The heart is a weird thing.
Top Management and I had been an item for months. I liked her a lot—in fact, I was pretty crazy about her. She was the funniest girl I'd ever known, the most insightful, erudite, patient, understanding, fun...if there was a positive superlative, she was it. She was the best actress, a lovely singer, a stunningly good writer, always laughing...and I found her freckles and almond-shaped eyes utterly irresistible.
And yet, for some reason I can't even begin to fathom, it was seeing a few shots a photographer friend of hers had taken a year or two before we met that tipped me into huh...I could maybe spend the rest of my life with this person.
Why? I don't know. They're lovely shots of a beautiful young girl, of course, and that's far from nothing.
Maybe it was the first time I'd ever seen her not smiling? (A state she couldn't keep for even three photos.)
I have no idea. All I know is that I stared at these photographs, going back to them time and again, more than I ever stared at anything that wasn't a Batman painting or a Pink Floyd album cover.
Years have gone by when I've been unable to find these; we've moved at least six or seven times and she does most of the packing and unpacking and they've never held the same magical mystery for her they do me, so careful as she is with her Anne of Green Gables paperbacks, these priceless treasures don't warrant the same respect.
Yesterday, out of the blue, I started getting authentically panicky, realizing I hadn't seen them since we moved her to SoCal over six years ago, and wondering if that was it, they were really gone this time.
And then this afternoon, I went into a closet I've opened maybe thrice since we've been here, looking for some old comic books to send to someone, and there those photos were, right on top of the comics. Fate and the universe once making its will crystal clear.
If I were a better writer, I'd have a phrase that is more accurate than "incredibly sweet and wonderful."
Posted by: Karen Edmisten | Friday, February 15, 2013 at 06:23 AM