I feel your thick and fluffy curls that I love so much, while my fingers are finding their way to your tiny head on my chest. This morning, that seems like the last, they feel heavy and sad. Train’s coming soon, I take a picture. No more words but „I love you“. Door slams, you drive away crying. Me too.
On a peak of strength I was able to make a first step towards you. With all my bravery, being able to live by the knowledge that trust in life is the only thing necessary to make all the right moves. I am inviting you to be playful with me as if life were an endless dance. All the confidence I am shining out towards you, makes you step into my boat that we gently push away from shore.
You lived in a tiny tent between old festival fabric and the fence to the desert when I first met your beautiful soul. I had just given up on the idea of living in a certain space between four walls, and you had given up the idea of becoming what they say is a professional dancer. We met on a playground where all experiments were welcome and all the doors were wide open. Our lips first touched under a blanket filled with light and for the first time in my life, the opportunities for exploration with another seemed as endless as the desert’s night sky above us. And from this fairytale beginning, the celebration of lightness was as much a part of our connection as facing the darkness within us, honest and open-hearted. It is a precious gift, finding you to share this with but constant work is demanded of our connection, which I had not yet learnt how to do.
After some time, the first waves start shaking us and the shore still feels close enough for each of us to jump out and take a short swim that would reward us with the safety of the land we know how to be stable on. But we choose to stay and try to find a paddling rhythm that could take us out onto the sea on which we might find an island to build dreams on. It takes all our patience being gentle with each others needs, with the pasts that we both have to overcome to freely let ourselves fall, trusting that this new connection can become a blooming flower if we let it. And all of a sudden, just when it feels like we were creating a unique bond by celebrating the loving dance and the dark tales together, you share your desire to go on a sexual adventure with someone else.
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It comes as a hard punch out of nowhere and throws me down to the ground. You say, “Trust me and trust the universe that what is supposed to happen, will happen.” A river of fearful tears run down my cheeks. I don’t understand how the beauty we created and the work we have done together suddenly seems to be so worthless for you. Why would you put that at risk for the joy of a moment with another? Although I want to find a different way of shaping relationship than the Christian monogamy I learned at home, taking a step in this direction in these early days makes me want to run as far away as I can. But eventually, I choose to stay and accept the challenge life is giving me through you.
Learning to have trust in the bird flying back to you if we are to share the way is a difficult lesson to learn. Growing up, we learned that we’re supposed to create a cage around us, that would be the space to be in. With every minute she is not with me and may be with another, I am constantly asking myself if the pain I am feeling is my heart’s truth or a reaction I was taught to have when my idea of trust is challenged. And in this spiritual world in which we’re meeting, these ideas of shaping relationships are often said to be the enlightened ones and the ones you should strive for. Neither way of relating is good or bad - it is a personal question of what feels right for you. To know your heart’s truth, scary risks over the current lines of comfort and painful realisations need to be made. If not for taking the risk, why else did I leave onto this journey out of comfort and into discovery?
The time came when we had to leave the intense processing in the safe environment of the Ashram. Although all worries concerning the outside world were taken away from us, at some point, the opportunities for us to grow lacked space. Will the “us” survive out there and where will this “out there” be? Thousands of kilometers and many man-made borders are in between us but the belief that we could build a life together, somehow, somewhere or everywhere, is strong enough to enable us to jump.
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We’re in our bubble, connecting through the rhythm of the wise, old forests we feel a part of. We’re throwing ourselves into the mighty, freezing waters. Their energy pinches every cell of our bodies’ and come out in a joyful scream for the love of feeling life! My home was the road with only a few things to carry. You came to share my dream of freedom and the constant exploration of the new. We stuck our thumb out toward the road and got carried away by the everyday uncertainty of what, where and with whom. The ultimate ticket to life's roller coaster. Home was where our hearts were - near the highways, in nature with utopian Rainbow tribes or alone under the stars, guarded by the trees, dreaming away with the sound of the leaves.
Until rain sets in, a word said too much, a touch that isn’t gentle and our beautiful castle of sand is washed away while we’re stuck together in a tiny broken tent. With time and patience, we learnt to give each other space and when coming back together, we were wise enough to see the sand and a foundation were still there. We would start again, with hands that had become more caring, to build a stronger castle, for our togetherness.
We both grew up in the cosiness of a warm family under a safe roof. So being on the road carrying all our belongings on our backs without knowing where our little house would give us shelter tonight was an extreme experience. Basic life questions became essential to be asked on a daily basis. Do we have food, water and a safe place to sleep? It is cleansing to be asking these questions instead of, “Which movie are we seeing tonight?”. It changes the perspective on what is essential and provides a different base for the question, “What do we really need and what effort are we willing to take for having this in our life?”. And when we allow ourselves the luxury of a dinner brought to our table in a cosy restaurant, you have that look in your eyes, full of thankfulness - as if I had come back from a day’s long hunt, to fill our bellies and warm our skins by the fire.
I came to the desert to share your dream of a safe place to lay our heads. A little structure and a bit of working with my bare hands gave me balance. A boss to be annoyed at helps me work harder at making my dream of being a free artist come true. But on my journey through life, other beings are needed. They are mirrors, inspiration, teachers and dance partners. There are only so few in the desert.
You didn’t want to need others. If being whole within yourself is possible, you would want to be in that place inside alone. This is the junction where we meet - flying high on love, only to crash again. Where we learn and grow from each other. Following our hearts has led us to this cross road and experiencing this growth together is what makes me love you.
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After our time of hitchhiking into the unknown, I realised that I had reached the other pole that would be too extreme for me to live for long. Somewhere in between the stable money-making path with an apartment in the city and the life of a full-power hippie, the right balance for me should be found. Now my home had four wheels and provided a shelter that could be moved around freely wherever we chose to go. You came back to Europe and the sheer size of that continent in comparison to your tiny home country with locked borders all around, stood as a symbol for the needs each of us found to be essential for ourselves. For the next step to be taken, one of us had to give up some of their needs. I could not provide you with a home to settle, neither was I ready to leave my idea of freedom to stay with you in the lovely home you would create for us.
One day, when Summer showed its last little peak of beauty we celebrated with a trip into higher consciousness. It became clearer in our emotions and words that we wouldn’t be able to continue holding hands like this. You composed a beautiful image that would stay in my head, and asked me if life on the move is really what I wanted to hold on to, or had I actually found what I was looking for with you? A mighty mountain peaked behind a scenery of trees and grass in deeply saturated tones of green. You stood in the middle of that field, wearing just my blue jacket like a baby that just wears clothes for the purpose of staying warm. You looked into the distance, dreaming of a far-away land but happy to go home to the little wooden house behind you - to start a fire, make a tea and enjoy the freedom of just being, without having to run. I could join you but the tickling in my feet doesn’t yet let me. I felt my love for you, brighter than ever, and that may be why I was able to let go of us as a couple in the way we had learned to think of it.
How close are we able to align our paths, that until now we mostly walked in countries far apart? How much can we open our hearts to let each one be free to experience with others far away but still honor our love? Are we curious and brave enough to find a way of sharing love so differently from the idea we were told to be the only one there is? Do we need to share most of our time together, under the same roof, in the same country to really be loving each other? Are we finding a way to continue the journey following our hearts? Or are we saying goodbye?
Almost a year has passed since the morning I got on the train to leave your land with all these questions ahead of us and without knowing if we will be seeing each other again. We just hung up the phone after a long conversation ending with us telling each other, “I love you” - and meaning it from the bottom of our hearts. Our love went into a different phase and took another shape than the one it had when we shared life more closely. But the core of what we built through our experiences together is so strong that it can carry our connection above the distraction of our egos’ wants. We know the value of what we created in hard work and find strength and safety in knowing we are not alone.
Israel and Europe 2016 -2017