Twenty Seven

We spent the day wandering the city.

Oliver fell asleep on my chest as Becky tried on clothes at The Limited.

Men discretely (so they thought) ogled my wife as we walked through the mall.

We ate at Panera.  Becky feasted on her usual.  Her currently red hair blew across her face in the parking lot.  Oliver's hair stood on end in the stiff breeze.

Our hands touched and our shoulders touched, my eyes consistently sought hers or those of our son.  Familiarity outside - even though we were surrounded by everything else.

She was born twenty seven years ago.  Her parents were frightened teenagers or even smaller, even more afraid, being where they were and so far away from home.

Oliver made eyes at people, watched people, all from the safety of our arms.

He won't say "mama" when Becky is around but only when he thinks that she's left the room or the apartment.  Becky has been lucky enough to catch him a few times when his back has been turned.

The young woman at Sephora apologized over and over for the fact that the story did not have birthday gifts in stock; her words were self-devouring shoelaces.

Even though we've been together for some time now I am still capable of gazing at her when she suspects nothing - her green eyes hiding out behind the rounded vogue of her eyeglasses.

Everything that's close is beautiful.

I wrote in each of the books I bought for her.  Gift notes of my hopes.  They are various promises - all of them waiting for her acknowledgement and her eyes.

Happy birthday, Becky.

High School and Huxley

I read constantly as a young boy and all the way through adolescence - encyclopedias, fiction, even a bit of poetry - I was an avid writer as well.  I spent a good deal of time in the middle school library, checking out books of ghost stories, historical fiction, etc.

Yet, teenagehood being what it often is, I lost interest in reading and mired in video games (not that video games are bad, I love them still) and depression - though I still continued to write.  I could not, at the time nor later in life, understand the idea that being a teenager was meant to be the best period in one's life.  The notion still riles me and engenders in me nothing but disdain for its falseness.

A combination of neurological and situational maladies contributed to my deep melancholia and I still have that melancholy disposition to this day, though it is more now a permanent piece of my personality than an impediment to general happiness.