Desert

I don't remember how it happened. I only remember loving her deeply. No transition, no process. They are friends of my soul - these few people scattered around the world who know me absolutely and love me for no reason at all. I've all but turned my back on the world I spent years building for myself. Once upon a time I spent hours listening to the problems of the people around me, offering advice, a shoulder, apologetic murmurers, prayers. Five years ago I spent three months driving around the country with a soul friend. Yosemite changed me as I saw myself in this world, the Pacific accepted my tumultuous soul, but the moment that sticks out to me the most was climbing through sand dunes in Western Texas. After a hundred miles of driving with no sign of another car, we parked and crawled around the dunes, soaking our sore feet in the raw white sand, blue sky and sun casting glitter all around. I snapped my fingers, it seemed, and the sky turned black, the wind slapped the once tame sand into our legs, our eyes, our hair. It burned and I felt my insides collapse. I sank into the sandy world, wrapping myself into a ball, and wept. No one needed me anymore. No one knew where I was. I barely knew where I was. No one could access me. I was alone. I could not help anyone. My soul friend held my head and rubbed my hair, singing softly in Portuguese, and the weight of every tear I'd held that wasn't my own, every burden I'd carried that wasn't mine to care for, drained out of me like bad blood leaving the body, never to return. It was then that I began to slowly allow the ties that drained me to come undone. It was my freedom journey, the first time I'd done something entirely for myself. And I was hooked. Seven years ago I put my paint brush down and held her hand in the bathroom. I saw her in front of me and from the side through the brightly lit mirror spanning the multiple dorm sinks. Her bony shoulders caved into her body and her narrow wrists went limp. Oh, how she loved him, but he couldn't stay away from that witch. They would never be the same, and neither would we. Seven years later we would hold each other shaking, sobbing for the lost time and the magic of a reunion that mattered, of once again touching the skin of someone I don't remember falling in love with, only loving. I say this to remind myself that I am the luckiest of girls, to have people in my life who will love me deeply on a level I will never understand but trust I will always know. It's the very thing that makes average relationships difficult to care for and large formal gatherings tasteless. On the desert floor with nothing but my car and a hand to hold... this is what matters, this is what I need... the assurance of their souls existing beside mine. I can't explain it any more than that.