1 2 3

One year together!
But "never in a million," we still say, our two heads shaking in unison and disbelief.

Two peas.
Different but alike, sharing one pod.

Three truths:
   . He was the love of my life and always will be, but she...  she is the best thing to ever happen to me. "It feels like I fell off a cliff but landed softly," is still true.
   .. I am proud of myself; finding the courage to take this leap of faith, and to share it openly and joyfully.
   ... I believe, I trust without question and full of gratitude, that there's so much more to come. 

coming together

One and one and one is three

Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see

Come together, right now

Over me

It's been a few months now, but I remember the first time clearly. 
"Do you smell potatoes?" she asked, standing by the bistro's serving table, looking perplexed. 

The table, always dressed in a cloth, maybe Russian linen or a rough colorful throw rug, features a tiered glass etagere which displays coupes and flutes, but sometimes party pastries and such. 

She described the smell of potatoes in their raw state, not baked or fried; simply raw. 

I knew before shaking my head that the odd and very striking waft was meant for her and only her.

Scents which arrive unexpectedly and seem to surround us, are by many thought to be one of the classic signs you might receive following a loved one's passing.

It was not an early sign for me but it did begin one day as I walked beside that very serving table, struck with the overwhelming smell of cookies. It was not of bread or pastry, but distinctively of rich, vanilla scented cookies about to come out of an oven. 

Why cookies? 

Perhaps her receiving potatoes is not so odd though, they being the very thing we, alone the first time, shared at the bistro. I had put her to work peeling several when she arrived suspiciously early to the small dinner I'd planned.

This strong scent of potatoes followed her to the hotel at our recent weekend getaway, and the sweetest scent of cookies greeted us both when we returned a few days later, stepping into the tiny entrance of the bistro.  

That shared moment, standing together and inhaling an undeniable yet unseen force, inexplicably feels there's three of us in the room.

I expect to be smelling potatoes myself very soon...








Come Together
The Beatles/Lennon-McCartney

leon

As I turned left off my street onto a main road, his raspy voice came on for a millionth time, through earbuds, and I began to cry at the opening line. For the millionth time but not in a while.

"I really miss you, I will forever more."

Death has a start point but grief has no end point. 

I believe some divine intersection made me fall in love again. Different? Oh yeah. Less? Oh no. 

By the time I pulled into my usual parking spot at a neighborhood market, I had heard, "Let me say the things I used to say before."

"People are people," she exclaims. Really, Baby? Really?

It is her true belief in the words she says, despite the isolation I feel from choosing her, that gives me strength. I am trusting her to be right. In the end, to be right.

I'm still listening to the song as I turn the car off and step into the June heat.

I grab a cart, pull out my produce list, and entering the store I sing along to them both: "I can't let go of you."




I Really Miss You
Paul Anka/Leon Russell

44

I have stood up at birthday gatherings to read this aloud as a toast, and I have written it on cards mailed to express the same. Many mornings I have lazed in bed, wishing to lock these words to memory in the way I have the lyrics of Leonard Cohen and the prose of Pat Conroy. 

What though youth gave love and roses, 

age still leaves us friends and wine. 

It feels, at this point in my life, as if I have lived both these lines though never at the same time. Until today. Until her.

With her, because of her, words seen by me before as defining and with boundaries, now seem fluid. They intertwine and overlap as easily as waking legs tangle up in linen sheets. Age doesn't define, gender doesn't define, race doesn't define...

Not as the individual that I am, but as a committed couple I've been slow to embrace her norm. I am the trick candle which goes out then relights, goes out then relights, goes out then relights. 

I know my strength ultimately steadies me, and I know her sweet patience has no end. It was a premonition that brought us together, sealed then by a secret. Now love and passion and joy keep us devoted.

My wish that we remain forever so, a wish no longer unnerving, is the unwrapped gift I give to her this day.

Happy Birthday, Baby.   



Thomas Moore, National Airs, Spring and Autumn, st. 1 (1815)

dazed, not confused

"Let's just eat out of the pan," she says, as I'm reaching for two pasta bowls.

It's our pattern now; each hot pan of pasta is set between us on an iron trivet at the table. We talk. We twirl. 

Sometimes we have appetizer plates for cutting things such as large shrimp, or we may have a side bowl to pile up empty clam shells.

We sit close. Her hands are rarely not touching me. 

We share food while sharing truths.

"What was something Sarge did that irked you?" she asked halfway through our last dinner of linguine. That's what she has called Spoke from the beginning, being her respect for the man she never met but wishes to know much about. As a veteran, she has a bond with him, but by her many questions, she knows more about him than most people.

I swallowed hard. I thought hard. I drew a blank.

I tried to recall by categorizing: chores, leisure, money, sex, vacations, work...

Several bites later I put down my fork and wiped away tears.

Wow. Wow! There was nothing he did that irked me.

We've talked about it; of how easily new love can reach that stage. We talk a lot. We talk about everything.

But that night we cleared the table in silence, both of us amazed. 

She poured us more wine. We sat back down. To talk.

two birds

She has ruffled my feathers and at times made me want to take flight.

Instead and instinctively, I calmed myself by will. 

Inch by inch I moved further out on a limb. Oddly, the further out I got, the more centered and secure I felt.

For it was there that I heard her cooing.



 

if

If there is any single thing in my home that reflects life with Spoke and at the same time captures my life continuing, now with her, it might be these Chianti bottles.

If imitation is a true form of flattery, then attention goes to the very small trattoria in Florence where I swooned over such a display of the local wine bottles hanging in a corner. The restaurant as I remember, is tucked into a quiet space open only to foot traffic, with an American Express office just a door or two away. Nostalgic as they are, few of these bottles held drinkable wine but I found an exception with the Sangiovese from Castellina in Chianti. I lugged three home and they hang in this collection, on this wall.

If anyone had told me that tragic Thanksgiving, that in a couple of years I'd be in love, I'd have told them they were drunk, and if they added that my love would be for a girl, I'd have said they were plastered. And likely also stoned.

Never in a million years, we whisper to each other. 

If there had been no gatherings at Jimmy's Food Store, we might not be together.

If I hadn't had a premonition, we might not be together.

If she hadn't answered a text, we would not be together.

If she wasn't a veteran, things might not be the same.

If I didn't have trust in myself, a strong belief that I am always led, then we would not be together. 

Never in a million years...

If the Chianti bottles remained as they have for many years, unlit, they would continue to be a sweet memory of the past, but as she filled those bottles with gleaming light, I felt myself filling up with such cliches of emotion: love, gratitude, trust, wanting.

Never in a million years...

Never in a million years...

Never in a million years...

first valentine's day (uh-maybe)

 

Being in love with HER, I signed in my card, is at times, enormously overwhelming, but exactly where I want to be.

We're so good together; such opposites yet two peas who I think, but by the grace of God, landed in the same pod. 

I could but I won't explain or defend this relationship beyond saying some days, even good ones, do puzzle me, and others test me, yet they all are happy beyond expectation and measure. Days are hours and hours are minutes and within, she and I have few unconnected seconds.

So yes, WE are the elephant still present in the joyful rooms filled with family and friends. It's as though, if we don't talk about it, maybe it will go away. 

Doubtful.

That's my heartfelt hope this Valentine's Day.
 




Photograph 2016 John Drysdale
2016 Graphique de France Ltd