September 28, 2003

• Campfire

  
  

  It was raining in the Kancamangus, but we built a fire anyway.  I was hunched over the firepit madly stuffing matches under the soggy kindling, when he walked over in his flannel shirt with an armful of firewood. Within a moment or two we had a bright blaze, as if fire could only be made by us together. We sat for a while and munched on s’mores, and then I settled by the light to listen to the drips fall from the dark trees and the crackle-snap of the embers, and he sat and read his book beside me. I thought only of the peace i knew being close to him there in the wet mountain night; when I am near him, I feel as if all is right with the world.

  
  

  I have a running list in my mind of vague proofs and hopes and evidences which point to the source of my love, and he touches each of them. Sometimes I rationalize all the ways we complement one another, to add up the quirks of our personalities that bred us to fit and counterbalance the other, and those things we learned from our mistakes which we use to be good to one another and make things work. Sometimes it is a thing he does or a way he moves or stands or leans, a sudden familiarity in the color of his eyes or the lines on his face, the sound of his voice or the way he says my name; or on other days it is a common thing we share, something silly or trivial like a mutual love for burned marshmallows or a song on the radio. When i go to sleep I wonder about the future, and whether we will always be like this, or if I will lose him somehow….I have visions of little moments that might happen. Will we grow old together? And I daydream about standing at the edge of the pacific and holding his hand in mine, or the house we build together, or the name of a daughter who might ride on his shoulders at the park, or doing dishes together on another rainy evening years away. Mostly I feel like I know him intrinsically, and have somehow always loved him; and it feels like a miracle to me that he is here and I know him.

  
  

  I was going to write about the woods and the mountains and the river near our camp, or the train we rode into the Notch in the valley and the color of the leaves, but sometimes a thing is more than the sum of its parts. For a long time that night I looked into the fire that we had made together, and realized just how deep my love is. And i thought it might be better to write that down.

  • 7:09 pm
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