How She Looks to Me

I posted a photo of my dearest, and triggered a blog post from her. I got in trouble, and took my punishment with laughter, but without contrition.

I often feel grateful for the many things that are good in my life. There is stress and trouble, of course, and I complain about them, but overall my life is good. No, past good. I have two passions, and I'm in awe that I was granted two. One is my painting and drawing, a complex cycle of emotions that I don't understand and can't control. It ebbs and flows. It rewards me for consistent effort. It punishes me for neglect.

The other passion is the woman I fell in love with when I was eighteen. The angel I married two years later.

I am living a great romance. To the unobservant this may look like any other marriage, but it isn't. Our children see something happening in their midst which they know is cute, adorable, powerful, overwhelming. They know we two live on a vast continent of our own making, and they see it in almost all its different weathers, from the quietest moonlit spring evening to the gentle rains of early autumn, to the screaming gales when our passion and love converts our worries and troubles into anger. Alone, though, we enter another world they cannot imagine. We have built a bridge of our two selves, and left nothing on the shores, living instead suspended over the torrent. We rejoice in this, sometimes with just a glance, sometimes with a passionate embrace, sometimes with a fierce glee that will outlast our bodies. A look from her can set me on fire. A touch can do even more.

I recently commented on a blog post about cravings. What I didn't say there was that I have a deeper sort of hunger that is only for her. Physically, intellectually, emotionally - I am in orbit around her, pulling away into my own imagination, hurtling into space and the stars on my own just long enough to feel the tug of the delicious gravity that binds us, and then delighting in the long plunge back into the glory of the heat and light of her love for me, into the intoxicating female presence of her, into the passionate enjoyment of what we share. And that plunge, and the energy I receive from our union, is the fuel for the next flight into the world.

So while she has doubts about how she looks, or who she is (as do I about myself), I have no doubts about her, and I'm certain I've found the finest match in the world. My eyes can never get enough of her. Neither can my arms, my hands, my mouth, my mind, my heart. And sharing that here, where anyone can see it, is a deliberate public celebration of my passion for her, like a dance through the streets, a song from a rooftop.

Some people think only youth is beautiful, and they fixate on men or women of a certain age. To me this is like repeating the first few chapters of a book, refusing to get to the deeper story, the stronger events and moments that come with age and wisdom. It's as shallow a view of beauty as it is of relationships. Time adds and subtracts, changing our appearance and our personalities, making us more unique and more ourselves. As my dearest and I let time have its way with us, we are surrendering our bodies and hearts to be bound more tightly together. Right now the heat of our love, and the passion of our moments alone together, are more brilliant than at any time in our younger marriage. I know this will someday cool into something else, but I am breathless with curiosity and certainty that whatever we become, it will be miraculous, amazing, more than my heart and mind can comprehend, and worth more than anything else.