Weds Sept 27th 6:01 am

"Could we stay right here'til the end of time, 'til the earth stops turning......"
Lamb - 'Gorecki'

How long ago was it when I wrote about peak experiences? I said I knew I'd have more; I didn't expect that one was waiting to grab me this morning. Basically, as I've said before, I'm a fairly private person - guarded when it comes to both my own feelings and those of the people who are close to me. I don't want this site to deteriorate (what? that's a crazy word) into a shrine dedicated to the healing powers of love, but my life is being transformed so rapidly and so profoundly that I'm having a hard time keeping up and the inside and outside of me seem to be constantly changing places. Recently the inside seems to be more commonly on display. I've somehow become porous and very permeable and I find myself existing inside this huge bubble filled with people who love me and I find that I'm loving them all back. There's a fluidity to my daily life that seems to be generating quite a few exceptional moments as I pass from one state into another and back again. You know, at times like these I begin to wonder if these events aren't occuring for us all of the time; we just need to recognize them as they are happening.

I need to begin by saying that if you've never heard one of those Bose radios, by god, you've really missed out. I hadn't until today and now my life is irretrievably changed. P uses one as his alarm clock and when it came on, I swear it sounded as if the entire apartment was one big speaker. He sets it to KEXP, a local station affiliated with Paul (Microsoft) Allen's Experience Music Project; a behemoth of a building whose red roof I can see from my balcony. In the late afternoon the sun illuminates the dome-like structure, turning it into a giant radioactive beetle that looms over the tracks of the Monorail. The station operates from a ramshackle building just down the street; a facility more befitting of its humble origins as a kind of red-haired stepchild of the University Of Washington, whose legitimacy wasn't established until Allen infused hundreds of thousands of dollars into keeping it on the air. But I digress. Just taking an opportunity to tell you a little about Seattle; a topic I curiously write very little about- considering the title of this site. Did I mention it's finally become my home?

The music woke me immediately and I felt completely surrounded by it (Thanks, Bose!). I felt like I was in a movie. It was unreal, but at the same time, perfect. I later identified it as 'Gorecki', by a British group called Lamb. Reading the lyrics, which begin with "If I should die this very moment, I wouldn't fear - for I've never known completeness, like being here", I remembered hearing every word, but wasn't I asleep when it started? Was it creepy, was it transformative; what kind of an experience had it been? - every word resonated within me as something I had said in trying to describe to my friends how I was feeling as this new relationship developed. I'd even written the equivalent on another site; "It's taken almost six years, but it finally feels like home and I have one person and a helluva lot of soul-searching to thank for that. Oh yeah, and a little bit of marching through the jungle. :) If it finally got me to you, I'd do it all again." became "All I've known- all I've done- all I've felt, was leading to this". When I played it for a friend later this afternoon, her comment was; "That's your song - that's everything you've been saying. You have a song".

As I lay there, I felt so many different emotions. I felt exposed. I felt 'found out'. I felt exhilaration and peace at the same time. Bravery, Love, Exhilaration, Fear. There you go. Can you see how from my perspective, I now view everything as part of one incredible, integrated process that finally brought me to that moment? At some point, P either took my hand, or put his arm over me - I confess I can't remember that part exactly - but the physical touch was almost superfluous to the connection that I felt. It was a peak experience. Judging from what he's said since, I think perhaps that he was feeling the same way. Profoundly changed. Am I the type of person who would typically write publicly about things like this? I mean, you get the picture - there's a bed and bodies and music and feelings all over the place. Yeow! I suppose that's the bravery kicking in. The room was actually very still and I couldn't move. "Here is true peace, here my heart knows calm......".

Yes, I've put a lot of myself on this site recently and now to acknowledge to the world that you think you’ve found the person who finally not only gets you, but makes you a better person than you thought you could ever be, is a little scary and for someone like me, as I keep repeating, embarrassing, but it's too great a feeling not to take that risk. I’m also conscious of the fact that it might be hurtful to someone else to see a declaration like this. I don’t want to diminish any of the past; after all it is what led me here and it’s all been important. Along the way I’ve tried to absorb the lessons presented to me; some of them admittedly haven’t made much sense until now.

I’ve jokingly said that “soulmates are for sissies”, because I don’t really believe that there’s one person that we’re meant to be with. That’s a little too “rainbows and unicorns” for me. There may be hundreds, thousands, millions of people, within whom, if we only took the time, we might discover the same special qualities that help to form a connection like the one I have with this person. What is it that makes us slow down, open ourselves up and do it? I don't know. That's where the mystery and the beauty of falling in love reside. The one thing that makes this all so absolutely right is that it is about the feeling and not the thinking. At this point there are too many words here. I don't really need them. This is about emotion and one exceptional morning that has definitely changed my life forever. And so, one more time, I'm going to stand by and wait for the next amazing experience, because I know this is just the beginning. Again.