Breathing

“Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.” Pablo Neruda

My muse calls on me at this appointed hour each morning. . Caught between sleep and awake. She holds me here suspended in time, waiting.

“What will it be today”

Thoughts turn to a friendship that has grown over many years. One in which I have revealed pieces of my soul to him, and he has gently carried them with grace and honor. We spoke last night with ease and trust. It was like breathing.

“What else do you have for me?”

My family. Bonds, not only of blood, but of love, forged in the crucible of life. There is no rivalry or judgement. In joy or despair, food is on the table, laughter is present, and hearts are open. It is like breathing.

“I know there is more.”

The women. In this I have sometimes walked with purpose and have sometimes stumbled. After all these travels, I find myself on the shores of something new. I am a man in a mans world, and will never know the fears, the frustrations, the anger, the shear weight that women carry living in a world that holds them down. I have been complicit on some level, of this I am sure, by the mere fact of being a male. This I cannot change. But I can open my eyes, my ears, my heart. Listen to them breathe.

“And”

Sexuality. Honoring it. Facing the shame and guilt I have felt. Being with it. Celebrating passion. It is breathing!

Silence.

Stella. Her presence. Her love. My love. In every inhalation. In every exhalation. She is in every breath.

Myself. In the solitude of my room, awake now, I am breathing.