She is Loved!

Last night she stretched the length of the couch and rested her head in my lap. I ran my fingers through her hair then softly touched her skin.  A few moments of reverie pass suddenly she was nineteen all over again. I was coated in her fragrance a scent so familiar it made the years in the past illuminate the dimly lit room more vividly than anticipated. The movie playing in the distance was of no consequence, she was once again new in my life.

When I first met her she was golden brown colored by the mirroring sheen of the nearby Atlantic Ocean in partnership with Titan – God of the sun. She lived on the beach and commuted between the dunes. Her life was foreign to mine.

She’d visit me in Manhattan every Sunday and we’d catch a first run movie then hike down to Greenwich Village to meet my friends. They would goad me the six days in between about this young beauty that fascinated. I was cautious never wanting to smother so I’d pocket a few dimes and quarters and call her seventy five miles away in the Hampton's but never intrude. Every time she picked up the telephone there was so much joy in her voice I’d have to temper suspicion and flow with the conversation, count the change to the last minute, remember to tell her I thought she was truly attractive and plan for our next encounter. Life was unpredictable.

She occupied my every thought. Sunday’s became impossibly short so we plotted longer visits. A few weeks in the organic relationship I land a music directing gig with Janis Joplin and then I’m gone - following that, military service.

 The next months would test us like we’ve never been tested since. We did everything we could to be together and actually survived the near impossible.

Love is incredibly powerful and at times all consuming. We lived on a farm north of Toronto and made love between fields of corn and orchards ripe with apples. We’d escape to the massive barn on the property and spring  doors wide open whenever a storm arrived and coil in stacks of hay listening to the rhythm of heavy drops bang the many panels of blemished wood.

We hitch-hiked through the South like the connecting highways were one long taxi stand. Who needed a car when one had thumbs? We fried under the unrelenting sun and dived in any lake willing to accept. We steered clear of most immediate family forasmuch as we both witnessed the roots of turmoil and made a pack our home would be forever a house of joy far from anger factory.

The summer months in Clarksville, Tennessee she would sun on the baking shingles the roof above  under which we made love to Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Jefferson Airplane. Every once in awhile Richard Harris would sing 'This Time We Almost Made it, Didn't We Girl, ' and we'd embrace and kiss long into the first shine of morning light.

I'd be the first to awaken and study her silhouette. Her dresses were short and clingy - drenched in pastel colors  – her walk - delicious. I memorized every curve on her body , the perfect contour of her legs. I knew what to say to make her laugh and knew each day would start with the aroma of her goodness.

So this morning I will do like I’ve done thousands of mornings before – I will bring her coffee – and in keeping with Valentine’s Day I will buy a card and tell her what I think of her in glowing prose, present a bundle of flowers, we will dine and watch another movie together and I will look at her and ask myself – how the hell have we managed to spend ninety-nine percent of our lives face to face - still love madly and deeply and never run out of things to say. I will read the morning paper and she will reread to me when she rises. I will recite the sports page – she will mop the floor with it. Now that’s love!