<\/p>\n
\u00a0—-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Walt Whitman, LEAVES OF GRASS, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I walked, Jim silent at my side, the distance seemed endless, each step counting a beat suspended outside of time.\u00a0 My soul-certainty was shaking again with each step, feeling the tension emanating from the charged body next to me.\u00a0 I\u2019d never known Jim to be without a quip, some cocky comment, bad pun, or barbed remark.<\/p>\n My mind was racing: what if we couldn\u2019t do it?\u00a0 What if he\u2026 couldn\u2019t do it?\u00a0 What if I was too dried up and disused to do it?\u00a0 What if, despite that clinch we\u2019d shared once before, we found we had insufficient attraction to overcome the biological burdens of the moment?<\/p>\n What if I simply wasn\u2019t attractive enough for him?<\/p>\n I felt more uncertain with each step, already feeling the weight of his death on me, the weight of the responsibility I\u2019d taken on.\u00a0 In silent desperation, I remembered to focus within; started to chant, over and over, supplicating with all my heart: Help me!\u00a0 Guide me!\u00a0 I can\u2019t do this\u2026 I don\u2019t know how, I\u2019m not\u2026 enough\u2026 to do this\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n How could the Divine possibly be interested in participating in a scene like this, anyway?<\/p>\n And then, there it was.\u00a0 The Love, the clarity, the strength, back again, holding me, wrapping around me, filling me.\u00a0 I felt the instantaneous shift as if I\u2019d physically walked into a new energy field.\u00a0 As if the regular Hani had fallen away and there was some New Improved Version installed in her place.\u00a0 Now I knew for sure.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can do this.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n Every cell of my body sparked with some intuitive response; calm echoed through the deepest reaches of me.\u00a0 More than that, a flow of compassion\u2026 no\u2026some wondrous blend of compassion and desire, like a bridge that spanned from the primal fear of death to some equally primal embrace of life.\u00a0 I was being given exactly what I needed to live this moment.\u00a0 Exactly what I needed to lead my friend across.<\/p>\n I had never experienced greater love in my life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I could see that Jim was still deep in guilt, still furious with himself for not being able to find another way, for having gotten us into this situation in the first place.\u00a0 We stood awkwardly in the cramped space.\u00a0 I carefully took off Uhura\u2019s dangling earrings and laid them on the control console.\u00a0 As I turned back to him, he spoke, his face tortured.\u00a0 \u201cI should have listened to Bones, Hani, I should have done more to protect you. I\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I reached up and put a fingertip to his lips.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d I said, softly, invoking the tone I could have used with him that night in the hallway, but had warned myself not to, the tone that said yes<\/i> instead of no<\/i>.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t.\u00a0 No more.\u201d<\/p>\n He stopped, mid-sentence, and I found myself getting lost in the feel of his lips beneath my sensitive fingers.\u00a0 I let my gaze linger on his face; I\u2019d been so careful, so damned circumspect in the past, so aware of that invisible line I\u2019d drawn between us.<\/p>\n And it was only as I consciously stepped over that line now that I truly realized how tightly I\u2019d been holding myself until this very moment.\u00a0 \u00a0My every action since I\u2019d met him, met them, since they descended into my world and took me away with them, since they saved my<\/i> life\u2026.It had all been about hedging my emotional bets.\u00a0 I\u2019d been holding myself so close, trying so damned hard not to get knocked off balance, not to care too much, not to show too much.<\/p>\n Now, new waves of insight were flooding into my head, and I felt myself physically stagger from the flow.\u00a0 I put out a hand to the wall to steady myself, feeling as never before, the distance I\u2019d traveled to arrive here.\u00a0 I saw how the path had led me here, I could see, with new eyes, how the path branched out from here, in infinite possibilities, although the one branch that was front and center went nowhere at all, but ended this day, abruptly.\u00a0 Permanently.<\/p>\n How irreducibly simple life became when I stood poised at its end.<\/p>\n Jim\u2019s hands were on my shoulders, steadying me, his expression worried.<\/p>\n I was wondrously aware of him in the moment, flooded with insight, as my hand reached out to touch his face, my fingers now tracing his cheek as I gazed into his hazel eyes.\u00a0 It felt like an impossibly heavy weight falling from my shoulders\u2026 how I\u2019d carried the heaviness of every woman I\u2019d ever defended or counseled.\u00a0 Every pain, every vicarious blow I\u2019d borne along with them, so that somewhere inside me I\u2019d constructed, unconsciously it seemed, this \u2026 impenetrable barrier, my own personal shield against the wounds men had inflicted – on me, on others, both the real and, roughly spilling over into imagination, those that might come.<\/p>\n This was the legacy of Dale, the legacy of Yolanda, these were the wounds not just of the women who wore the bruises, inside and out, but\u2026 oh!\u00a0 How much deeper are we going to go with this!?<\/i> \u2026 They were the wounds I\u2019d inflicted on myself, almost forcibly keeping myself locked away from my own truth, from deeper love\u2026<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The wounds I\u2019d passively inflicted on the men in my life, even those I\u2019d loved (especially those I\u2019d loved?) by my inability to be my deepest truest self.<\/i><\/p>\n Even with Bob, how I had submerged myself into a love that was essentially caretaking, safe, controlled, a love that demanded time and energy, yes, but left that essence of me \u2026safely wrapped away, unshared, unbreachable.<\/p>\n Jim had nearly broken through, that evening he\u2019d walked me to my room and launched his sneak attack; typical Jim Kirk maneuver, a stealth approach around an unguarded flank.<\/p>\n He was looking at me, now, wary, concerned; wondering, no doubt, what the hell was going on with me, as I felt myself propelled further into new understanding.<\/p>\n This was about me, as much as it was about them.<\/p>\n If this truly was the end of my life, I wasn\u2019t going to be allowed to go out wrapped in a shroud of my own construction.\u00a0 I had to let him in.<\/p>\n I had to open up.<\/p>\n Whatever happened, I wasn\u2019t here just to save Jim\u2019s life.\u00a0 Or Bones\u2019 or Spock\u2019s.<\/p>\n However short it might be, I was here to save my own.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For no reason at all, I laughed out loud, hit by the giddiness of Love in its most full-bodied form.<\/p>\n Jim\u2019s look of surprise was overtaken by a startled smile in response.<\/p>\n I\u2019d broken through.\u00a0 I grinned back at him, \u201cCome on, Jim, admit it, it\u2019s kind of funny.\u201d<\/p>\n He slid an arm around me now, ready to dance at least a few steps deeper into this new music.\u00a0 I felt my body, of its own accord, melting against him, now that the Old Me had stopped trying to coach from the sidelines.\u00a0 The Old Me wouldn\u2019t have known how to take his tight-jawed face in my hands, calling on my every inner resource, to feel this power, to pull his attention toward me, and away from everything else spinning in our universe.<\/p>\n I kissed him, softly, exploring, letting my body gently press against his.\u00a0 I felt his hand on my back, could feel its touch, perfunctory at first, distracted, then, slowly, falling into the senses, lips following hands as he kissed me back.<\/p>\n \u201cNot exactly what I had in mind for a first date,\u201d he whispered in my ear with a sigh, and I could feel the resonance of his grin, hear the subtle sound of his rising desire.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when I knew we were going to get there.\u00a0 Let it flow, Hani, keep moving, follow the flow<\/i>.\u00a0 Jim\u2019s humor was back.\u00a0 We were going to be okay.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We were all going to be okay.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever happened, everything was okay.\u00a0 Everything was\u2026 perfect.<\/i><\/p>\n I think I was glad he was the first in this inconceivable progression.\u00a0 Of all of them, Jim has always been, in some ways, the least\u2026 complicated.\u00a0 You know what you\u2019ve got with Jim.\u00a0 Not the unfathomable foreignness of Spock, and not the latent old-school romantic feelings I\u2019d tried to avoid picking up from Bones.\u00a0 I knew Jim was capable of grand romance, I\u2019d heard the stories, but I also knew he didn\u2019t feel that way about me, nor I about him.\u00a0 I treasured him as a friend, and I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s how he saw me.\u00a0 Friends.<\/p>\n Friends with some obvious chemistry between us.\u00a0 We \u2013 or I \u2013 had managed to keep that chemistry at bay, more or less.\u00a0 Now, this New Improved Me was rather surprisingly hell-bent on diving smack into the middle of it.\u00a0 There apparently was no holding me back.\u00a0 My hands and lips were already off onto their own agenda.\u00a0\u00a0 Forget what drove us here.\u00a0 Forget everything but this.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, that evening you walked me to my room, I didn\u2019t sleep all night,\u201d I whispered softly, exploring his ear lobe, enjoying the little shiver I provoked.\u00a0 He cinched me tighter into his embrace, and I was all too aware of the involuntary beginnings of his desire pressing against me.<\/p>\n I could still feel the small tendrils of lingering resistance, the fractured state of his thoughts.\u00a0 I closed my eyes, and put every atom of my own attention into some pure state, betting everything I had that my own state of bliss would be enough, the vibrations of that would be strong enough, to override the coarser vibrations of fear and guilt and worry that still swirled around us both.<\/p>\n Was it possible to feel such love, love that had no shape or name, that wanted nothing, projected nothing, love that simply and totally demanded to be what it was, flowing in the path of least resistance?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, yes, yes.\u00a0 Feel it, Hani, follow the flow\u2026.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cOh, god, Hani,\u201d his moan came from some reverberating depths, his mouth on mine, and there was an intake of breath, as if in that moment he threw himself into that flow, taking me with him.<\/p>\n And then, as if we were nothing more or less than normal, a man and woman together, clothes became an unbearable obstacle, and we fumbled and stripped away the wrappings by which we\u2019d known each other, revealing the promise only hinted at until this moment.\u00a0 I gasped in the half-forgotten thrill of nakedness, of sharing bare skin with a man.<\/p>\n If I\u2019d convinced myself that Jim Kirk was best treated as a friend only, I melted into him now.\u00a0 This was a man in his prime, in every way.\u00a0 Skirt chaser he might be, but there was nothing to fault him on here.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 A fleeting regret crossed my tousled thoughts, that I was able to know him only in this moment of freighted obligation.\u00a0 What would it be like to know him in more free-spirited circumstances?<\/p>\n But then, I gave it all up, the last rational thought, and let the outer world fade away \u2013 there was no point in loading all those waiting worries onto these bare bodies, bodies that simply knew what to do, that didn\u2019t care at all what was at risk, what was at stake.\u00a0 I gave myself up to\u2026 this.\u00a0 Calling him.\u00a0 Holding him in this intensity of focus that was an unexpected gift, provided by whatever gods knew we needed all the help we could get.<\/p>\n In time, (that oh so limited resource!) the natural flow of things laid me down, opened me up to welcome in a pilgrim on the most primal of pilgrimages, an ordinary, or not so ordinary, man following the ancient imperatives of creation, welcomed him deep into my precious, flawed body, wrapping him close, meeting, matching, his increasingly strong, confident rhythms, and willing, if it were possible, that the paradox of life and death would find the resolution we were all seeking.\u00a0 And at last, letting even that fervent, fevered prayer rise upward on its own, we two tumbled, tangled together, over the edge of the known world, falling as one into whatever worlds lay just beyond.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next > Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,) Often enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas, Cautiously cruising, studying the charts, Duly again to port and hawser’s tie returning; But now … Continue reading ![\"300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17\"](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)
\nOften enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas,
\nCautiously cruising, studying the charts,
\nDuly again to port and hawser’s tie returning;
\nBut now obey thy cherish’d secret wish,
\nEmbrace thy friends, leave all in order,
\nTo port and hawser’s tie no more returning\u2026..<\/i><\/p>\n
\nBook XXXIII, Songs<\/i> <\/i>of parting<\/i><\/p>\n