We had calamari, salad and asparagus and corn risotto. We split a bottle of chardonnay. The sharing was sexy, satisfying, sensual. We slowly savored the flavors, the conversation. Tears welled more than once in our eyes, as we looked at our love through a microscope and found the chemistry we've sought for so long in our lives in each other. There, in a noisy restaurant, on an ordinary Tuesday, we spoke about our fears and our hope. She told me how hard it is for her sometimes to consider taking off her coat to stay a while. I am moved by her honesty and her willingness to work to be a better person and partner and friend. I confessed that she's the only person in my life who makes me feel fun and told her what a gift it's been for me to have laughter and silliness and squealing fits. How her natural rhythm is slower than mine and of my knowledge that I need to slow down.

If you were sitting on the outside looking in on us, you might not see how beautiful we are. There is a secret language that we speak together, something only we can know, that keeps us grounded in the hard time and sends us soaring in the good days. Inside us are two strong individuals who have every intention of staying that way and every desire to stay in love. Inside us the hope for a better way of doing things than what our experience has taught us.

We left to Grisly Peak that perch at what feels like the top of the world, watching the city lights wink and giggle in their nightly escapades, hearing the silence of a world without TV's and radios and telephone rings. We made out in the Jeep like teenagers looking for trouble and rushed home 'cause we're grown ups, who have a better place to fool around. I crawled into her, there, and we were newly familiar, finding that place in each other that's always fit. She was time standing still. She was the only one in the world. She was my lover, my co-conspirator, my Mount Everest.

And so I took off my coat.

To stay a while.

April 23, 2003