Saturday, August 19, 2006

Ten Years...So Far 

She wore her wedding whites, put her hair up like she used to. So beautiful, and glowing with the magic of that simple dress, the bright blue scarf above it. I wore a tie, in case anyone cares.

We left the kids with her parents, drove downtown, parked in the lot in the center of Brattleboro. There were naked people in the parking lot, just standing around. Everyone looked, but nobody said anything.

I took her out to Peter Havens, the fanciest place downtown, one of those reservation-only joints where the menu in the window doesn't list the prices. From our seats by the wall we could see a slice of Haystack mountain over the old brick facades and across the Connecticut River. We were easily the youngest people in the place, strangers in a community we once knew and loved, eating pheasant pate and escargot, venison and cherry-roasted duck in a sea of surrealist paintings. It was, to tell the truth, kind of romantic.

On the way home it was twilight. We stopped by the church where we were married, walked the garden, in the darkening light turned suddenly adolescent. She tugged my ring, I took her hand; bats fluttered in my stomach, in the trees, everywhere. And somewhere in the awkward dark we declared ourselves another ten years, and kissed, and held each other over an endless bridge of time; and went back home to our family, ready for the infinite future.

And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. All of it. Thanks, Darcie, for a wonderful ten years. Here's to a hundred more, one day at a time.

posted by boyhowdy | 4:38 PM |

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Comments:

What a beautiful post. Happiest of anniversaries to you, and many more!

# posted by  Anonymous : 9:00 PM, August 21, 2006

 

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