You

It's like diving in. You know how it feels to plunge head first into deep cool water? Your body shoots below the surface, slicing through the water, and in that silent weightlessness amid bubbles and currents, the feel of yourself and the feel of the water cannot be separated.

Or like this morning. I was dreaming and then I was not - in the middle of a word - I think it was a cry or a call - in some kind of glaringly bright piece of somewhere, I opened my eyes and it was the gray light of early morning and I was in my bed at home. But as I teetered between glaring and gray, between loud and still, between there and here, I saw you.

I've been thinking about you a lot in the last couple of days. Or rather, consciously not thinking of you. I put my thoughts on hold time and again to attend to what's going on or escape into acceptable modes of fantasy.

But this morning, it was as if someone had thrown a cog into the machinery causing a fragmenting of time. In the middle of the ordinary, things became extraordinary. I was driving along the cobblestone road that leads out of this tiny town, traveling slowly and gently over the speedbumps and dips, and I looked to my left, as I do when I'm on this road, taking in the volcanoes and the puff of smoke sitting atop the Popo, marveling at the shouting blue of the sky, and noting that the clouds seemed to be frozen there in a billowing whiteness...

Meanwhile, the Dixie Chicks were singing that song about a landslide, and suddenly I saw you, moving in a rhythm that breathed with the sound of your voice and the beat of my heart; you were putting on your socks and telling me the dogs were waiting to be fed, you were wheedling a kiss from me, you were telling me about the political scene, you were on the phone, you were calling me over to see something on the computer, you were cooking and explaining the virtues of olive oil, you were offering me a taste of your fragrant steaming mug of coffee, you were going outside to oversee the work on the cars and asking me to bring your water bottle... you were telling me I would miss your love when you were gone.
And I do!

I know, I know... you told me so.