tonight i want to talk about what i love.
there are difficult things in my life, and i spend a lot of time here
talking about them; but i have been astonishingly lucky in people. i
am friends with the most extraordinary humans on this planet; with people
who redeem this species, who make up for the idiot cruelties we inflict
on each other. and among the most precious of these people are queer
arabs.
thinking about the ways that we stay connected, when we live so far
away, i am struck by the role of dreams. yes, we use email; yes we use
the phone (i marvel at the strength of my response to the voice of a
man i may never met...) but i have never known another group of people
who stayed connected by dreams.
after my beloved spent three days in the hospital he phoned me to
tell me he had dreamed of me while he was there. i was struck awed and
silent thinking about that; i did not know how to express the love,
concern, and deep deep honor i felt. if we lived on the same continent
i would go to the hospital with him to hold his hand; since i was not
able to do that i feel deeply grateful that he kept me with him in dreams.
oh, habibi.
earlier in the week my sweet sweet in san francisco wrote me about
a dream that she had about him, about us. about what has been on all
of our minds recently; a mystery in his past. about how we are the choice.
i got the email and all the hairs on my body stood up; my body tried
to do something more intense than crying. i wrote her back about how
my awe that we are together, when our bodies are so apart. again, it
is almost too hard to write about. awe.
she tells me that there is a phrase in arabic, that when we dream
of each other it means that our hearts are together. i find it frightening
and it is beautiful. i keep thinking of the odds against us finding
each other, in this huge and difficult world; i keep thinking of how
astonishing it is that we move in each other's daily lives despite distance
and all else that keeps us apart.
i don't remember my dreams; i am not as close to my own deep intuition
as these friends. but i am deeply grateful to know that i touch them
in their minds, walk through their dreams in the way that i long to
walk with them in sunlight.
i am astonished by this web of dreams.