A green shadow flits across the wall. I grow old between breaths. The memory of you heartens me. You are the net beneath my aerial act—

As close as we are and as close as I hope we become, it was important for me to get away, to bury myself in cool sheets to stare at the ceiling–rain chattering above.  It was important for me to delineate myself; to work alone, eat alone. It was so important for me to lie awake in bed thinking of the long ago-summer in the south of France. I shyly spread my towel over the pebbles and sand and removed my top.  The old couple fished with nets in the water near me. They laughed and I lost my embarrassment. It was important for me to remember the lover I took—to remember myself young and unknowing.

There is a highway between us and through it we are connected. When you wake miles away, I wake. When a thought of me surfaces in your mind I am aware too of you. I believe in a psychic fabric that connects us all.

I wish I had brought an instrument to play in these lovely, lonely hours—a guitar, a harmonica; or even a great and grand piano, hauled miraculously on my very own back.

I will miss this place. I wish to return soon. I found peace here .

Final entry from Retreat Writings–July 2011