Until it seeps into our pores and we are nothing but Sweetness itself

Darling,

I hope I don't lose my train of thought, the smoothness of my ideas. I was about to take a shower before dinner when I heard Daddy shouting, fighting with Betsy. I tried to listen, but all I could discern was the plaintive quality of my daddy's voice towards his wife. And it broke my heart.

He slammed out into the backyard, walked across the grass, and then started to cry. I almost didn't believe it at first, but I could hear it clearly from the upstairs window. He was standing in the garden, crying. The moonlight flickered across him, and for a moment I began to sob myself, but somehow swallowed the tears.

It was in that moment - something struck me deep inside, and I arrived at an understanding, a clear picture of something that had always been blurry. I thought of you, and suddenly I wanted to hold you and pour everything out of my heart. All the thoughts I've been keeping to myself, afraid to give them away. Afraid of being wrong, or being rejected, or losing them to the wind and never feeling them again.

I showered in the dark, with nothing but a solitary glimpse of light from the window pouring onto a couple tiles on the wall. I felt a profoundness in that moment - a peace that contained a piece of purity. I couldn't grasp it, couldn't hold it in my hands, but I could feel it, just as I could feel the water slipping off my fingers. My fingertips could no sooner grasp those water droplets than my mind could grasp a complete understanding of what was happening inside me - what was happening in the universe an that moment.


* * * *

I went to Daddy and I hugged him. He cried some more. We sat down at the kitchen table and haphazardly attempted to eat dinner with Betsy. Beyond being awkward, this arrangement only resulted in another fight between the two of them, and Betsy claiming to pack her bags and leave. All Daddy could do was hang his head and say, 'I'm so tired'� and 'We should be so happy.'

I sat there watching the scene play out before me, in the hazy yellow light of the kitchen.

I pushed my plate away and placed my napkin over what was left of my meal.

 

We should be so happy.

* * * *

I turned up the heat of the water until it burned against my skin; then I melted into the shadows of the shower.

You and me� We could go beyond this. That's what I thought about in that shower. I'm writing all this to you because I think perhaps you will understand. I want to go beyond this - beyond the temporal world... into the eternal. And the only eternal sphere is that of Love. Many believe in it, but they don't believe in themselves enough to enter it.

Oh, you just called me. From the Whistling Swan. It is timing like that which only makes me believe these thoughts all the more.

What am I trying to say? Like I said, the feeling is there but the words are so slippery.

The eternal: I want to enter it with you. I want to go beyond the bickering and the bashing, the sarcasm and the scathing remarks. I want to go beyond work and school and eating and sleeping (perhaps not sleeping, if it means laying next to you). I want our ages and our scenes and our pasts to mean nothing. I want it to be you and me, thrown together into a cruel, chaotic world, and I want to survive it - with you. I want to live on a different level, one where everyday concerns and jealousies, remarks and ill-meaning people cannot touch us.

Of course we still have to live our lives. We cannot escape to a mountain retreat and live solely with nature (as wonderful as that may sound), but what we can do is change the way we live, the way we think and breathe and speak. We can look at the beauty, at the things that are good and true. Sadness is everywhere, pain is everywhere, but so are happiness and sweetness.

Let us cherish the sweetness; swim in it, really,

Until it seeps into our pores and we are nothing but Sweetness itself.


* * * *

Okay, I lost my train of thought. I'm sitting here and I understand, but I can't write it correctly, coherently. I'm so scared that it's slipping away, that I won't feel it again and I can't share it enough with you. I want you to understand, I want you to want it, too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love you. My love for you is potentially my one great love - it's too soon to know, really, but what is time? I feel like we have been together foreve, when in fact we've been together for a heartbeat, and forever is before us. The question is: how will we live that forever? How will we treat the moments that are given to us? One of us could slip away tomorrow; I can't imagine you not being in my life.

So let us cherish every second, let us be awed by Love and the way it slips under the skin and refuses to let go. Let us be love personified. Let us... be happy.

* * * *

Sometimes on early fall days, I walk outside and everything is still. The air is hung suspended, and my skin is transparent with sweetness. There is a softness to the air, a cold layer of silk across my skin. I can barely move in those moments; I can barely breathe. I feel as though the earth has wrapped itself around me and made me it's own: I feel home there, in that sensorial present.

That is how I felt in that shadowy shower, feeling the feelings I have towards you, and the feelings I have towards life.

Those two ideas flow together so well. You. Life. You. Life.       You.

Forever,

Your Karabelle

Reviews

[Taja B.]

wow....this is so good...its really poetic and real. in the way that you wrote it, it was written as if it could be a narrative but the way you have written it ....its way too real to be fiction.good work!!!

[Pictures Of Me]

Whew, I should have taken my prozac before reading that.

This piece will stick with me like Christmas pie on a woman's hips. I'm gonna wake up with "you, life, you, life" in my head... like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown.

[Francis Meyrick]

I loved this. It's not often I read a story several times, walk off, ponder it, and read it again. What you're describing there is sometimes referred to as a "peak experience".
With a seemingly much more intensified awareness, on the emotional, as well as the physical level. And some people would say, on a level way, way beyond that... You describe it feelingly, and in a way I can instantly relate to. What was very interesting for me was the way you dealt with the "fleeting" element. The fear that it will be gone, slip through your fingers.
I know what you mean. I had the same intensity of feeling for what I called a "millisecond" in a totally different but similar story I wrote called the "Guinea Pig". You hit me spot on the right wavelength. I also enjoyed Lyttleton's review below, which expressed more eloquently than I could the feelings your piece created.
Stylistically, there are some little things, but who cares? This was written from the hip, and only a cold hearted cynic could relish pulling it apart.
Thanks for sharing.

[Gandré]

A wonderful story full of realism. I enjoyed it. I don't write now a lot, as still learning how to write reviews on stories.

[Lyttleton]

I read this last night, and then this morning I looked and saw I didn't review it and I was confused.
Now I read it again and I realized why I didn't comment on it.... because I was speechless. God, this is great, really so rich and heartbreaking and beautiful.

I think this has to be non-fiction, because if this were a work of fiction I might just cry and give up writing. The way that everything in this is so absolutely personal, so completely honest to this particular situation and this (your?) life, and yet never once did I feel excluded from the images or the sentiment or the truth. You write so achingly transparently... I simultaneously believe in "Andrew" and believe this is written to me... to anyone that reads this.

The "we should be so happy" part... brilliant, great detail, very real.

It is so rare that someone can talk about love and not come off as trite, as clich�, as redundant, or, and this is much worse, as snide. For a love letter to be so affecting and yet not played up for cheap sentiment is flat out miraculous in a day and age where every writer is a cynic and everyone "gets it". No, love doesn't heal all and it doesn't give us fairy tale endings, but like you said in this piece, maybe you can just be 'happy' with it.

It's the contrast that works in here so well... the optimism in the face of this reality you describe without even really describing it... just letting the voices and the moments say it all.

Beautiful words, finely crafted. I wouldn't change a thing, I'd be afraid the whole thing would crumble like jenga blocks.

[Jeremy]

Yes, your title is right,this piece is nothing but sweetness itself. A man would be lucky to be loved by a woman with such heart and soul as you have. If the story was longer I would be reading all night, and I still feel like I could read it a few more times.

[Djf]

this is beautiful. so achingly beautiful. and so achingly familiar.

i don't know what went wrong though.

i love this.

[Lola Nation]

Dear God, I remember having thoughts like these, thank God they've been banished, full of false hope... hope not to be like Bestsy and Dad - to be one - to be in love - and "Oh. You just called me. From the Whistling Swan. What timing, eh? Oh, it just makes me believe it all the more. " of course that was a sign...

and yet, it's still beautiful and surreal and makes me believe - it could happen right?

(I hope the whistling swan aint a strip club)

Great write.

[Gordon Greene]

What you say and the emotions you put forth in the beginning of this piece are summed so well in the last.
Love is not truly forever until the end, but real love brings forgiveness, truth and finally, peace.
Family and relations only serve to make the bond strong or break it... forever.
Love and life is what you make it, and this piece conveys it beautifully.
g.g.

[J. Ackson Jr.]

That was well worth the read.

"You and I� we could go beyond this. I want to go beyond this�beyond the temporal world into the eternal. And the only eternal sphere is that of love. Many believe in it, but they don�t believe in themselves enough to enter it."

You've captured the essence of true love. This piece is beautiful. great job.