Letter To My Lover

This morning I awoke and in the tiny gap between dreams and thinking there was peace. But it didn't last long.


Our conversations the night before and questions like Where is love?, Who is to blame?, Why is it so difficult?, and How do we fix it?, became so dense and problematic.


And in time, a terror arose that said, I am alone. I am alone and there's no one who loves me. If you died or went away there's only my sister and she's older and won't live forever.


And then I caught the misery of my own making.


My sweet kitty stirred against my belly as she has each morning for maybe a thousand mornings and the mountain waited at the foot of my bed, filling the window with her rock-solid presence.


How many mornings, just like this, have I awoken in the same body, with the same past, in the same relationship and everything felt fine - sometimes more than fine?


What's different this morning is the pull of the pain-body, roused from its slumber. Was it pricked by something specific or just tired of sleeping and being ignored? But as soon as I caught it, it settled. And a smile spread from my belly creating a space that precociously asked, "What's the truth about this relationship?" and an answer that said, There is only one relationship. "You mean the one I have with myself or the one between the awakened me and the mind-created, problem-making self?" Neither ultimately. Relationship implies something between two separate things. In truth, there is no separation.


And I reached down to scratch my kitty behind her neck and she purred and rolled her head around and around so I could reach her favorite spots. And I purred too - sort of. Her pleasure was mine and mine was hers and there was no distinction between us in the space of presence, which is, by its nature, love.


And love grew as I watched and waited. And I realized that questions like Do you really love me?, Do I really love you?, Why aren't you here?, and What needs to be fixed about you, or me, or this relationship so that it never hurts? are not the right questions.


The only question that matters is this: In this moment, am I awake, or have the mind and pain-body put me back to sleep?