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The Night I Died
It was late. I was trying to sleep. My heart beat faster. I couldn’t breathe. My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Breath exercises didn’t help. I kept telling my heart to slow down, to stop pounding. Take a breath! Now! Do it! I couldn’t. I couldn’t will myself to breathe, to live. I needed help. My heart felt like it was leaping out of my chest. I texted my beloved, in the next room. The text was garbled, a series of meaningless letters and symbols. rj3u92/, perhaps. Texting didn’t work. I called to him. Surely he would hear me. I called and called. HELP, I said, as loud as I could.…
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Kahuna + Akua = a Grand Love Story
About a year ago, my soulmate and I made special love names for each other. We actually did research on this. We looked at sites filled with love nicknames. We looked at sites filled with names from other countries and other traditions. Finally we found the right names. Akua = spirit, goddess. Kahuna = wise man or shaman. I think we are still claiming the full power of our names. But I look at my soulmate and I see Kahuna, even if he does not see it fully himself. This is what happened. I got cancer. I thought it healed. It didn’t and came back. Far, far worse. Terminal. And…
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Exponential
It was about a year ago that the S-word was first used. Back then, it was under influence of a glass of red wine, or two glasses. I knew what was going on and let it unfold. Give it space. Let it breathe. If you are lucky, it will blossom. He needed time to feel that this amazing thing between us is real, that he didn’t just dream up the woman who loves him, and that he and I will be together in years to come, and more years, and more. It’s hard to remember exactly how it felt a year ago, light-years now, because now is now. Today we sat…
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Crystal Ball
The things I saw and heard in my head just about 18 months ago have all come true except one. That last foretold possibility may take years and years to see fully through. I am okay with that. Last night there was an eclipse. It was cloudy and we couldn’t see anything, but the quality of the light changed. Later, Soulmate and I sat on his bed, wine glasses nearly empty, a DVD paused in mid-flight, and we talked about the eclipse. I remember the last time this happened, I said. 1994. I was in Pittsburgh. I was driving to my office and hurried when the light in the sky…
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Partner
Once there was a girl who learned not to trust. She was hurt by things — big scary dogs, loud people, being left in strange places that didn’t smell like home, people who tricked and lied — and learned to go deep inside. She thought that deep within, she could stay safe. The girl built walls and thought they would protect her, thick tall strong walls. What she built instead was an entire world that wasn’t safe. An uncertain world lay beyond her walls. Staying small and deeply hidden, she forgot about her magical powers caught outside the walls she built. The girl felt so alone. She believed she would…