An ever fixed mark. . .

Love: Beginnings

They're at that stage where so much desire streams between them,
so much frank need and want,
so much absorption in the other and the self
and the self-admiring entity and unity they make --
her mouth so full, breast so lifted, head thrown back
so far in her laughter at his laughter
he so solid, planted, oaky, firm, so resonantly factual
in the headiness of being craved so,
she almost wreathed upon him as they intertwine again,
touch again, cheek, lip, shoulder, brow,
every glance moving toward the sexual, every glance away
soaring back in flame into the sexual --
that just to watch them is to feel again that hitching in the groin,
that filling of the heart,
the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart,
snorting again, stamping in its stall.

-- C.K. Williams


I have a friend who just got married this weekend.

I've been to TWO golden anniversary parties in the last month.

I'm four years in. . .and to quote Billy Joel "And so far she hasn't run, but, I swear, she's had her moments."

I guess you don't get to watch your story progress around you. How do you get from that room full of people celebrating the beginning to the room full of people celebrating a job well done?

I've been thinking a lot about these two points. I've thought about the moment I reconciled all my feelings about my husband in one conversation. How I knew I'd could love him since now, finally, I'd found someone who would simply take me as I was with no further demands. I thought about the moment I knew I couldn't live without him. Jimmy Eat World said it best:

"Stay with me.
You're the one I need.
You make the hardest things
seem
easy."


I think back on being all doe eyed and engaged. How my whole life was planned. How I knew everyday and the day after. How the phases of the moon moved in my favor and for me alone. He'd be the next Jimmy Page and I'd be the next Sharon Olds. He'd win a Grammy and I'd surely have a Pulitzer. I mean, we're both just so brilliant.

I think on people telling me it would be hard and thinking I'd already seen hard; One night he wanted Chinese and I wanted Pizza. But we got through it. I didn't believe them, but who does?

I've moved past doubting he's the right one. Moved past thinking I made a terrible mistake. Now I love him more than I thought I could. The "what ifs" sneak up on me. But I can't even picture anything without him.

I wish I could go back to the days of sonnets and jewels (even though it was more like Pink Floyd and KD). But doesn't everyone? I'd say the sex is better now than it was then. .. maybe faster because my kids just have that kind of timing, but better. I'd say I like being someone's sweetheart. I'd say he was my biggest lesson in following my own instincts.

But the second point. . .

I've also decided I'm writing a book about this.