Searching for tenderness

Part 1. Waking in the light

I landed in Portland, Oregon, at 9:15pm. It was dark and rainy. His eyes were bright and sunny. And his embrace was so warm.

"Are you hungry?" he asked as we left the airport.

"No. I am ok", I said. I looked at him. He looked back. He had a look on his face.

"I made you little sandwiches," he confessed, handing me a clear bag. Two oval nibbles, overflowing with a Prosciutto chiffonade and topped with an angular Manchego sliver.

"I also made you a hot chamomile tea."

He poured me the hot drink at the next light, handing me the warm ceramic mug.

I looked at him, the rain beating on the dark windshield. His loving smile. His loving intentions. His heart beating on his outstretched hand. His eye showed no doubt, just shining with pure light.

We fell asleep hugging, and it was so wonderful— A moment in time, like beauty, like life itself — like water falling deeper into the cupped hands of its creek bed.

In the morning, I wanted to wake up slowly. I have woken up in this room before —not new. I know the way the grey morning light hits the dormer ceiling. Under its womb-like vault is a soft neutral carpet, a few wool rugs, and the healthy green foliage of several plants soften the back wall. They sit happily on a little bench along the back window.

It is a cozy, soft place to wake up to.

But the light is infiltrating my eyelids before I feel ready to let it in. My whole body is still heavy. He is right next to me. At my first stirring, at the first hint of emergence from the depths of sleep — he moved in closer — pressing the warmth of a spoon shape into me.

His skin is soft, like a woman's. When I turn around to curl into his chest, a little patch of pale chest hair tickles my nose.

It feels so good to be in his arms. Like water molding itself onto the creek bed, I pour my shape into the hollow of his arms in these embraces. And I breathe. I just breathe. And so does he. Being biology is just enough sometimes. It's just what is needed. It is the crucial thing to do. Just be, be a skin, be the nerve endings, let them delight in the sensation of softness. Just exploring -no rush- the silkiness and the warmth. A small but expansive place to rest, where I am teetered to something larger than myself, our big sky, our peace of the body, in a quenched search for tenderness.