Ten Years Ago

Ten Years ago today (June 23, 2007), Christer walked into my life. I am currently co-writing a novel based on my story with Christer. In honor of this anniversary, I’d like to share this excerpt with you…

The hospital is white. And cold. And impersonal. Oh, they’re all nice enough and professional but really, I feel I’m being treated like some bystander who called in a 911 from the street. He’s my husband for God’s sake. It’s been almost three hours since he passed out this morning…

Soren is breathing peacefully with the assistance of the breathing tube but still unresponsive. I’ve been spending every available minute in ICU with him, reading to him, talking, holding his hand, listening to music.

Waiting.

I watch him, as I have watched him so many mornings these past three years. I love to look at him when he sleeps. His face is sweet and majestic all at once. It’s always like the first time we slept together. Well, we nodded off at different times that long, lovely night.

We met when his friend, Bodil brought a group from Sweden to do a workshop with me. I shook hands with all the participants as they arrived, but didn’t notice how handsome Soren was at first. I wasn’t looking for romantic involvement, and these were my students—here today, gone tomorrow. That said, there’s something about working with the four elements that breaks down walls between people, creates vulnerability and often causes a group to coalesce in a deep way. The Swedes were no different and as we began our workshop, I was happy to see them begin to relax and work on a deeper level.

I do a wonderful exercise taught to me by my Peruvian masters at the beginning of my training where the participants lie on the earth and talk to Pachamama, mother earth. They whisper all their secrets, all their hurts, releasing them into the earth, then turn their ears to the ground and listen for messages. It’s surprising that something simple can also be profound. This group was no different and when Soren came back into the conference room before the others, I asked him what the experience had been like for him.

“Amazing. I never experienced anything like that before”, he said. “I had so much on my mind before I lay down on the ground and now I feel totally light.”

It was sweet and touching, this big man, sitting palms up like a child waiting to receive a gift and I was moved to put my palms on his. I remember the incredible surge of energy that began to flow through our bodies. I was sure he was some kind of healer. I never felt anything like that before.

At the end of the day he came up to my house to have me sign his copy of my book. That’s when my heart started to pound —when he asked me if I felt the energy, asked me what it meant. I looked into his eyes, really looked and it was as if some synapse fired. It was like I remembered him from some long ago, far away place.

Even though I knew next to nothing about him, it seemed that we’d known each other forever. When we sat down on the sofa next to each other, I don’t know how we ended up so close together. I just remember he put his big strong arm around me and I snuggled up close to him, familiar. We laughed, we kissed and slid down onto the sofa but his body was too long to fit so we went upstairs to my bedroom.

He made fun of me because I wrote in my new book that we talked all night. But that’s what made it so special for me. The sex was fantastic, easy, natural. He knew just where and how to touch me. But in between each round of lovemaking, it was our animated endless conversation that truly won me over. We hardly slept at all. It was like we wanted to know everything that first night.

My first book is doing well and the second one is nearly done, I’ve been asked to teach in new locations and Soren has become a support in both my teaching and managing my hotel and retreat center in Pisac. It’s all been good but now as I sit and watch my love hover between life and death all I long for is his arms, his touch, his kiss.