Yesterday was one of those days you want to take home to meet Mom. And when I say yesterday, I mean the whole long day. It began with a bright sky and mockingbirds singing, not just one of their Billboard Top 10 tunes, but an entire album of deep tracks.
Bean Trader's Family
That may not seem like a big deal to you, but it's a rarity for me. I told Ms. Wonder about it this morning over coffee at Port City Cafe. No real point in telling her; she already knows all there is to know about the Genome. Still...
"Let's hope today is the same," she said with her usual optimism. She's a gem, that one, with her positive outlook and her moxie. I wonder why the Universe allowed me to get ensconced in her life. It seems too good to be true, and yet there I am, ensconced like a Russian doll.
The whole thing seems wondrous to me even after all these years. You've probably read the previous post about getting trapped by the safety belt in my car on the first date with her. If you haven't read it, look it up now. You can always come back to this post when you're up-to-date with current events.
If you're one of the regulars who hang onto every word I write, then you'll understand why, after that first date, on the very next visit to her office with the corporate rent check (it's something we did back in the day), she told me that she knew I loved her and that I wanted her for my own and that she would--and she made it perfectly clear--that she would be my wife.
I was surprised, considering I'd demonstrated that my mechanical abilities fell short of using a seat belt. Also, it wasn't what I expected when delivering the specie to the landlady. But what could I do? She had stated in no uncertain terms that she would walk the aisle with me while the organ played "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden."
I did what any parfit gentil knight would do. "Oh, that's settled then," I said. "Do you prefer a large or small wedding?"
Unfortunately, that particular wedding wasn't to be; not right away, at least. A hurricane was spotted loitering in the Gulf of Mexico, right off the coast of Houston, and we made hasty plans to hightail it to Arkansas. Hot Springs, it was, as I recall. The nuptials came about a year later.
But as I was saying earlier, on this fine day, she offered her blessings for the day to remain in statu quo, and I was grateful as always. She and the Universe share a special bond, being best friends since they first met on this side of the veil. Still, I was a teeny bit doubtful, and I told her so.
"I'm not expecting the day to turn out so pleasant," I said. "The feeling I have is like the one I felt on the day I entered Doyle Jaynes's apartment in Crystal Cove and found every flat surface covered in pizza boxes and the floor strewn with soda cans."
"I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe another cappuccino?"
"The worst part is that the air is heavy with the stench of stale tobacco and Frank Sinatra is singing something about round and round, down and down.”
"What are you talking about?" she said, looking as though I'd just admitted to keeping ferrets. "Stale tobacco? Sinatra?"
"Oh, sorry," I said. "What I mean is that the air in my mind smells of tobacco, etc."
"Oh, sorry," I said. "What I mean is that the air in my mind smells of tobacco, etc."
She nodded and then stirred her cappuccino thoughtfully. "Can I ask you something?" she said.
“Of course," I said.
“Of course," I said.
"Are you ever happy? Really happy, I mean?"
We looked at each other for a long moment while I searched the data banks for the most recent spot of happiness.
"I was happy when Port City made me the customer-of-the-month for April," I said.
"Yes, but that was fleeting. Do you ever have extended periods of happiness?"
"We had this discussion just recently," I said. "Remember, the dogs in the park, sniffing butts, carrying sticks, and chasing balls?"
She gave me a look like the one she wore when her best girlfriend decided to quit her job in Houston to go wait tables in an ice house in Bandera.
"Where can I go but to the Lord?" she said, and I thought it must be a rhetorical question and so I left it lying there. My tai chi master used to say, 'If it don't belong to you, don't pick it up.'
It's a peculiar thing, really: the Universe saw fit to ensconce me in the life of a woman who shares a first-name basis with cosmic forces, who announced our marriage before I'd even mastered the seat belt, and who weathered a Gulf Coast hurricane just to eventually say "I do."
And here I am, decades later, still explaining why my internal weather forecast calls for stale tobacco and Sinatra when the morning mockingbirds are performing their entire catalog.
Perhaps that's what happens when you're a Russian doll ensconced in the life of someone too good to be true—you become acutely aware that you're nested in grace you probably don't deserve, which makes the whole business feel wonderfully impossible and faintly terrifying, like being trapped in a seat belt on your way to forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment