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In my dream, he was dying. I had slipped a man a fatal injection (it had to be done, to save the world, you see), and as he was lying there on the ground, suddenly he was Abe. And when he realized what I had done he was pissed, briefly and intensely (understandable), and then he looked up at me and realized that his time was limited. And he dropped the anger, instantly, and in its place there was only love. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…” He paused, sensing that he was beginning to go. He half grinned, half grimaced, shook his head to slow the oncoming cloud, looked up at me and repeated, earnestly, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love—” I couldn’t take it. I woke up, sobbing. The night before, I vomited leeches. Something is opening, loosening. I don’t think I realized that I had built up these layers of resistance, these filters dulling the signal as it moved from my heart to my expression, from my senses back to my heart. But they are beginning to seriously lift. What’s most clear in my memory is that Abe-in-the-dream immediately chose love. When there was time for anger, he allowed it, but suddenly there was no time left—and then there was only the only thing that mattered most, that mattered utterly: the love, the love, the love. I will remember forever that half-distracted grin as he registered and pushed aside his own failing consciousness, to lock eyes with me again and make sure that this is how we spent these moments, these last moments we had in this way. “Inspired” doesn’t touch it. This is how I want to live. With this unrelenting choosing, choosing again to hold the live wire of love, and to hold on tight. The tears come easy, when I consider this, when I remember. I choose this. I want this, badly. The last 24 hours have felt tender, like new flesh—not raw-as-in-bleeding, but raw-as-in-I-can-feel-everything. And, to my surprise, it feels like relief. I didn’t realize how tiring it has been, to resist my own flow, even if only a little at a time. It is a relief I can feel, bodily, to drop all those layers of resistance at once and to lie open, open, open, allowing all, feeling all. And I feel like I can feel what’s coming, too, in a way that feels new—there’s some new sense opening, and I can hear it calling, though I do not yet know its tongue. Today is Abe’s birthday. There is no better gift I can give him than this thing I think I asked for at some fundamental level, beyond thought: this opening, loosening, free-en-ing sense of being. We can only love others as much as we can love at all, and this love (how is this possible) feels more present, more itself than ever before. I haven’t really stopped crying since yesterday. I don’t ever want to stop.
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