As you walk along the sidewalk your feet cannot merge with the earth. The leaves in trees will forever blow beside you. As long as you are living the sky will exist above you. My hand against yours will forever be smaller and no matter how hard we press upon each other we will never completely merge. You can spin me out into the floor of life, letting go while still feeling my presence. We dance alone while still dancing together. Magnetically we coalesce cultivating our rhythmic promenade. Spiraling outwards into all the coordinates of this floor and then meeting again in the middle. We languish. We are forever foreign no matter how familiar. We enunciate where we are while we occupy the same space. To move together we must speak each other’s language. As we evolve individually new words will need to be translated to express the full scope of where we now find ourselves. To dance on the same floor, we must remain innovative. We will need to find new moves to grow together.
We choose to dance on the same floor for the rest of our lives within the world of floors. One day one of us will stop dancing. The floor will never reflect absence into our eyes quite like this day. Where the music streams together scenes of our shared moments, you imagine leaning me backwards. We both feel weightless. I am a memory within the permanence of our separation. Forever in your arms, forever separate.
As you whisper silence softly into my ear, embers flutter all around us from the burning fire of adventure we both loudly ruminate on. While we travel, we still dance. Alone I travel at the edge of the world along the tracks of this sacred solitude. I lean my head against this leather seat watching the trees merge from constant motion. Lifting my cheek from the seat I draw my attention inward staring at the empty seat before me. Imagination begins to paint you into where I am. Your eyes smiling at me, you tap my foot with yours. As you look out the window with me, your laughter echoes through my mind, and I am here. Where I am. Becoming aware of the time, I am no longer somewhere else. The mountain side takes the shape of our windows. You are not home. I listen to the bird singing outside, and I accept that what will be, will be. Separation does not inherently mean permanence. Your absence does not sadden me. Even if I sat along the floor weeping in the reflection of your Truest absence, I would still dance once I stood up. Often in your honor. I will not always have something to hold on to, I may be twirling solo infinitely through the center of the floor. I can exist without you, enjoy the world I live in, and still await your presence. Wherever we are, we are. It is possible for two people to be together without belonging to one another. Where they have a sacred relationship that takes on its own form. No one is obligated to stay, to be the others Other. The choice to be together is always on the table.
Cherish the experience you have in world with all things. Even a separation of impermanence could unintentionally be permanent. Life has its way of casting tragedy upon us and giving us new gardens to eat from. In the absence of the Other you may see how much their presence means to you. Even if when they are present you know this, in their absence it becomes clearer.
You are a being-in-the-world. You live in a fundamental separateness from everything that exists beyond you, while you can never separate yourself completely from the world while you are living. No exposure, no disclosure, no nakedness, no corporeal friction will ever dissolve our asymmetrical nature. We will forever live-in relation to The Other.
© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist
