Part 1:
I just received a letter, posted to Aspen and signed by Me.
It told an interesting story of something Me had recently experienced. It said Me had been to a “Me Convention” where it had met many, many others with the same name. The convention had been called to discuss the implication of the influx of You among Me. Some of You even showed up at the convention, probably to protest, as You often do. Many things were discussed. Among them was the proposition of closing the borders so You could not unduly influence Me. This received a grand round of applause. Another Me had the idea of shunning You so You would understand that You are not the same as Me. Special taxes on You, making reservations for You and even, in some cases, detaining or imprisoning You for being You were all discussed.
Me all looked around, dumbfounded. What was Me talking about? Of course there are You!
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The letter said the convention was going well until a tiny Me stood up in the back. Me was uncertain if this Me was very young or very old. If Me was young, Me was unbelievably wise for his age. If Me was old, Me had a youthful sparkle that betrayed an unshakable joy. But it wasn’t this that caught the attention of Me. It was what Me said.
Me said, in a voice just above a whisper, “There are no You.”
Then Me sat down.
Me all looked around, dumbfounded. What was Me talking about? Of course there are You! To prove it, Me went to gather some of You that had shown up at the convention.
You were all gone. More accurately, You had transformed into Me.
Me realized that just by holding that thought in Me mind, that there are no You, Me realized that Me and You are more than related.
Me and You are One.
Everything changed on that day for Me, the letter said. If You can transform into Me, it must mean that Me can morph into You. If that’s the case… well, why would I ever want to hurt or persecute You? Why would Me be anything but kind and compassionate to either You or Me? In the end, both titles are meaningless.
The only title that means anything… is One.
The letter was signed “MeOne”.
Part 2
I sat with the letter in my hands, in deep wonder. What did this mean?
All at once it dawned on me.
Looking outside on a crisp Autumn day, I saw my neighbor mowing her lawn. I thought of her, the single, middle-aged woman I disparagingly called “the Lawn Nazi” because of her over-the-top dedication to the verdant fescue in her front yard. I thought of her aching limbs at the end of a day of working her flower garden. I thought of her enjoying a cup of tea, alone as always in the flickering light of a television. I wondered about her hurts, her concerns, her insecurities, her strength to be what she is – whatever that is – in this life.
And I knew her.
I had felt those same concerns. I had endured aching limbs. I had felt alone. I had immersed myself in distraction to avoid hard questions that seemed more trouble than they were worth, or thought I knew enough already. If I were to ask, I would likely have found that she and I had both had our hearts broken, our sicknesses, our disappointments, our moments of transcendental joy.
The letter had said, “There are no You.”
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As I considered these things, as much with my heart as my mind, instead of living across the street from the Lawn Nazi, I was suddenly walking next to her. I’m not speaking entirely figuratively. We had more in common than I would ever know, but I sensed deeply that it was an immense amount.
In that moment, I not only knew her, I comprehended her. I became aware of a feeling of concern for her well-being, a woman with whom I only spoke a few sentences a year. The feeling felt warm. It felt like relief, like I had just figured out a math problem that had stumped me for years. But more than that, it felt holy, secure and ancient, like a stone. Watching her with growing curiosity, the distance closed between us. I felt the sun on my neck. I felt late afternoon hunger and a yearning for iced tea.
The letter had said, “There are no You.”
In that moment, the illusion of “we” lit upon me, gentle and shy as a butterfly. I was inside her skin. All at once, sitting in my home in the stillness of a late Saturday afternoon…
I was also she.
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