Dear Reader,
If I were to tell you a story of how my faith in humanity was restored, would you believe it? Would you read it?
What if I told you that, very infrequently, we are lucky enough to meet someone that both reaffirms our belief in the beauty of the human spirit and simultaneously allows us to see the beauty inherent in ourselves? Would you read that? Would you believe it?
No, I'm not sure I would either.
But here I am. And that's what I'm telling you.
Sabrina, whom I met several days ago, reached inside of me and flipped a switch I had forgotten about.
In a rush of warmth and desire, I felt accepted, valued, and safe. In our entire interaction, there wasn't a hint of artifice.
She is a consummate professional, and she was beautifully herself.
Her eyes, ranging from gold, to rye, to earth, have the ability to dart at you half lidded when you tell a joke, checking to see if you're kidding...
Her eyes have also spotted that Oxford comma and they are ok with it. (Though I suspect she thinks the ellipsis is a bridge too far.)
She's smarter than I am, I don't think I could be anything other than upfront with her.
So I was. She took my hand and allowed me to be me, inviting me to meet her, to share herself with me.
Reader - when someone does you the honor of giving you a piece of themselves - there is only one possible reciprocation. Give yourself in return. I did, and was rewarded with a level of intimacy, trust and acceptance I've rarely experienced.
Without any reservation, I can tell you that this woman is, for me, a person who expanded my understanding of what it means to be human. She gave me new ways to experience my own humanity, and in doing so allowed me to define the rest of the world in new ways as well.
She is compassionate. She is so beautiful, it could stop your heart. She is kind. She is brilliant. By brilliant I mean - she's smarter than you are, smarter than I am, and even though she knows this she believes she has something to learn from you. She sees the value of you. You will, inevitably, learn more from her than you teach.
She honestly, truly cares about the people she meets. Weather she's working or bumps into you at the grocery store - this is person who cares about people.
She is strong. She has the strength of someone who knows themselves and who knows the world she lives in.
She is, also and by the way, ENTIRELY fucking adorable. From the moment we met I wanted to pick her up and put her in my pocket.
She is funny, in the way that only one who's looked behind the big curtain can be. She made me to laugh out loud, from the belly. (And given the size of my belly, that's a damn good laugh.)
Love is a moment, it is fleeting and transient. It is not a steady state, no matter what people have told you. We feel it once and we are drawn back to it, again and again, so we might feel it once more. If we are lucky and smart, if we learn and pay attention, we join ourselves to people that create a reality in which we are more likely to feel it than not.
I am not an innocent. I am not naive. Sabrina gave me the gift of feeling loved. She respected my humanity, my identity.
I can count on two hands the number of times that I felt that accepted, that I felt so loved. She held me, and in return I let go. I let go of all that I thought I was, I let go of my own well worn way of understanding myself, and in return I was given a new pair of eyes. A new way to see myself.
Turns out, I'm not so bad after all.
I may never see her again, and if that's true my life will be the poorer for it. But, I will never forget the way her back felt under my hand. I will always remember the way her curls of brass and copper twined around my fingers. I remember how she smelled (a low hint of spice, like cumin, or coriander; with something lusher above that, floral and citrus, luxurious. A soft and fuzzy nod to musk, like vanilla or cream. Not a perfume, mind - but rather her own scent, skin and sweat and all. Completely intoxicating.)
Her touch was a balm, and her generosity of spirit overwhelmed me. She healed parts of me I didn't know were hurt. I'm grateful, delighted, and proud that I can count her among the number of people whom I have known, who have known me, accepted me, and shaped me.
So as you've seen, this is part review and part soliloquy. Dear reader - I don't write these words for you but instead, I write them because they should be written down. Because some things are that good, that important. They should be remembered, they should be written down, and they should be shared.
Good should be shared.
Sabrina knows this, and if you are very, very lucky, she can teach it you you.
