To Love and Be Loved..

 

You see her or him and suddenly the whole of you convulses – weakens and responds as if medicated with a heavy dose of morphine. You can only hope the encroaching desire and numbness never dissipates and amplifies imagination.

To love at any age is the greatest gift accorded earthlings. To love young is perhaps the most powerful overwhelming sensation we’ll ever experience in a lifetime.

I was thinking about this while reading about the young man boarding a streetcar to meet his girlfriend who got caught up with the teenager killed in the streetcar massacre.

Thousands of times night after night young people make plans to be together to share a late night meal, drink, conversation – hang with friends or private moment. You could package everyone one of these encounters and light the earth ten times over.

We are wired to love. Those that are denied the riches retaliate.

Men will destroy the person they desire and love the most just to hold on to that sensation. They will throw futures away in order to cling to that first – second and third breathtaking encounter.

She sat across from me and I could only think of her – the smile, the words that seemed to flow easily, her skin, that aura that seemed to preserve her in such a way no implement of doom could every penetrate and steal away.

We’ve all for the most part been there and remain tethered to that moment.

We marry, have children, sit side by side and continue to embrace until the door slams shut.

I look across the table and I see eighteen – her sleek frame, golden skin, sun cooked hair and hear that voice that has changed little over the decades and I replay the moment in all its petrifying newness – the awkwardness  - the jolt that staggered my soul and rewired and keep on smiling!