in, didn't try and excuse any of it or absolve
me from it, but instead accepted it and let me know very clearly
that I was still cherished exactly as before those things were
shared.
That was a couple of days ago, and even just writing that stops
my breath for a moment because I find that such an amazing, amazing
thing. It is one thing to feel cherished and accepted and cared
for and admired by someone for whom you feel same when you've
your best face on. But I'm not sure that's quite as good -- even
though it's far less terrifying and precarious -- as having all
of that going on when you're showing the very opposite as openly
as it gets.
And here I sit, effortlessly sailing, riding these waters, acting
as my mirror.
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