I cannot explain it. I cannot recreate it. I can only tell you that I didn’t know what I was looking for, but, nonetheless, it was what I found.

Twice?

I found it first in silence, at college. The young woman I loved, after an evening of affection, sat a few feet apart from me as we looked at each other in silence. Neither of us averted our eyes during an hour in the stillness. There was no plan or agreement. It just happened.

I could say we created a sacred space, the space around us and between us. I might offer that, but I am not sure what it means. It seemed that something more was there, more than what could be defined, transcendence from one state to another, floating and ethereal.

Together, but innocent.

Much later, in a relationship at a distance with a different woman, the two of us unconsciously erased the miles by creating a bridge of words, and sometimes a beam of voices. We lived for this tightrope and met each other there when geography separated us.

Not so easy, you say? You are right. But we came to see each other without sight, understanding each other beyond knowledge and surfaces. We were vulnerable, missed our missing fathers, and honest to the point of painfulness.

The words do not do the relationship justice. They never do.

I retain friends from fifth grade and later, as well as from high school. I retain buddies, period, you might say, and have platonic love for some of them. With many, there is atypical openness. It helps to be a clinical psychologist.

I am lucky to have my children and grandchildren close by, the former after years away, mostly at school.

If heaven awaits as good as advertised, I will welcome it. In the meantime, in an uneasy world, I look for friendship, silent communion, ways to repair the world, spontaneous laughter, and the chance to say “I love you.”

I laugh with physical therapists and MDs, too. Sometimes one can make necessities into opportunities, at least a bit. In life, there is no free lunch. Lives must be shaped, reshaped, and adapted. We must live and love “despite.”

Do as much as you can in the time you have.

Join the club if you can. No requirements.

It is spring, after all.

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The image is Alphonse Mucha’s Spring,1896, sourced from Wikiart.org/