Loving Strangeness

I saw you today. I saw you in the woods sitting alone. You seemed reflective, but also a little hurt. As I approached, you looked up from the log in the clearing you were sitting on--the one by the small pond with the frogs. You looked up and your face screamed anticipation, hope, and reluctance all at the same time.

It was nice to see you--that was the first thing I thought. It was nice to see you sitting--looking so beautiful--in such a beautiful place.

"Hello."

"Hello you. Can I sit?"

"Sure."

"What is it you would like to talk about?"

"Love."

"I suspected as much.

So, I sat. I sat and spoke. I told you about what I had thought about in times I had time to think; times spent in less beautiful places."

"I met one. I met a woman--one that said she had met the One. Listening to her, I realized something about myself, and about love."

"Go on."

"Well, I used to agree with her. I used to think that someday I would meet the One--I would meet the One for whom I was destined--the only One--the One that was for me. I used to think I would meet the One that would give me the stability, the unity, and the identity of an unchanging, unlonging, settled soul. I used to think I would be converted and in doing so receive the salvation of earth--love. I used to think love was being converted to One--to becoming fully united with one--and letting our respective selves pass into a Selfsameness that surpassed words, surpassed all other relationships, and colored every breath of our interaction with the world."

"Okay."

"I will never love you that way; in fact, to do so would be to kill both of us. I don't want a love that takes my breath away, or yours for that matter. I don't want a love that is akin to death. I don't want the end of desire--the end of need--the end of longing."

"Okay."

"No, if I am going to love you it will always be as a stranger. You will always be a stranger to me--as strange or more as time goes on, no matter how long we spend together. You will always be strange to me--you will always be other. Instead of the One, you will be the Other. We won't be united. No. We will stay infinitely separate. The distance between us won't ever dissipate. No. We'll always be isolated little souls--treading in the sea of singularities. You will always be away--apart--altogether different. And, that is how I will love you. I will love you with a longing that will only stop when the possibility of myself stops. I will love you infinitely across a distance I know cannot be overcome, most of all, because it is an eternal one and I am so, so mortal. I will love you as a stranger in my home--in my arms--one I cannot, will not understand--comprehend--or grasp. I will love you as a blurred, bedazzling appearance I can't reduce, and therefore, one that demands my attention, my devotion, my interest in ways I can never fulfill. I won't love you as my One--I won't kill you or me. I won't love you as the One. I'll love you as my Other--as the Stranger inside me--the one crawling around--touching me in places I didn't know I had--places exhilirating and uncomfortable at the same time. I'll love you as one haunting me--calling me ever toward you. I'll love you as a foreigner inside myself--inside a land with precarious borders, and unknown topography. I'll love you even though I can't--even though eternity won't let me."

"Thank you for sharing. I appreciate what you have said."

"You are welcome."

The One

I met a woman today--one. I met one. She told me about the One she had met; or, at least thought she had met.

The one I met thought she had met the One--the only one, the one for eternity, the one that would be hers forever without a change, the one that would make her complete and let her begin living for the first time.

"Wow, congratulations. That is amazing."

"Thank you. It is all a bit much, but I am overwhelmed with happiness, joy--so many things I guess."

"How did you know he was the One? I mean how can one know they know the One? How does one identify him?"

"I don't know. There is no science to it--it isn't a matter of rationality, or of logic. Nope. It's a feeling you get deep inside--somewhere you didn't know you had--somewhere that hasn't ever been touched before. I guess you could call it that virginal soul deep down--the one deep inside."

"That is ironic to me."

"Why?" she said in disapproval.

"So, you mean to tell me, that to know that the one you have met is the One--he has to penetrate you first? It just seems counter-intuitive, that's all I am saying."

She didn't like this. She didn't like my talk of penetration and irony. So, she left. She didn't even finish her drink.

What is all this about the One? And, why is the One so deeply, deeply, penetratingly connected to love?

The whole time I was talking to that woman I didn't know if we were talking religion or romance; conversion or coitus; tongues or tongue.

Where did this come from--this myth of the One? Where does the desire for Him or Her or It come from? And, which one do I want? Which one of the Ones do I want--religion or romance? Do I want to be converted to the One of eternity, or captured by the One of romance?

Maybe, I don't want either. Maybe, it is ironically the opposite. I want to be penetrated--entered--filled--and thus, hopefully, in the end, unified with the One--with the Spiritual Groom. Maybe all I ever wanted was to be filled--in that virginal--vaginal place ones from Augustine to Eckhart to womanizers such as Kundera and Klima--have called the soul. Maybe all I want is to be filled forever--consummated by the consummate One--the One that will never leave me, will never change, will never break a promise, and never ever stop loving me.

Maybe I want to be converted to the One that stands in front of me--takes my breath away--and give myself--as best as I know possible to that One. Maybe I want to surrender me in order to gain a we that didn't exist beforehand. Maybe I want to convert--take vows--and never look back.

And, maybe, just maybe--these dual myths of the One are and have always been blurred into indistinction. Maybe, just maybe, they are the same thing.

I met one today--one that wanted the One. She was so excited. She was so happy.