Sunday, August 12, 2007

Moving

One slow step at a time.

Your 19" TV and my bookshelves fit in together to form our entertainment center. My plants are happy in their new perches and with their new friends who have arrived. Now we can take turns watering them. Your red vase seems to have been made to enhance my red couch - and for us to marvel about. The kitchen is looking charming and in spite of all your stuff that has come in, our kitchen seems to have so much more space than it ever did.

Moving - the slow steps from mine and yours to ours.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Back after a long hiatus

Hello everybody ...

Its been a long while since I posted. Somewhere in the middle of keeping up with my life, work, and play, my writing slipped from my list of things to do. Anyway, I do miss my blog and at least one (and may be only) of my readers has informed me that she has missed me too. So I will try to do a quick recap without boring details.


Its late summer now. The shadows are getting longer sooner and the sun is dipping earlier every day. But last month, when we were still at the peak of summer things were different. We spent long evenings on the local brewery deck. Dusk tiptoed in - around 9pm - and we watched the color of our pints of beer change as the last lingering rays of the sun shone through. And as the beer changed color, flocks of birds flew over us to seek rest, and the friendly bat appeared from a nook in the old building down the street - flying over us and swooping ever so low every time. It was still light at last call (11pm), and the western horizon had a hint of an orange glow as we lingered outside the friendly neighborhood pub - our pub - goofing around and bidding cheerful goodbyes before finally going home at midnight. And then there were days when we sat out on the deck and dark clouds gathered as an angry mid-west storm brewed with a brilliant play of thunder and lightning. We sat there and welcomed the first drops of rain - cooling our brows after a hot day, enjoying our beer, sometimes getting drenched, sometimes laughing at the passing clouds . . . and always the sun shone forth, through the darkest cloud.

But now . . . its pitch dark by midnight and a couple of nights back there was even a slight chill in the air. We are still sitting around and watching our beer change color, but we linger around less and every once in a while the conversation turns to syllabuses, new class prep, work, the new semester . . . An imperceptible sense of panic passes through us at the thought of a new semester, and the rush of all its demands. Its a short, but sure shudder. And as the shadows start growing longer sooner, the shudder lasts longer and we call it a night earlier. Alas! it definitely is late summer.

Its been a summer of promises and beginnings . . . What can be more exciting than finding love in a person you always desired and felt like you knew from long ago. You never considered there to be any promise of a relationship. Now you wonder why? You ask yourself why you wasted two years, and thank the lucky hand of fate - i.e. a gin and tonic, a crazy friend, and a sequined purple shirt - that made it all happen. And of course, how can you not thank Bach and his wonderful fugues. Because, had it not been for those loopy tunes what would you have spoken about - maybe nothing. Maybe if it wasn't for Bach, you would have simply stood around and blushed and felt silly about hovering around a "well established crush" who barely recognized you. Then again, would you have ever done that if it wasn't for a crazy friend with a self-declared expertise at "picking up men."

What a beautiful night it was ... and I did all of the above. Soon after there were dinner dates and pub dates and soon I was helping him vacuum and wash his car wondering what kind of a date that was - it wasn't - we had started to grow old together! A snowy spring and a brilliant summer later there is a relationship and a promise for the future.



. . . and I'll leave you on that note.