you are free

Once we accept that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, we can live wonderfully side by side. As long as we succeed in loving the distance between one another, each of us can see each other as whole against the sky.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Not long ago I wrote a letter to a friend sharing what I appreciated most about Theo, “he is a freedom enabler and within this freedom I not only fell deeply in love with him but also with myself.” Whenever Theo and i find ourselves in those difficult emotional places, three empowering and enabling words come to his lips, “you are free.” Free to be me, free to express myself, free to cry, free to speak loud, free to laugh, to leave, accuse, blame, say sorry, say nothing…free. Theo not only says these words but embodies them through the secure confident love he possesses for those he loves and for his own free self.

It is within this context of love I found the greatest love, self- love! With this new sense of self that rises and falls like the ebbing of the tide, I learn how to feed inevitable longings that occur within this deep well of freedom; longings that stretch far and wide within Theo and I’s vast yet cherished differences. I realize now intimacy is so much more than reaching out to what one believed to be familiar within a western romantic context.

And then a book comes along giving language to these feelings and speaks of this word ‘intimacy’ and our universal longing for intimacy. In the book, Becoming an Adult in Relationship: Five Keys to Mindful Loving, David Richo identifies five A’s, affection, appreciation, acceptance, attention, and allowing as the five keys to mindful loving. Richo believes the five A’s are foundational to meeting our universal need for intimacy. However he also believes that we should expect only 25% of these needs to be met by our partner and the other percentange should be found through work, friendships, community, family, interests, hobbies, and our own inner resources.

Richo states our need for affection, appreciation, acceptance, attention, and allowing begins at birth and moves into our childhood. He believes if these needs are not met or abused, ignored, punished, ridiculed then we grow up either fearing intimacy or deeply longing for more and more. Within the past year I have learned that I do not need to find familiar cultural romantic contexts in order to find nutrients for these longings. As Sinead Oconor sings so beautifully, “I am enough for myself” and with that enoughness I find this human longing for intimacy nurtured through writing poetry, fiction, political and social essays; reading soul-reaching, courageous, and critical literature; conversing one on one with past friends over tall cups of green tea; listening and singing revolutionary songs with sistren on the path; painting my fierce soul women across canvases; walking on old country roads with warrior girlfriends; coordinating and facilitating peace and conflict programs workshops, activities; being intimately connected with community both here in the Village and Antigonish.

And so where is the love between two people in all this you may be thingking? Well it is here, here amidst his or her own passions. And in Theo’s case he is here doing his own thing; farming nutmeg, cocoa and banana; coaching school and village teams; tending to his goats and cow, inhaling the spirit of his rasta culture and then of course there is the 25% reserved for one another! And yes we are together loving one another the best we can; inevitably falling and then rising again and again; learning how to recognize, nurture, honour the distances between us as well as the similarities that weave a strong pattern of love; both of us familiar with the largeness of the sky behind and before us singing “you are free!”