Years ago I met a man on a blind date in a café in Portland, Oregon. The Bread and Ink Café was crowded that morning with many couples sitting face-to-face in the misty morning light, ordering omelets or lox and bagels.
I sipped hot water with lemon and flipped the pages of my journal, waiting for Mark to arrive. I saw other writers, sporting a variety of notebooks and pens, thoughtfully scribbling between bites of strawberry jam and scones.
When Mark arrived, we began the careful volley of romantic prospects. We explored common ground – our mutual friend, Mark’s counseling training, my medical studies.
Then we got the meat of the discussion – the litany of past lovers. Why, in our thirties, were we unmated, like mismatched socks at the bottom of the laundry basket? We slowly launched the oar-less boat into the waters – he said, she said, and then . . . and they said, etc. Water lapped against the edges of the skiff. During that lull in the conversation, I overhead another pair, younger by a decade, playing the same slow tennis match – this lover did THIS (whack), and then she said THAT (whack) – the ball slowly arcing from one side of the court to the other. In this leisurely game, their stories slowly unfolded.
I looked at Mark and knew from his expression he recognized our conversation mirrored in the younger couple’s.
I wish now I’d laughed and called off our own tennis match. Instead, I thoughtfully bounced the ball, tossed it into the air, and served it into his court.
Not surprisingly, I never heard from Mark again. I wonder if the younger couple made it to set point, game point, match – OR did they abandon the game in favor of some more meaningful connection?
Later, the mate in my life slipped into place almost without effort. We had no long rally, no vigorous competition about past lives, past lovers, past perfect or past subjunctive.
Instead, we entered a stream as if the water had always been flowing there, and we quite naturally stepped into its current. The skiff left the banks and began eddying down the stream with an aimless sense of purpose and direction – casually and yet completely planned.
No, this is not the hothouse love of heart-shaped chocolates and red tin foil. This is no stiletto heel with rhinestone straps. These are practical loafers, sensible running shoes, worn Birkenstocks – the everyday fare that wears well and grows more comfortable over time.
I sense familiarity here, a prescient knowing that requires no history, no strategic rally to explain our past or justify our present. I’m stepping into a stream that was, that is, that always will be.
Sea of Love
How many times have I stood
with open arms
on the shore of my life
to welcome you?
How many times have I died
the little death
under the ecstasy of
your tongue
your body
your soul?
How many times
have the jewels of our love
slipped hot and bloody
from between my legs
or into my waiting hands?
How many times have I stood
with open palms
and felt you slip,
a dry, fluttering leaf
into the boat
of the silent, hooded oarsmen
and watched as you
eddied in the current
away from me
into another adventure?
How many times has my heart been rent
with the ecstasy of welcome,
with the sorrow of release
opening opening
until all the gates have been shattered
and my heart is a free port,
to sail in and out of,
the sea of love
the only constant.
