scribblechic

I sometimes whisper a remembering I do not tempt with sound least I conjure ghosts I dare not wake. Trespassing thoughts that intrude upon the tender places of memory.

Like letters drafted, but never sent, I write these knowings in a language of silence. Beautiful pieces of a past scattered across the fullness of the present, pregnant with good fortune.

I wonder if our children know we are all storytellers made of love. Whispers on the wind.

Long before your father was my husband, he was a classmate in a college English course. An athlete, tall and broad but with an unthreateningly playful posture, he consumed classroom discussions  in much the same way he filled the physical space of our dated desks; unexpectedly gracefully with a quick and easy sense of humor. He was a smile at the other end of a casual hello, a friendly stranger I didn’t really know beyond the context of our course schedule. At the end of the term we moved in different directions following the path of our studies to different corners of campus.

Two years later your father and I met again, quite accidentally, thanks to another man and an Irish tradition. I visited a St. Patrick’s Day party having begrudgingly set aside my studies to claim a festively frothy green beverage and disprove theories of my mythological existence to my boyfriend’s curious companions. Your father was the first familiar face in a room full of strangers. In much the same way he once filled a small classroom with his easy conversation, he created a quiet space in the noisy nonsense of the evening’s antics. Salvaging a seat to anchor us in the congested crowd your father perched precariously beside me on his bad knee and we exchanged stories from lost years with easy banter. We were not yet friends, but rather comfortable companions of chance.

Your father continued to shadow my dates with an endearingly convenient coincidence of fate. Sitting beside me at every opportunity he gifted me unexpected reasons to smile. Never more than companions in circumstance, we drifted across each other’s days in happy happenstance. After graduation your father moved away while I settled into the end of my relationship, finding a refreshing sense of independence in more solitary endeavors.

Despite my contentment, I missed your father’s easy company and invited his friendship with a note whimsically mailed to an uncertain address in hopes we might invite chance to create cause; an excuse not to say goodbye. No longer neighbors we limited the space between our days by writing letters and filling our free time with phone calls, getting to know more about the person at the other end of our memories. Over time letters became visits until the future became something we moved toward together.

Today, on the anniversary of my serendipitous reunion with your father, I am thinking of the moments that culminated in our life today. Falling in love is a mystery of accidental good fortune and conscious appreciation. Your father and I recognized something between us long before we created a life together and to me the magic is in the intention that invited choice; a series of serendipitous meetings and a collection of intentional hellos that became the story of how I met your father.

Homes are built from an intricate architecture that molds common materials into a dwelling of souls; bricks and beams relative in strength to the material that holds the weight of individual pieces in a harmony of intentions. A home’s inhabitants, too, are greater than a collection of beautiful individuals; they are fluid expressions of commitments founded in love and reinforced with care.

This weekend I am dwelling in the sight of my husband’s handwriting scattered in the corners of our home and bearing endearments in his absence. Humble scraps of paper made indulgent for the act of gathering one another into a moment even when separated by place and time. Understated gestures of love that are the mortar to exceptional moments of marriage.

Yesterday I lost myself in other’s expectations. Not one for dramatic gestures or extravagant gifts, I am content with handmade cards and thoughtful acts of kindness. Still, for a moment, I allowed myself to measure my husband’s affection against other’s expressions.

I recognized my own irrational behavior, but could not seem to shake my mood. My husband could have been angry or irritated, instead he accommodated my sudden inexplicable need for reassurance and sought out a traditional hallmark of the holiday; a large, heart-shaped box of chocolates. The generous act of sifting through last minute shoppers and picked over candies was not lost on me.

This morning racing thorough mindless motions before taking my daughter to school I snagged the fabric of my bulky winter coat in the teeth of its zipper. Without hesitation I presented myself hands full and zipper stuck for help. My husband, busy brushing his teeth and aware I was in a hurry stopped to lend a hand. Without words I reached for his toothbrush and he reached for my coat. It is the dance of a couple well acquainted with one another; seamlessly we predict the other’s movement, substituting our own for theirs to maintain balance.

This dance of everyday love is so much greater a gift than chocolates. Simple and undramatic, sometimes silly and always sweet these little things are everything, every day.

Goodbye kisses and last minute hugs. A kind word or glance tossed over our shoulder. Moments, fleeting, swept into the busyness of early morning school day routines. These tiny gestures will be lost, gone without warning, for families lost to tragedy early this Friday morning. Let us all hold these kindnesses in our own lives closely, remembering that for countless reasons, some entirely unfathomable, these moments one day are the ones we reach for first in need of comfort. Everyday observances of love.

Sometimes another’s words trigger a stream of thoughts otherwise unbidden, an awakening. I stumbled upon a sentiment, a casual comparison of love and art. Immediately I measured the limitations of such a sweeping generalization – the boundaries too structured for something as all consuming as love. In my mind love is like the air we breathe, experiences we gather into ourselves, moments in time that accompany us on a never ending journey.