Eleven Splinters of Life with You (or, “Low Cost Anniversary Gift”)
I want to ask you if your memories move. If they’re films or just snapshots, flecks of time in no-motion. It’s our anniversary month again. We’ve been married long enough that we don’t need to count years. But we can count snapshots. Eleven little fragments of life, frozen heartbeats still full of us.
Provo, Utah; 2001
You don’t like brand names on your clothes. But there you are, smiling through an American Eagle faux photo shoot. It’s 2001 and your boyfriend is unfortunately wearing a visor. I can’t tell if you’re having fun or wishing a truck would run you over. You love red, but probably not this much. You wore a fitted red shirt and blue jeans the night we met a couple months ago. You talked about your thesis and I talked about Led Zeppelin. Now you say you might go to graduate school in Texas. I’m hardly paying attention because you remind me of vanilla and you hold my hand like you mean it. I’m hoping hard that you mean it.
Damascus, Syria; 2003
Old Damascus smells like spices and distance. You with your linen skirt wrapped around your waist and our baby strapped to your chest. It’s hot in September in Syria. We’re a long way from anywhere we’ve ever been. Uneven streets and taxis and microbuses and mustaches. You eat your ice cream with a little plastic spoon, you hold it up to make a point, the evening sun shines through it. Like a holy strand of stained glass.
Reston, Virginia; 2006
Scratchy wool sweater on your shoulders and tall spring grass waving. Neither of you will look at the camera. He exasperates me because he can’t talk. Sometimes you exasperate me because you can, but you won’t. It’s one of those days. The sun is out but it’s cold. They say spring is fickle sometimes. That’s the truth.
Jerash, Jordan; 2008
Your placid face is not a lie. I used to think it was, like you were walling something off with pleasant expressions. Now I’m coming around to the reality that you’re simply unflappable. There you are, standing still, bearing motherhood on your slight shoulders. Will she believe all the things you believe? You’re not worried about it. You’ve got a look on your face like you know something.
Provo, Utah; 2010
Two of the three kids are having a meltdown. We’ve got a guy taking family pictures today. It’s not going well. The trees are turning into skeletons and there’s snow on the mountains. Here comes winter. You hate the cold. Yet I’m the one losing their mind with the kids. I’ve got my camera and it finds you. Nothing is suddenly perfect, but now I remember there’s going to be a tomorrow where I can try again.
Sciacca, Sicily; 2013
You don’t like to have your picture taken. But you don’t not like to have your picture taken. So you usually look somewhere else whenever the camera looks at you. I’ve never figured out if you’re embarrassed, or annoyed, or if there’s always something genuinely interesting over my shoulder. Today there’s salt and seagulls in the air. We drove the Sicilian coast in a stick shift Peugeot with a toddler in the backseat. Are you looking at yesterday or tomorrow? You just lightly smile and demur.
Kent, Connecticut; 2014
I think we started this morning in Hartford but that seems like a long time ago. These New England two-lane highways weave through the trees and towns. It’s easy to lose track of where you were. It’s easy to forget where you’re going. That’s not a bad thing. It means you’ve settled into right here, right now. You need to stretch your legs so we pull over in a small town all smothered in autumn. You ease your pretty self onto a park bench to be alone. But soon you’re all smothered in children. That smile says you’re here right now and you know this won’t last forever. I point my camera at you. That shutter snap says maybe it will.
Leh, India; 2017
You just need a few ibuprofen and then the altitude here doesn’t bother you much. But the kids had headaches last night. I think somebody threw up. We didn’t really sleep. Your eyes are tired, you don’t say much. You tell us you’re just enjoying your surroundings. That’s what you say sometimes when you want to be left alone. My camera doesn’t accept such excuses, I’m afraid. I’m the moth and you’re the light, even on days when you wish you weren’t. Some things are the way they are.
Agra, India; 2018
The sun always finds you. Today is no exception. I’m losing myself, shaking for no reason. You’ve got all my pills in that purse, the ones that calm and confuse me at the same time. I’m coming apart, but you hold me together. I know the sun always finds you, even when there isn’t any sun. So I stand as close to you as I can get.
Yuvila, Mexico; 2021
Everybody’s carsick so we pull into this dusty turnout high above Oaxaca. The sound of your sandals on the dirt and rocks, you in that grey t-shirt I swear you’ve had forever. I try to remember where you got it and realize I don’t remember when I didn’t know you. You beside your littlest girl beneath this October sky that smells thin but goes on forever. Like you, and your grey t-shirt.
San Salvador, El Salvador; 2022
Today I caught you trapping evening sun in the shallow creases at the corners of your eyes. I caught the light twinkling off a couple stray silver strands of hair. You’re still not looking at the camera. You see something else just off center. You’re always looking somewhere the rest of us aren’t looking, seeing something the rest of us aren’t seeing, and you’re always smiling just a little at it. Today is just a day. There’s nothing special about it. Just you.
