“…to make conversation, to share a joke, to perform mutual acts of kindness, to read together well-written books, to share in trifling and serious matters, to disagree though without animosity—just as a person debates with himself—and in the very rarity of disagreement to find the salt of normal harmony, to teach each other something or to learn from one another, to long with impatience for those absent, to welcome them with gladness on their arrival. These and other signs come from the heart of those who love an are loved and are expressed through the mouth, through the tongue, through the eyes, and a thousand gestures of delight, acting as fuel to set the minds on fire and out of many to form unity…”—Saint Augustine, Confessions
Theirs was a romance of entirety—body, mind, and spirit—shared and shown and lived in all their overt and subtle ways. In the quiet of meet of eyes; the lively exchange of ideas; words and thoughts from books mutually read and reflected on; in stories told and written for one another.
Two dreamers of beginning disparity sharing, becoming, nearer to whole union.
Such was the ideal, such was its nearness, in all the ways they made.
Travels and escapes, in world and simpler of the mind. In escape, in the busiest of lands and worlds and cities, they knew ways to disappear, moment and life and world that seemed of only them.
They debated just to debate, to find reason of contention simply to make vigorous amends. They did not need to agree. They did not desire that they should. To maintain a difference of position, if sincere, was integrity to self—if neither inspired or affected enough to change the way they saw or understood; and why should disagreement by reason for sustained division and contention?
Contention was but fruitful beginning for amelioration and spirited amends; and that reason, more so than any other, was reason for defense of their positions—to surrender and accede in other means and shared concessions.
Together they shared—body, mind, and spirit—in exchange of gift, receipt, and openness in all the means that come from the heart of those who love and are loved and are expressed through the mouth, through the tongue, through the eyes, and a thousand gestures o delight, acting as fuel to set the mind on fire and…to form unity.”
*****
Years later, he found the words written in heart-confession of another. They spoke true, living, enduring—the way he’d always felt it but lacked a way to say: a romance of entireties.