85. You are everything

 

 

I’ve been remembering some things more vividly lately, little gems, exquisite moments. That long kiss in the ancient antiquities hall at the Metropolitan, holding you and talking in whispers on the couch as that first visit was coming to a close, pulling you into the backseat of your car at Philly Airport minutes after reuniting.

There are a thousand precious moments such as these. So many that they can blur together into a kind of amorphous sea of happiness. But, quite frequently, a perfect crystal of memory rises up and presents itself for my delectation.

Often these can be intimate, too personal to write about in any meaningful way. Some, however, are more innocent, though, no less potent for that. I think often of the day we wandered the back streets of Frenchtown just looking at houses and imagining a life shared under the roofs of several places that caught our eye and set us dreaming.

We did the same a year or so later in Bethlehem PA, a gorgeous place (in parts at least) that neither of us had trouble imagining as a future home. Yes, our dreams can be very domestic, even white bread; so what? You take your pleasure where you can find it in this increasingly insane world.

Our many drives along the Delaware River are another highlight for me. The countryside down through there is so gorgeous and the little towns and villages so picturesque that almost every mile is burned into my memory.

Our day with the kids on South Street in Philly, our OMG moment on South Street in Freehold, Ben’s Delicatessen in New York, Strolling the boardwalk at Asbury Park (and the Beach bar, oh, the Beach bar); so many memories that rise and recede, only to rise again.

All of this you have gifted me my beautiful Jersey girl; a life, a sense of place in an ocean of meaninglessness. And so I want to take this opportunity to thank you, to let you know how much you have given and how much it all means to me. I have no idea where the rest of this journey leads; I only know you are the only soul in the world I want to share it with.

 

Words and images are my own.

©2016