We are one

Lying with my girl as she falls asleep. Her brother curled up behind me. The room is dark. She has been kicking and screaming and butting heads with her Dada- literally and metaphorically. In the darkness I cannot see where I stop and she begins. I hear breathing, the rise and fall of inspiration - hers, mine his, I cannot tell. I feel the warm rise and fall of chests, the thud of hearts. I feel limbs, but which is hers, his and which mine?

Does it matter?

For a few moments we are as one. A multi-limbed organism. We are alive. Each of our bodies, so distinctive by daylight, is indistinguishable right now. The things that you would use to class us are dimmed to non existence in this light. We are one and the same. Truly, there is no difference.

And then it occurs to me that I could be lying here with Gaddafi, the Dalai Lama, Sarah Palin, Johnny Depp even (ohhh this post might start going in a very different direction any moment, me Johnny, a dark room!!...). I could be lying with people whom I fear or respect, whom I love or hate, and we would be equals - we really, truly are all the same, equal in our biology, in our humanity, our personalities which dominate and separate us in the daylight world are invisible, immeasurable really. And yet it is on them which we focus: he believes this, she thinks that, he said... we are completely divided by the only thing which can divide us - our superficialities, rather than united by all we share.

For a moment I viscerally experienced the oneness. One breath, one body, one heartbeat, one life, one love.