I feel too gentle and it’s driving crazy the part of me that thinks I better be busting ass. I stand in the sunshine on the warm spring day. Untoppled. My legs still soft. I might fall over, but at least I can bend. For once, I’d rather be soft and slump than rigid and upright. I can’t think of anything better than right now, or anything worse. The richness of life pervades everything. It’s magical, lit up with wonder. But I feel both the Titanic’s deaths and survivors within me. This moment contains the moon and the stars. I can’t feel my toes because my heart overshadows everything. Before I met Christopher, I read Dear Lover by David Deida, and I prayed for a mate who would love me open to God. Becoming wide hurts more than I imagined it would. I gladly surrender my ego, except that it burns and tears. It’s worth it. This unimaginably rich world is worth swallowing, somehow. And only with God am I strong enough or big enough to see through this telescope the rim of the universe as it curves back to reveal all creation, or nothing. A taste. A small smile. A short hug. Sobbing, my arms wrapped around myself. The sun sparkling on the aspen leaves as my daughter and I walk with Captain, the pit bull, over the small bridge. I am my life-saver. There has never been anything other than all of us at once.

Senior Airman Mabel Aguirre soothes Ajamal Hazrat, a 1-year-old patient at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital Jan. 10, 2011, at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The majority of the Hazrat family were badly injured after the propane tank used to heat their home exploded. Airman Aguirre is a 455th Expeditionary Medical Operations Squadron medical technician. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Shelia deVera)