There is life

Life is precious these days.  Maybe it's due to the promise of imminent travel adventures creeping ever closer, combined with the sweetness of summer and the fact that existing suddenly feels so damned good.  But life suddenly feels immensely fragile and tremendously important.

I seem to be driving everywhere at least 10 miles per hour slower than I was just six months ago.  I am so close to everything I have been working for all my adult life that I am determined that nothing will stop me from reaching it.  It is an interesting detachment from my usually happily embodied state in that I feel so desperate to preserve my body, to trap the life force inside it.  I am constantly aware of my existence and overcome by gratitude for it.

Lying in the blue dark I feel the heartbeat of the other, smooth, even, calm.  

Ba-dum, ba-dum, you are here.  

I listen to the sound of their breathing, never quite to the rhythm of my own.  

In, out, I am here.  

I keep still, until the sensations on my skin merge and I can no longer determine where I end and the other begins.

We are here.  Nothing else matters.