Bone Deep

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”   Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

I understand this sentiment so completely.  I have never in my life gone from a first meeting to the level of connectedness I feel in my relationship with Candied Jansen so quickly.  It has been a powerful thing.  It wasn’t the first date…although I definitely wanted to get to know her better.  It wasn’t the second date which she planned so perfectly and when she kissed me.  It started sometime between dates two and three, and then during date three all felt right.  Like I was in the perfect place at the exact time I was supposed to be there.  And every day since then has been part of the most amazing journey of intimacy I’ve ever known.  So many words have been shared and so much time has been spent where words were not needed, and now, just two months in, I feel her in my bones.  My soul delights at the thought of her.  My body longs for her touch.  My heart is hers.

I love the way the author Bertrand Russell described his first meeting with fellow author, Joseph Conrad…

“At our very first meeting, we talked with continually increasing intimacy. We seemed to sink through layer after layer of what was superficial, till gradually both reached the central fire. It was an experience unlike any other that I have known. We looked into each other’s eyes half appalled and half intoxicated to find ourselves together in such a region. The emotion was as intense as passionate love, and at the same time all-embracing. I came away bewildered, and hardly able to find my way among ordinary affairs.” (“Autobiography.” Routledge, 2009.)

Even though he is describing an intimate friendship, I relate to the words he uses.  I know that at times I’ve walked around in a hazy shocked state because of how quickly this level of intimacy was reached.  I know that others might not understand or even believe that feelings such as these are possible after only two months, but it doesn’t matter to me what anyone else thinks.  I know.  And she knows.  And really that’s all that matters.

“That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.”   Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri