Love Letter

We laughed together. This is what I like to remember.

I loved it when you came to my house and we passed hours giving each other a massage, having a warm bath together, or making love. I loved it when you were soft and your kiss tasted of love, and when you took me and made me experience the wildest side of my human nature. I loved it when we would play-fight and giggle and laugh until our stomachs ached and we collapsed in embrace. I loved it when I would go run an errand and come home to find you at the cooker, making us a dinner, and then we would talk for hours about anything under the sun.

And sometimes it tasted bitter too, and tears would crawl across my face while your frustration would vent in anger. We might have fought back in anger, but really we were covering the sadness that we were not loving each other, and being loved.

And our own pain made us forget what we could give to each other.

And now our ways are parted.

Although it might appear easier to forget the sweet memories and just feel the relief of no more bitter emotions, I prefer to remember the times when we shared such beautiful energy and connection. I feel grateful for the whole experience I was able to share with you and it makes every tear worth having fallen because I cannot separate the desireable from the undesireable... it was all part of knowing you and sharing with you, and you remain special to me.

It is a beautiful gift to be able to remember you in this way, and it is possible only because of the connection we share and how much affection we continue to feel for each other.

I miss you, and I know you miss me too, however letting go of each other was itself an act of love: for love of our selves as for love of the other. We have been a remarkable reflection for each other, and now it is time to find the love in ourselves that we were searching for in the other, for only when we truly have love can we truly share it.

In this part of our journeys, while we walk separate paths that may lead us afar, may our hearts remain warm with sweet thoughts of each other. When we long for each other we can connect to the warmth of the experience we shared and the gratitude of how we have grown together because of it, and bless each other's course in life as we are blessed by a trust that if, by Grace, there is more we will to share in the course of time, then it shall Be.

Well-wisher, friend, lover... whichever one the future holds for us, we can smile in the knowledge that after all is said and done, in some way I love you (and you love me too).  

Pairs

It is a strange dynamic, that exchange of energy that fulfills.

What draws people together? What pushes them apart? Personalities are living and growing and developing, needs are always changing, and so do relationships.

While relationships may last from a few moments to a lifetime, roles may be ever-changing.

By exposing some personal nature and sharing time, the mellow with a business client changed to friendship, with the introduction of affection and attachment. As brother and sister we found solace in each other's understanding of our views about life and the world, sometimes verging on the teacher-student situation when one's experience surpassed the other's in a particular field. Sometimes I could be as his mother, sometimes as his daughter.

Then a misunderstanding brought about disappointment that could only be experienced by lovers, such intimate affection was there although that exchange had never come by... and then again, we became like strangers.

Days passed. A tall, dark stranger caught my eye, and soon we were lost in words. Much later, he was still holding my hand. So comfortably natural it was, I had barely noticed. We complemented each other, two became one... until cultural circumstance dictated that our affections could remain only on a friendly level, but one that would last.

Any two individuals, a unique relationship.

In Sanskrit, the term rasa refers to the degree of intimacy and sweetness of relationship with the Divine (shanta - peaceful, dasya - servitude, sakhya - friendship, vatsalya - parental or madhurya - conjugal).

It is clear that fragments of rasa are reflected in every relationship experienced in this world, because we are sparks of that eternal flame, the Original Source, cause of all. 'Made in the image of God,' we are similar in quality though not in magnitude.

While it is natural that we are attracted to experiencing these mellows in the here and now, bound as we are by space and time, impermanent is their nature, nobody can deny this fact.

It is said that the Eternal, Krsna (He that is irresistably attractive to all souls) is the origin and reservoir of all rasa to the infinite degree... yet how hard it is for us to realise, and feel!

Thus we continue to search the light and warmth of a candle instead of journeying to the sun.