A Different Kind of Love

The cool dampness seeping through the cotton of my khaki shorts was somewhat soothing. I stared out into the orange-blue-purple-pink painting that was the dawn of night, sipping the sweet sadness that stung my eyes. Immense beauty often pierced me that way...even more so, the unbeckoned solitude.

Waves were rolling over me, through me. I was powerless to do anything but let them. Not the wet waves of the ocean surf, but the overwhelming tide of my own self-pity. It wasn't't the first time I had drunk from this cup, with its bittersweet flavor. Alone, I sat watching the sad beauty mirroring my soul: multi hued, vivid, with more than a hint of darkness.

Experiencing such beauty in solitude was the norm for me. It first pried open the unwilling door of my consciousness, and parked itself on the couch of my daily existence when the notion fell on me that I was experiencing life in a way no one else did. I was far too young to know, or even to care, that probably every being on the planet was slapped by that discovery at some point.

Even after I figured that out, I still couldn't deny the knowledge deep within me that it didn't have to be that way. I couldn't lose the knowing that we could share our experiences of being on the planet at a level most people didn't even seem to know existed.

There were those who seemed to share this knowing and we'd try. But the efforts invariable evolved into sad attempts to hold on to anything to keep positive sharing afloat amidst sinking hopes, drowning desires. The sea of fear, roiled with too much doubt, too little awareness, and far too heavy egos. I felt like I existed on a different plane altogether. Potential life-enhancing experiences abounded, yet so beyond my reach. My latest attempt had been more of the same, and here I was experiencing a piece of life's beauty alone again.

As the hues deepened and the glory of day gave way to the magnificence of night, I felt a lightness, a sweet gentleness drawing out the heaviness within me. It was as if someone was waving a wand over me and with each pass fanning away a bit of the deep sadness that had me sitting at the water's edge. I smelled her even before I heard the rustle behind me. I couldn't possibly describe the scent except to say that images cascaded in my mind's eye: my mother baking sweetbread, the rose garden at Elizabeth Park, the aromas meandering up the hardwood staircase of the bed and breakfast that my family stayed in when I was a child... I turned just as she reached me.

"May I?" she asked without asking, and melted into a cross-legged fantasy in the sand next to me. She sat close to me as though we had been friends since childhood, and she had absolutely nothing to fear from me. She leaned forward with her elbows resting on the inside of her knees, hands cupping her face, and just peered out into the night.

I could feel the warmth of her body, emanating outward...and something else. I realized that the lightness I had felt moments earlier had been coming from her. Up close it was overpowering.

I had yet to speak in my shocked wonder. She was still looking out into the descending night, her profile glowing as the moon itself. "Why are struggling against it?" she asked. Like her scent and energy, her voice cascaded, crescendoed, resonated and ricocheted through me.

"Against what?" I answered, absolutely bewildered and almost beset by vertigo.

She turned to me, and the halo of curls that crowned her head and framed her visage radiated colors beyond anything I had imagined. It was as though the question I had asked but moments ago and everything prior had occurred lifetimes ago. "Why are you struggling against what you feel?" she repeated.

Unwillingly, I began to emerge from the stupor of sensory ecstasy that had overcome me. "Wha...what do you think I feel...and why do you think I'm struggling?" I asked, still struggling to regain my composure.

She turned back toward the horizon, drew her legs up, rested her arms on her knees, and rested her chin on her arms, all with a fluidity that rivaled the gently lapping waves. For a few moments, she did nothing but breathe deeply with her eyes closed. I could feel a slight change in her energy. A tinge of sadness crept into the powerful energy flow she emitted.

"Well, I know you feel me, and I feel different energies within you, the emotional a tug of war. There's a bit of turmoil within, isn't there? I believe I know what's happening within you, but until you know and willingly share it with me I can only believe I know," she hummed.

It was so difficult to focus on what she was saying so overwhelmed were my senses. I was hearing her voice, the words, but it was as if I were hearing with my entire being, not just my ears. The daylight was quickly fading, but it was as though every inch of me had eyes. Her scent tickled all of my senses.

Still trying to adapt to the dominance of her presence, I stalled, "Before I try to answer your question, would you mind telling me your name?"

"Selfina" she answered, turning to me with what I must inadequately describe as a smile. "I'm called different things by different people though. And you?"

"I'm called few things myself, but those who feel closest to me call me Kip."

She nodded. "Kip," she said, as if to herself. "So simple, so sweet, so full of possibilities. It fits."

So odd, so simply amazing, this woman who had just materialized from nowhere and everywhere. She didn't seem to need an explanation of my name. She didn't seem to care about the origin. She just seemed to feel it, feel me, and just knew that it fit.

"Well Seli...um...may I call you that?"

"It feels right when you say it so please," she replied, still smiling.

Feeling like an idiot, I muttered, "I am having the hardest time pulling coherent thoughts together, so would it be okay if I postponed answering your question for a minute? Something about your presence here has sort of overwhelmed my system. If I could just take a few moments to adjust to all that I'm feeling I might be able to respond somewhat intelligently."

"That's precisely what I would recommend then. Take as long as you wish. I'm not going anywhere." She turned back to the ocean, still smiling with the moon, the stars, the waves, the sand. Her entire being was a smile. The tinge of sadness had faded.

"Would you be uncomfortable if I stared foolishly at you as I tried to pull myself together?"

"No, but you might want to turn away from time to time, and see me with other than your eyes."

I just nodded, stared for another few moments, attempting to take her all in and fix her in my mind. I then turned toward the sea as well.

As I looked outward, I saw the scene before me with a clarity I had not before. I knew somehow that I was seeing through her eyes and mine simultaneously. I also saw us, as though we were sitting in the ocean looking toward shore, sitting there, not as two individuals, but as one entity in a swirl of color. I sat there in wonder and amazement, knowing that I had never experienced such a thing, yet feeling an awesome familiarity.

I closed my eyes and the vision remained. I could feel my breathing match hers. I could hear our heartbeats move toward synchronization. I smelled the mixture of our scents and the ocean's. Life as I had known it was no longer.

"The question I asked is now obsolete isn't it?" She asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes it is, but I'd like to answer it anyway."

"Thank you Kip," she replied, laying her face on her arms, and looking directly at me.

My equilibrium was again threatened, but I maintained it. I knew looking into her almost yellow eyes that the truth as I had always longed to speak it could be spoken. There was no fear or doubt in those eyes, and the gentle understanding in them summoned my thoughts and beckoned my feelings.

I began haltingly, "The struggle you felt was my mind struggling to remain in control of my senses and emotions. I was caught in a storm of desire and disbelief, struggling to decide whether I had gone so far into my sad solitude that I was hallucinating. Hope, excitement, anticipation, and recognition were wrestling mightily with fear and doubt. History and the present were engaged in a major war."

She was smiling as I spoke, seeming to look at me and not simultaneously. Her eyes were open and pointed in my direction, but they didn't seem focused. I realized that she was looking more inside me than at me as I spoke, that she was feeling my words in addition to hearing them.

I rambled on. "Before you sat down I felt a wave of something come over me unlike anything I had experienced before. When you reached me and I recognized you as the source of the energy flowing through me, I was bombarded by emotion. Your image triggered a million feelings and thoughts at once, as did your scent and everything about you. As thrilling as it all was, it was totally disorienting. The struggle wasn't a negative one, just a necessary one."

Seli, unconsciously it seemed, reached down and began to trace the outline of my bare feet in the sand. She purred, "I'm not sure if you can tell, but right now I am struggling to maintain my own composure. Not because I necessarily want to maintain it, mind you, but because I think you'd be overwhelmed again if I didn't. I may sound calm and collected, but only through major effort. Right now I'm soaring, I'm almost giddy with delight and anticipation. I'm trembling with the effort to prevent the incredible volcano of energy I'm feeling from erupting all over you."

Jumping abruptly to her feet and running toward the water, she yelled, "As a matter of fact, I'm gonna go let some of it out!" Without hesitation she speed across the damp sand and plunged into the surf.

I was still too much in a state of shock to move. I let the thoughts and emotions rush through me at will. Was this a dream? Was my desire driving me mad? If I sat here long enough would I come back to my senses? But it is your senses you've come back to. No, this can't be! Why the hell not? My nerve endings are tingling. My chest is swelling.. I want to scream out loud. I can't move. I want to fly. I can fly. Just chill and be cool man. Why? Cuz you'll explode otherwise.

I don't know how long I sat there in utter chaos, with the feeling of being in another dimension of some sort, with the sense of flipping, floating, falling, soaring, crashing, with moments of utter stillness penetrating it all. I saw nothing, but saw everything. I smelled nothing, but smelled everything. I was totally out of control and in total control. It was madness and sublime sanity.

Seli emerged from the water, just a silhouette in the growing darkness. Her form splitting the horizon brought me back to the here and now. She glided toward me, and again I felt that sweet peacefulness, that absence of anything negative. No fear, no doubt, no sadness, or forlorn yearning. There was a swelling anticipation and a knowing that all that I had ever imagined about sharing with another and more was about to come into being, no, was already into being.

As she drew closer, shaking the water from her hair, wiping it from her eyes, I marveled at her grace. I noted the soft, curved symmetry of her body. The thin sun dress that she wore clung to her, and I felt a longing that again threatened to overwhelm me. She flowed to the ground in front of me. Lying on her stomach facing me.

Seemingly immune to the chill in the air, Seli cupped her face in her hands, shining crystal droplets dripping through her fingers, departing regretfully from her hair. She just looked at me with an intensely searching gaze. It was as though she was entering my eyes, and strolling through my entire being with wonderment and familiarity.

"How was it?" I asked, becoming a bit uncomfortable with her exploration, and not knowing what else to say.

"Hmm," she breathed, smiling and closing her eyes. I could feel her come out of me, yet remain. "It was heavenly, exhilarating, peaceful, calming. I couldn't help but see and feel the times when we'd be in the water together."

I leaned forward, reached out and removed a wet ringlet of hair from her forehead. We were only inches apart. My fingers tingled with electricity as they made contact with her skin. I traced the outline of her forehead, her eyes. She removed her hands from her face and began touching my feet. I continued to trace the outlines of her face, her cheekbones, her lips. "How is it that we are here like this?" I asked in soft wonder.

It had become difficult to distinguish where my fingers ended and her velvet skin began. "How is it that in the midst of feeling so overwhelmed and off kilter, I also feel so at home and at peace with our being here?"

She opened her eyes, still smiling, again staring into my eyes, still caressing my feet, she asked rhetorically, "Could it be that we've both been traveling a very long, difficult road always aiming at this destination, without full belief we'd get here? Could it be that now that we're here we're having a hard time releasing the disbelief, even though there's the inner knowledge that it could be no other way? Could it be that we've been like two beings attached to an invisible cord spinning along that cord until we've collided inevitably in the middle; the collision being both traumatic and ecstatically soothing at the same time?"

I had closed my eyes as she began to speak. The timbre, tone, rhythm of her voice and speech turned my entire into a sonic sensor, one big ear. I saw the big ear in my mind and laughed out loud.

"What's so funny about what I said," she asked with a puzzled frown?

"Oh Seli, please forgive me. I had this crazy vision of myself as a big ear.."

"A big ear?" she asked looking even more puzzled.

"Sweet girl, when you speak my entire body listens and..."

Seli's laughter cut me off, and I could see that she too had been tickled by my vision. We fell into one of those duets of laughter, where no one wants to stop the music. I swear the moon danced to the melody of our mirth as the surf pounded out the rhythm.

After a few minutes we caught our collective breath. "Okay, okay, let me see if I can recapture my train of thought," she said with a little urgency.

I sat in silence and closed my eyes. After a moment of silence, she continued, "Okay. Just before I came over to you, I was across the street at the bookstore. I had this incredible urge to leave the store and walk toward the water. I had planned on sitting by the water tonight anyway, but I hadn't planned on going so soon. But the pull was compelling, too strong to ignore.

As I turned toward to water, I just knew that my life was about to become...how do I say, uh, just more, something bigger than it was at that moment, that I was to become even more me than I was at that moment. Does that make sense to you? Never mind, I can feel that it does. I saw you, just a shape in the sand, and knew that beside you was where I was meant to be at that moment."

I opened my eyes and looked at her. She reached up and touched the wetness on my face. I whispered, "I can feel that you can feel that it makes sense to me. And I know that that chain of feeling stretches into infinity. Wow, describing this state of being is truly impossible..."

"Because language is too limited to convey it," she finished with a delightful little laugh. She jumped to her knees and we wrapped our arms around each other, laughing and crying with the knowledge that we were safely at home.