Right-Brained Lover

Hand in hand we walked, dampness clinging to us as we made our way across the path and around the side of the lake. The sting and smell of summer still lingered in the air, a heavy humidity clung to our skin. His legs were much longer than mine and I expected his strides to reach far in front of me, his arms dragging me behind him like a wagon. But he walked slowly along with me, both of us gazing in amazement at the other, a surprise to find that we were real and we were together. It started as just a walk, a wandering through the woods on a summer day. As we climbed farther up the path, the crowds that populated the areas around the lake thinned out and soon we noticed that we were alone.

Suddenly he broke from my hand, a quick turn to the side, and dashed between the trees ducking and leaping to avoid smacking his head. I turned and ran behind him, wondering what kind of chase he was wanting to play and hoping something fun ensued if I caught him.

In a moment he stopped and turned toward me. He was standing in a clearing inside the thick of the woods, an area clear to us but totally hidden to the rest of the world. The perimeter was thick with trees, shrubs and fallen logs. Nothing stirred. Not a soul was near. In an instant his hands were on my face, fingers were in my hair. On his lips was my name and I became lost in the warm, wet sensation of his kisses.

There was nothing that could have prepared me for this moment, nothing that warned me of the passion to come. There was no way for me to know that he would lead me out of the world of my mundane existence and give me something to smile for, a moment in time that existed only for him and only for us.

I can still feel the roots beneath the ground pressing into my spine, the weight of his body and the smell of him; the feel and the taste of sweat comingling with the earth and with our bodies. What started as a walk became a passage, from one part of life into the next. Baptized in earth, we returned from whence we came, hand in hand just the way we started.

Now that the time is over and the moment has passed, I find myself searching my memory for the details of that time and they are hard to grasp. Memories spin through my mind in strands almost too wispy to pull in and hold and I wonder if it really happened at all. Perhaps it's just another trick my mind has played to keep me from sinking into this abyss of misery that otherwise surrounds me.