Some Thing New
New is the smell of fresh leather seats in a two door convertible bought off the showroom floor… odometer reading: .0001
New is the crisp resilience of a white cotton shirt still on the rack at Brooks Brothers, never worn and never washed.
New is the sparkle of a brilliant white diamond set in platinum and placed on the well-manicured finger of a June bride.
And new is the idea that these pricy stereotypes are farcical and illegitimate, far from genuine and less than real.
Thirty years into a marriage of inconvenience I think of those early days, the steamy moments, the new-ness of being in love.
And I realize that those feelings of excitement, immediacy, intensity, and heat…were, in a word, biology. Without them, I would not be here.
But somewhere between the then and the now – a more perfect union has come about and I know that new is a concept I had yet to know.
New is my husband every day, every day.
He is a man in motion, moving through his experience of life and becoming a human I could never have anticipated. This sexagenarian sharing my home is funny and cute and creative and cool. He is his own person and my person at once. And he is more of a person than he was at thirty-something.
He is in is element cooking meals, mopping floors, chopping wood, or wiping a grandchild’s tears…mounting a motorcycle, enduring a chick flick, or weeping at the grave of yet another departed friend.
His element is not dependant on the frivolities of life dreamed up by Hollywood or Madison Avenue or other untried amateurs.
His element is far more remarkable and interesting and this is truly new because I did not see it coming. No, not at all.
New is not worrying that my drooping jowls and sagging butt are a liability in my lover’s eyes.
New is understanding that love is not a flash in the pan tryst, but an investment of self whose returns are measured in memories, history, honesty, transparency.
New is in the eyes of the beholder and I behold a new beyond any new I could have created, left to my own devices.
New is the crisp resilience of a white cotton shirt still on the rack at Brooks Brothers, never worn and never washed.
New is the sparkle of a brilliant white diamond set in platinum and placed on the well-manicured finger of a June bride.
And new is the idea that these pricy stereotypes are farcical and illegitimate, far from genuine and less than real.
Thirty years into a marriage of inconvenience I think of those early days, the steamy moments, the new-ness of being in love.
And I realize that those feelings of excitement, immediacy, intensity, and heat…were, in a word, biology. Without them, I would not be here.
But somewhere between the then and the now – a more perfect union has come about and I know that new is a concept I had yet to know.
New is my husband every day, every day.
He is a man in motion, moving through his experience of life and becoming a human I could never have anticipated. This sexagenarian sharing my home is funny and cute and creative and cool. He is his own person and my person at once. And he is more of a person than he was at thirty-something.
He is in is element cooking meals, mopping floors, chopping wood, or wiping a grandchild’s tears…mounting a motorcycle, enduring a chick flick, or weeping at the grave of yet another departed friend.
His element is not dependant on the frivolities of life dreamed up by Hollywood or Madison Avenue or other untried amateurs.
His element is far more remarkable and interesting and this is truly new because I did not see it coming. No, not at all.
New is not worrying that my drooping jowls and sagging butt are a liability in my lover’s eyes.
New is understanding that love is not a flash in the pan tryst, but an investment of self whose returns are measured in memories, history, honesty, transparency.
New is in the eyes of the beholder and I behold a new beyond any new I could have created, left to my own devices.
Labels: marriage, men, relationship, something2009
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