45

Forty-five is how old I was when we moved to America.

Our driveway became a luge in the night, so I was very happy that Tim had worked so hard on it yesterday evening, and that I had then gingerly slid through the slushy mess with my car and parked next to the empty house at the bottom of the Hill.  (In winter it becomes the Hill, because it commands deep respect and sacrifice.) Then I walked back up in the pelting frozen rain, drenched to the chilled bone after shovelling the deck and clearing the cars of wet heavy snush (a new descriptive word for snow-slush).

Because I was going straight to the airport from school, it was quite a feat to lug all my baggage and school bags down to the car, over the ice without falling. We walked gingerly even with our special snow-spikes attached to our shoes, and I felt a strong desire to rejoice and sing out a few hallelujahs once we arrived at the car.  Next minute the kids next door came running happily down the hill with their schoolbags, ready to catch the bus, no snow-spikes or anything, just like any normal day!  The confidence of the strong-boned young!

So today is Valentine's Day, and I am leaving on a plane bound for England tonight.  It is such a commercialized day, and some people feel sad, some ecstatic.  I have loved the same man for a very long time now, and am happy that he is still my Valentine.  So another poem, because I have been teaching all day and now have to be on my way!  This was the poem for twenty-five years together.  The first letter of each line spells our names and the anniversary.

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Silver

Today we have twenty-five years together, our roots

In another country.  Here in

Massachusetts, dislodged, but growing together,

& happy with one another.

A long time, half a lifetime of moments

Not untinged with sadness, but

Nearly all good and worthwhile.

Each of us has changed

Slowly, sometimes unknowingly.

In discord and in harmony.  We are

Linked like the sign for “connected”, my

Vagabond soul with your more

Even temper.

Remember always our purity

An alliance, an affinity,

Not wavering

Never unravelling .

I  am still lucky, my

Vivid friend, my lover,

Electricity still shocks my heart

Reaching for you,

Seeing you come in at the doorway,

A man who still chooses me, every day.

Riding  through this night, this life,

You are my silver moon shining in the darkness…