1.23.2004

Sun and brilliant light shines on my cheeks, the air is cold and I think of you while the river churns green below me. The cottonwoods are up to their knees in the water, bare except for pale yellow catkins in tufts at the ends of branches.

You came running and laughing away with me, our mouths open and smiling and we run hand in hand. Here we are, on the verge of getting our second wind but still miles to go, and I know even some of it will be uphill and in the rain, but we can pause here to reflect and catch our breath with the sunlight on our hair. Last year was the hardest, not because of us but because of our circumstances. It was a steep and rocky ascent and we failed to make the summit, but we're both stronger and wiser now. I can trace a thumbnail sketch on the smooth metal rail that spans the river, my toes sticking out over the rushing deep cold water.

I never thought I'd be married. I never thought I'd be married seven years. People warn us, say, "Uh-oh! The seven year itch!" but they told us the first year was the hardest and then they told us the third year would be hard and then they warned the fifth year would make it or break it and we have gone rushing through, not something carried by the water but the water itself. I can feel you, I can hear you, I can see and touch and taste you and you're miles from me right now. If we are made by the memories we keep then I am in love with you, because I can still feel the press of your body and the lemon and clove scent of you with my back to the refigerator, your breath on my cheek and your strong hands in comfortable places and then the train came pounding and whistling in the dusk, twenty feet from the paper thin walls of your kitchen in the little cabin behind the tattoo parlor on our second date and I knew I'd spend my life with you.

What is this thing, this comfort, this stability and strength, this clarity, hope, and desire? I do not doubt it is that elusive and fragile thing called love. Seven years doesn't seem long at all. We have been and gone so many places, changed our shapes and continue to match eachother, burn eachother, the electricity between us almost visible, a tangible thing.

I am interested to find out what will happen in the next seven years, my love. The water rolls clear and deep, a rushing shush and a subterranean roar, constant and far to travel.