Monday, April 5, 2010

Really, nothing has changed in my mind's image of me and David except for the colors and the focus. I am the same person and he is the same person, and I still love him, but what I see changes all the time. Largely it changes in the same ways it did while we were together, though I now have a slightly different perspective. Different parts of the picture come into focus or fade out at different times; different colors are highlighted or dulled. Sometimes I can easily see that we aren't very similar, aren't particularly compatible, don't want the same things. Sometimes I see these things and accept that they mean that we probably aren't the best matches for each other. Sometimes I see them and I feel like they don't matter--like I love him enough to work with and around and through our differences. Sometimes I can hardly see our differences at all. Sometimes I don't see anything, and when I think that we might never be together again, I can hardly stand it. Last night I could hardly breathe until I let that door close again.

Remembering the way his cheek felt against mine as I hugged him and he hugged me, or the angle and warmth of his back and shoulders when he napped on his side, and their height as I reached over them, and the way he once held my hand beneath his chest as he drifted off is like a knife sometimes. The hair and skin over the hardness of his shins. His tree climbing, his dirty feet, his water in juice bottles. All those philosophy books and Monk seasons, and his banjo playing, his laughter, his love for animals and for me. His love for his family. His knowledge about so many things. The way he drives his car, with forgiveness and determination and acceptance and affection.  How can I leave those things?





I had hoped that breaking up or taking a break would bring clarity, or at least peace. I guess, in terms of clarity, that the dust in the water has settled a little, but I wouldn't call things "clear." And I only have peace when I'm thinking of other things.





The air of the spring is intoxicating.There is a smell of warm air and another of warm dirt, of hot dirt, of wet dirt. There's a smell of streams and a smell of trees and a smell inside a house with open windows, and in the spring they all swim through everything. Yesterday as I drove to church a part of the road was covered in a swirling carpet of white petals that had fallen from the blossoming trees along the road. I suspect that something similar was the inspiration behind the "dryads" of the new Narnia movies, though I must say that the real thing is far superior.


I have had so much to say, but I keep forgetting so many things before I can write them down.




edit:
I left this unfinished and un-posted for several hours, and there was a spring rain--the kind where the air turns translucent pink-orange and the drops fall lightly and widely spaced onto the new leaves and buds and petals, onto the blanket of treelove pollen, into the windows we left open in the beautifully hot air. And I tell you again, there is no smell better than damp spring dirt smell. If you don't agree, you have to at least admit that it is solidly in the top ten smells ever created. I took pictures.

This is from this afternoon, before the rain:

And this is the spring rain sky.



Showered flowers (which are prettier in larger sizes):





And sweet Faith, who doesn't love the rain as much as I do.

(I promise I didn't wear those shoes all day yesterday or all day today. I just slipped them on to close the car windows and take pictures. Honest.)

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