Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

I am reading my memoir. I am remembering.

The air is electric with sex. It is all that remains when life storms by and leaves me here, safe but a little frightened, heart pounding. All the things I have done. The potential to do, flaring like the last traces of lightning.

I will never be as good as I am now. I stand on top of my own history and survey the ravages of time. Perhaps not at my peak but close to it. My body will never be quite as firm or capable of pleasure. My breasts will sag, my shoulders will hunker down against the world, my skin will betray me. My youth still clings to me but it will be abandoned, soon, when I am ready to step down. This is the first and last assault on the summit. A painting by Casper David Friedrich. I imagine you beside me but it is an illusion, just an anomaly hidden by the fog. We are alone when we come here to dance the last dance, pressing ourselves up against the memory of wild winds with a melancholy sense of joy.

I kiss the past goodbye and it is a kiss that leaves me shaking, the thud of my heart, the quick contractions low in my belly that threaten to unseat me. I kiss my lust for life and it is open-mouthed and tender. For days I will find my fingers at my lips replaying all the kisses that I never enjoyed. I was always too impatient, desperate to move on. I have found a place, now, at the end of it where I can settle for a moment. A held breath in the headlong race of my life. A moment of reflection. A sweet stay.

I have found this, and I turn to you to share it, but I am alone, of course. We are all alone, up here above the sea of fog.