Elyn and I are sitting across from each other late in the evening, exchanging bits of conversation and shared observation. Comparing notes on a joint spiritual practice we had just done involving the archetypal Adam and Eve figures. Sensing similar experiences and some differences. She tells me about an earlier experience that came in meditation, a powerful, sensual experience.
Our conversation shifts to the afternoon spent with new friends and how much we like them. I relate that sometimes when I look at one or the other I have a sense that we must have met somewhere or sometime, which isn’t likely unless you believe in past lives. It’s just gentle conversation punctuated with silence—comfortable silence.
Suddenly I am overcome with emotion at the realization of just how intimate we are with each other. Tears come to my eyes and I realize that this is the intimacy that I had dreamed about for years and years and thought I would never have.
Later, Elyn reads me the opening paragraphs of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. We laugh at his droll picture of a youth viewing a very eccentric uncle. I drift off to sleep and we cuddle.
Sure, in the cold light of day we rub each other the wrong way and exchange a few barbs, for which we are sorry. But, that is just the gentle rubbing of two very different personalities against each other and doesn’t even dent the feelings of love and intimacy that we shared last night, and will share again. This is it. This is intimacy. It's not some earth shaking “peak” experience, just the comfortable stillness, punctuated by a phrase here and and sentence there. How fortunate I am to have experienced this in my lifetime. How very precious and rare.
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