And even as I’m pouring the last drops of our second pot of coffee in your cup I’m still trying to tell myself that I’m not going to make another pot, but even my own mind can’t keep a straight face at the thought. I decide to pretend a third pot was the plan all along and pour the water in for another go before bringing your coffee back and setting it down with a little flourish.
You sit as you do, as we do, every morning, at our big ugly kitchen table: two 30 somethings who are more than happy to slowly sink into the staid portrait of a classic old married couple. We sit side by side, our legs touching, comfortable in the warm silence our two bodies create. The very thing that my teenage self feared most has come to pass: I’m living the life of a happily married woman, wife to a man I adore. The horror of comfort! The terror of wedded bliss! All of those years spent scared of being tied down, of being locked in a marital prison; all for naught. My life, this life, here with you - the whole thing almost feels like too much to wish for.
I watch as you gaze out the window, trying to burn it into my memory. “Remember this, Stephanie.” I think. “Remember, remember, remember.” I try to lock this moment, this one perfect moment, right now, here, of you and I just like this, away down deep where it can’t be touched. Where it can live, somewhere inside of me, forever.
Of everything I’ll lose in the next few months, moments like these are what I’ll miss the most.
I remember when you and I sat here - looking out this window, just like we are now - for the first time. That first early morning, having our first coffee together in this house, looking out at the tendrils of early morning mist still stubbornly clinging to the tops of the pines; I remember how the trees seem to stretch out forever like a lush green carpet across the valley before disappearing off into the low hanging clouds in the distant sky. It felt like all the good in our lives was laid out right there in front of us, just waiting for us to step forward into the future and live it.
“Would you look at that” you said on that morning, a little kid giddy with excitement. “The trees, the clouds, the sky, the world, the planets, the stars; all of it right out there, right outside our humble kitchen window. The whole sum total of existence, all trapped behind a single pane of glass.”
We sat there in quiet reverence, knees touching, marveling at the vast beauty of the world beyond our window - breathless at the thought that nothing less than the all of existence was sole spectator to you and I, and that moment: Our first morning spent together. I remember gently knocking wood; a quiet wish that this moment would last forever - or that somehow, in some future life, I could live this moment again, Over and over and over, for eternity.
“What a sight.” I said.
And then you leaned over and kissed me.
Looking back at my life, at our life, that moment is maybe the happiest I’ve ever been. I wanted to trap it like a firefly in amber and live inside it for a hundred million years. But, of course, the Great Unspoken Tragedy of Time is that it keeps gently nudging us forward, ushering us past what truly matters while muddying the clear waters of purpose with petty wishes and self-important worries. Eyes up! Face forward! Onward! Onward! A brighter future lies just around the corner, it says! A better life! All the while, the happier tomorrow is quietly slipping by the beautiful present into the yearned for yesterday. The next moment is always only a moment away - whether or not you want it to be. We cannot make a home in the present, so we must make that home in our memories. And to lose that home is to lose everything.
Not wanting time to push me forward into the next few minutes and the confession I have to make, I look down and watch my fingers trace the raised patterns of thick paint on the table. God. This table. If there is anything in all of creation that is completely impervious to time - and not to mention ugly - it is our kitchen table.
This thing must weigh a million pounds. A heavy hideous stout old beast slathered with cheap white paint, it’s almost pretty. Like one of those ugly dogs that are cute, it’s where hideous and adorable meet back on the other side. It’s my secret hope that the table is actually made from some kind of beautiful wood; Walnut, or Rosewood. Something valuable. Or Teak: The wood of royals. Wouldn’t that be a trip? Something majestic under all this crap paint? As the doctor visits have mounted and my life has started to come apart these past few weeks, it’s been all I can do to not take a steak knife and scratch off a little of the paint to take a peek underneath to see if my suspicions are true. I can just see the Antique Roadshow now:
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