An Uncommon Bond

by jeff brown

  When I woke up in the morning, she had already left for home. Only two things remained to remind me—a little bouquet of wild-flowers, and a word graffitied on my right foot:

  IU

  Not sure how she managed to do that without my waking up, but it didn’t soothe me. Not even close. After such a heavenly encounter, she hadn’t even said goodbye! Ouch.

  I reluctantly got out of the bed to pack my things. It was time to go home. On the way to the parking lot, I stopped in at the Meditation Sanctuary for a few moments of contemplation before driving the seven hours back to Toronto. Bad move. Flashbacks to our lovemaking mixed terribly with last night’s memories. I felt both elated and ruptured at the same time. It was deeply confusing.

  When I got to the parking lot, I saw her. She was standing against her rental car talking to someone sitting on the ground. I walked a little closer and saw a rough-and-tumble tow truck dude putting on her spare tire. She had a flat. Strange, the car hadn’t been used and the tire was perfect when I checked it the day before. Clearly someone, somewhere, wanted us to part on loving terms.

  We walked to the edge of the lot to say goodbye. The world was in technicolor again as I held her close to me. She looked up at me with a wide smile as I kissed her face delicately, feeling her soft breath against my cheek. We said nothing at all, as our souls spoke their regret and healed the rupture. When her car was ready, she kissed me once more on the lips with an almost unbearable tenderness and drove away. I felt myself unbuckle inside. Sometimes silence really is the perfect way to say farewell.

  7

  Breaks and Mends

  Soon after returning home, I became melancholic. As I went about my daily business, everything felt inconsequential, microscopic in meaning by contrast to love’s expansive openings. Even my habitual friendships seemed uninteresting and pointless. Earth and sky are such different vibrations. How to reconcile them? I had gone to some other place and didn’t want to come back. How to return to a worldly consciousness after being shown the euphoria that lies beyond the daily grind? How to get it up for the mundane after getting down with the beloved?

  Sarah was my only hope.

  One afternoon, I received an email from her that charmed me silly:

  You are my beloved and I want to come home.

  There you may snore next to me.

  I miss that lovely racket.

  It’s no easy feat to find a woman who actually misses your snoring. Sweet. I called her and we made a plan for her to come to Toronto early the following month. Knowing I would see her bolstered my spirits.

  Before she arrived, I dedicated myself to fixing up the apartment I lived in. Just before returning to law school, I had moved to a quirky, one bedroom apartment in Kensington Market, one of downtown Toronto’s oldest communities. The Market is an edgy part of the city where butchers, head shops and used clothiers sell their wares in a kind of timeless bubble. When you walk down Baldwin Street, you are at once overwhelmed by the smell of fish, coffee and ganga, while a fascinating, ethnically diverse collection of people walk, bike and skateboard about. Long established as a mecca for creativity, the place is like a human art gallery, where every person that passes by is a living portrait. It’s alive!

  The apartment itself was on two floors of a century-old Victorian home. The entrance was in the back, with another unit in the front of the property. My place was the oddest mix of archaic and modern, with a forty-year-old fridge and a small boarded-up milk door for the good ole milkman to place bottles on the kitchen counter, sharing space with a newly installed bidet (AKA plant holder) and remote control vertical blinds. The bedroom, kitchen and a sunken living room were on the main floor. Upstairs, there were only two rooms: a spacious bathroom, and an angle-roofed sunroom that looked out over a tree-lined back alley. This apartment had stories to tell. Soon it would have more.

  I walked on air all month, creating a nest for my soulmate. Then, the week before she came, I fell into a panic. Something about bringing her into my home felt perilous. To this point, we had only ever met when I was on vacation. But now I would be bringing her right into the heart of my daily life. I was already having a hard enough time merging these worlds. How to assimilate our relationship, too? What if she couldn’t accept ‘city-boy Lowen’? And what about ‘lawyer Lowen’? I mean, I look pretty good in a suit, but what if her love for me gets lost in urban translation? And those heavenly realms, would they have a safe place to land, here in downtown Toronto?

  A Tour of the Yoniverse

  She came to stay with me in Toronto for ten days. As soon as she stepped into the apartment, we were drenched in intimacy. We spent almost two full days in bed, lovemaking between naps, nap-making between loves. All my resistance was gone, as my desire to deepen this union took flight. As we intensified our lovemaking, we rose up and beyond this earthly realm, floating to heaven and beyond on our love-loomed magic carpet. Who needs earth when you have the whole universe?

  In this divinity, I also lost my trepidation about a woman’s yoni. Where before it was a complex foreign object that scared me off, it was now a wondrous invitation to commune with the creator. As I worshiped, I plunged deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the divine. It was a tour of the yoniverse from the bottom up, a wake-down call of the highest order. As I explored her inner world, I again remembered the power of this sacred place, a knowing all-too-easily forgotten in my objectification phases. Is this not God’s love canal, the tunnel from possibility to humanifestation? How easily we forget the place where life began, the first wonder of the world. How easily we turn the sacred yoni into a sacrilegious plaything. It was clear as a stream: if a man can’t honor the yoni, how can he honor his own, precious birth? If we can’t value the feminine, how can we value life?

  As the portal to divinity opened wider, my lens on God’s gender transformed. I had grown up with my God as a man. But there (S)he was, lying open before me, fully revealed as the Divine Feminine, in all her receptive glory. For this moment at least, God was Sarah, and Sarah was God. My tongue darted in and out of the temple door, hungrily ingesting the (w)hole of creation. Like a soul who had finally met his maker, I was down on my knees praying for more.

  When the moment was ripe, I would enter her temple with my sacred shaft aflame, merging my love with its fleshy reflection. As I plunged deeper and deeper into Goddess, her mysteries rose into view, revealing the splendors that await us when we can finally cum clean with the divine. When we climaxed, it was like a colossal galactic explosion. On our bodyship to the stars, we had pierced the veil of separateness that blinds earthlings to their intertwined destiny. Liquid God meets Liquid God—the real milky way.

  Of course, we could also drop down and enjoy some raw sex now and then. Not straight to heaven, no significant God sightings, but always held within the context of deep love. With our soul connection as our sacred container, pure physicality was like a wild-eyed free-for -all, a frenzied Sufi dance where both of us were whirled into wonder.

  After a three day sexathon, I left Sarah at home and went to work. Although I called throughout the day, she didn’t answer. On the way home, I picked up sushi in the market—Unagi this and Unagi that. Sarah loved slippery eels. Unagi was weird, but I loved her anyway. When I got home, I called out her name. Not home. I changed into my casual clothes, grabbed my mountain bike and rode around the market streets looking for her. No luck.

  When I arrived home again, I went upstairs to the sunroom and noticed a photo album on the floor opened to a picture of my law school graduation. In it, I was standing beside my date, Karen, who had a particularly proud expression on her face. I wondered whether Sarah had felt jealous and stormed out of the apartment.

  I lay down on the couch to wait for her, finally falling asleep around midnight. A few hours later, I was woken up by the door opening. I opened my eyes and saw Sarah come into the house with something in her hand. As she drew closer, I noticed that it was a bottle of vodka.

  “Booz
e?” I asked.

  “Good eye, Ogdo. I thought I would bring you some.”

  She sounded a little off.

  “I didn’t know you liked booze,” I said. “You’re not drunk, are you?”

  “Up to me... you don’t own me,” she shot back.

  I tried to stay calm, “No I don’t, you’re right. But I do love you.”

  “If you love someone, let them go. If they never come back, they were yours… Oh fuck, you know what I mean.” She was sharply interrupted by the bottle breaking on the kitchen floor, as it fell from her hand.

  She stormed upstairs. The door to the bathroom closed. I heard the shower turn on and imagined Sarah stumbling into it. I felt fearful—war again?—but I couldn’t leave it like that. I went upstairs to join her. As I approached the bathroom, I heard her sobbing through the door. Entering, I took off my clothes. She was sitting on the tub floor crying, while the water fell directly on her head. It was oddly beautiful.

  I got into the tub and sat in front of her, my legs intertwined with hers. I reached over and softly rubbed her neck and shoulders, steam swirling around us. There was nothing to say. Soon my own tears began to fall too. I wasn’t even sure where they were coming from. A moment of empathy? A shared healing? We stayed like that until the water became cool.

  After we got out, I dried her off and carried her in my arms to the sunroom futon. I had never felt her this delicate. She seemed defeated, like a fallen soldier, or a fragile bird with broken wings. Placing her under the white duvet, I stroked her head until she fell fast asleep. Such a majestic sight, even in a room drenched in darkness.

  Concerned I would wake her if I crawled in beside her, I went back downstairs and fell asleep on the couch. A few hours later, I was awakened by the sound of Sarah bounding down the stairs. I opened my eyes and peered at her. She had a crazed look in her eyes and was moving toward me aggressively. Clearly, she wasn’t defeated. Who was this madwoman?

  “I saw that woman in the grad picture. You look like you’re fucking married. Are you married, Lowen?” she irrationally inquired.

  She moved to within a few inches of me, booze still heavy on her breath.

  “Yah, to a madwoman from Colorado.”

  “It’s not funny,” she said, with a nasty edge.

  No, it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all. Her tone was like a dagger piercing my broken-open heart. A little to the left and I staggered. A little to the right and I staggered more. With all the vulnerability that had opened up between us, I was a sitting duck for her fearful projections.

  For the next two hours, she grilled me about my relationship history.

  “How many women have you looked in the eyes during sex?”

  “How many women have you lied to?”

  “Who did you love more than me?”

  “How long till you leave me?”

  “Who else have you fucked on that ragged couch?”

  Whatever tenderness I had seen in her had been replaced by a powerhouse prosecutor determined to prove her case. Of course, every word of it was irrational. Not only was it irrelevant where I had been before, all those old patterns had already melted in the face of this love. Unfortunately, telling her this just made it worse. The more intensely I protested, the more certain she became I was lying. That’s what you call a lose-lose proposition.

  Early in the morning, she ran out of vitriol and stumbled upstairs. I fell back to sleep and had the first of what would become a recurring nightmare about us. The details were seldom the same, but the symbology always pointed in the same direction. This version featured a knight crossing a watery battlefield with the severed head of a woman in his hand. The head was Sarah’s.

  Although it was easy to imagine that the dream was reflecting this morning’s conflict, I had the oddest feeling this had really happened in a prior lifetime. Lying on the couch torn asunder by an all-night trigger-fest, I couldn’t help but wonder: Is this the lifetime that I repay my karmic debt?

  Love and French Fries

  When I finally left for the office late in the morning, I was in such a haze that I forgot my socks. I realized I was barefoot in my loafers about halfway to the subway and stopped in at a dollar store in Chinatown to buy a pair.

  Sitting down on a bench to put them on, I noticed a tall homeless man rifling through a nearby garbage can. I had seen this guy before. He looked like he had just woken up from a month-long sleep in a park, except his clothes were expensive and perfectly pressed: a Harris Tweed blazer under a full-length charcoal gray duster, a loose-fitting purple tie, and a pair of designer jeans. On the other hand, he was wearing hightop black basketball shoes with a cracked pocket watch hanging from his belt loop. I imagine the duster was there to protect his fancy wear, kind of like the way my grandmother used to cover her couches in plastic so they would last for all eternity.

  He seemed to notice me noticing him.

  “How you dudin’?” he asked.

  How you dudin’? I rolled my eyes, and then realized he was serious.

  “How my dudin’? I dudin’ shitty, if you really want to know,” I snapped.

  “Love troubles?”

  “Yah, how did you know that?” I wondered aloud.

  “You forgot your socks—usually means love troubles,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  “Or homelessness.”

  “You don’t look homeless, man,” he shot back.

  I felt like an asshole, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  He kept rifling through the garbage, pulling things out and setting them on a pushcart on the side of the road. “I know. It’s okay. Love can make us mean, especially if it’s real. You know what they say...”

  I cut the wise hobo off, “No, what do they say?”

  “The higher the mountain, the deeper the valley. If it’s real love it’s gonna bring all the pain behind it to the surface. If you really love each other, it’s got to get ugly.”

  “Right, right. The brighter the love, the darker the shadow.” Sounded familiar.

  He nodded yes, then reached into a paper bag he had pulled out of the garbage and offered me a french fry.

  I flinched. “No thanks... too early for french fries. But thanks for the words of wisdom.”

  “Anytime, kid. They call me Dude.”

  I got up and walked the rest of the way to the office, all the while thinking about love and soggy french fries. Was this Dude-guy right about love? Does it have to get ugly if it gets beautiful? Does it?

  The Glory Cave

  That evening, Sarah and I had a beautiful dinner and walk through the market. It was like nothing had happened. We held hands on the steps of the old synagogue for hours, then fell gently asleep in each other’s arms on the sunroom futon.

  A few days later, on a rainy Saturday, we took a drive to one of my favorite places in the world: Goshen Provincial Park. About an hour north of Toronto, the park has a pristine, otherworldly quality. Limestone cliffs and cozy caves meet waterfalls and ancient potholes in a cornucopia of mystical delight.

  The day was so perfectly complete that words were unnecessary. As we wandered the park, we took the soulevator up another level as the boundary between us further disintegrated. Initially alone, then co-independent, and now soul-united, we walked through the forest like a one bodied minotaur o’ love. There was no distinction between us and the outer world. The forest laughed. We were the laughing forest. Intertwined branches rooted in divinity.

  That’s the thing about great love. It elevates everything around it. You walk through a forest together and it becomes a great temple. You eat a meal together and you sit at God’s banquet table. You merge your bodies and all heaven breaks loose. That’s why we can’t stop singing about love. Every verse is a cry for wholeness.

  We splashed and kissed our way to the edge of the river, where we began to climb, stepping gingerly on the rocks, looking for a hidden treasure to explore. At precisely the same moment, we spotted a small t
riangular cave opening, peeking out from behind dense brush. A cave after our own heart. It appeared as though someone had tried to cloak it deliberately.

  “Someone doesn’t want this cave to be found, baby,” Sarah said.

  “Makes me more curious... I’ll go in, first,” I confidently replied.

  Removing the brush, I got down on my knees, while Sarah reminded me to be careful: “Ogdo, remember—you’re an intellectual. You don’t do caves.”

  I ignored the smart ass and crawled in, quickly reaching the back of the space. It was a small cave, no more than five feet deep, with very little headroom. If we were going to share it, we would have to get close. I reached for her hand and she crawled in to join me.

  With the brush cleared, the cave was just bright enough for us to see one another. Sarah wrapped her legs around mine as we looked into each other’s eyes. Marveling at her radiance—a glory glory hallelujah that never failed to sing me home—my heart quickened. She looked so pure in the softly muted light, like a timeless garden of wonder, wet with rain. My love was blossoming in her garden.

  The rain soon intensified outside, and we began kissing furiously. The energy quickly accelerated as Sarah reached down and unzipped me, taking my ready penis and sliding it inside her while she contorted in the strangest of positions. The ground was cold, but our bodies were hot, as we made love like twisted pretzels on the cave floor. It was steamy wild—a perfect end to a perfect adventure.

  We drove home in a peaceful silence. I am convinced that if we have even one perfect day in our life, we can endure almost anything that follows.

  The next morning we began to fight again. It started with one of her pet peeves—I left the bedroom without kissing her good morning—and then escalated. When she didn’t respond to a simple question, my abandonment issues spiked into awareness. When I sloppily mentioned a woman from my past, her betrayal issues were ignited. By nightfall, Sarah had retreated to the sunroom futon, and I was sleeping on the couch.