they are there.

the words.

the letters and sounds and sentences i want to spin into a magic web to tell her this, this something swirling around in me.

it seems so quickly autumn's upon us again, sneaking up with earlier sunsets and colder nights, as if the warm breeze blowing through the city streets this week is summer's farewell parade, beckoning the season's change.

it seems fitting, this transition. it marks a new time in my heart, the feeling of falling in love with her all over again--this new person i'm meeting every morning and this new entity we've made out of our two selves. it introduces me again to another fall when i first fell for her and began to know (though i couldn't have imagined this then) that she was made to inhabit some sacred, special part of me and ultimately, to change my very core with the chemistry of her love mixing with mine.

words are slippery sometimes, escaping to feelings impossible to name, evasive like the answers to those big questions life throws our way and we can spend a lifetime seeking.

and maybe it's just that. just what she said to me this morning as i clutched my multiply-adjectived latte and brushed against her lips with mine: that of course we're still learning and trying and erring because we're just starting. this is the beginning. the journey is at once beginning and continuing and ending and starting over again. and it will, hopefully, forever. because forever doesn't seem quite long enough to love her.

October 3, 2002