time passes

Sixteen years ago today my entire immediate family, Aunt Grace and a few friends descended upon my sister's 210-year-old farmhouse to witness the successful completion of hobbitt's relentless proposals of marriage. It was the culmination of a wonderful long weekend of kite-flying, cookouts, free-flowing champagne and general revelry in the lovely town of Newburyport, MA.

It was the last time my entire family, including all siblings and spouses, were together. It was the last day I ever smoked cigarettes. It was the last day I was to live on the east coast for a dozen years. It was the last time I had chocolate cheesecake after seafood Newburg, the last time the police had to come to our door to break up a party (also the first!).

It wasn't the last time I ever felt lonesome or sad or scared. The ensuing years were full of much grief, sickness and death all around us. Five members of our wedding party of 13 are gone. hobbitt has lost two younger siblings. Our lives were tugged and torn and pulled and pushed and yet here we are, still believing that nothing bad happens to us and that our happiness is alive and secure.

I don't know how it works, or what we've done to deserve it. That's one of those mysteries I am very comfortable letting remain a mystery. I know you've read this before, but I just can't help myself today.

Someday we shall
again be dust
borne by winds
and seas
forever seeking
crumbs and seeds
of one another
to form some
ancient spark
not of ourselves
but of this gift
from gods
we do not know

How many times
this search, these seeds
thus forming
before, beyond,
the gift accepted
breathed, danced
and spent
though at times
perhaps this spark
did not give
birth to flame
it burns brightly
in us now

What do you say, hobbitt? Shall we re-up? I say double or nothing.