Thursday, February 16, 2006

Post Marital Syndrome

Sweet wisteria hung from the branches of the trees I drove past many years ago. Pulling over one afternoon, I crossed a ditch hoping to hold them in my hands.
My hands are covered by a million lines. Curtis used to say I must have kept them balled into tight fists as a child.
The wisteria escaped my greedy grasp that day- spared by the approach of a protective country dog. I kept driving.
I don't remember anything else about that day. I wonder how many days I've forgotten entirely. Each of these moments were as real as the one right now, which will soon pass into an endless void.
Years later, on our second anniversary, Curtis and I went to Riverbend Campground and pitched a modest tent by softly murmuring waters. We stayed up late and talked by the fire under the dark, southern sky in North Carolina. The following day, a gentleman carried us upstream in his truck carrying a canoe in its bed. That afternoon, we canoed down a shallow, winding river that cut through farmland speckled with herds of cows.
It being late August, the nights were turning cooler and a cold that hinted of approaching autumn crept through the canvas of the tent. An achy back and high spirits greeted us with the dawn.
A few months later, when tragedy struck, I would look back on that trip as the happiest memory I could conjure.
All my memories are glossy or matte.
I wish they were flesh and blood.
There is noone to connect me to the times I can't remember.
I don't feel like this is the end.
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