Day 148

Prom night!

All the beautiful children who are nearly there, nearly adults.  Gorgeous girls, handsome boys.  All looking scrubbed clean, newly minted, pretending to be grownups.

So strange sometimes, to notice my boys grown so tall.  A suit seems to add about two foot to every boy, all their friends suddenly towered above me, all these youngsters I have known since they were 11, which is still quite little really.

I remember being 17.  You think that you are the first person in the world to think so hard, to suffer so much, to love so deeply.  And so naive!  This generation at least has a better idea of how the opposite sex works.

It is 1am and I sit here in the almost-dark-but-for-the screen in our attic bedroom, Tim fast asleep in our bed, Lily moaning every now and then, asleep under my bedside table, very disgruntled to have been removed from "her" Lily-lounge.  Downstairs are about 20 or more 16 and 17-year olds, having an after-prom party.  They will eventually fall asleep at about 5am, I believe, but at the moment they are all singing along to loud music and telling funny stories in a circle of friends.

So my self-portrait, in the wee hours, in the dark where I can't draw anything, is a poem that I wrote for Tim for our 23rd anniversary, a few years' ago.

Anniversary

Was this the day it all began
I really can't remember
I know it happened at the beach

And that it was December

You took my feet into your hands

Such warmth and slow unraveling

I had not felt like this before

My senses all were traveling

I felt like I had always coped

It’s how I was taught to be

Divorce, with two blonde little girls

I’d thought, no one will love me

And then you came along one day

Driving that funny old car

You cared for us, you did your best

And you became our star

So on that day, with salty skin

I felt, I don’t deserve this

But then, I let myself unfold

You leaned in with a kiss

And consciously, with my whole mind

I fixed upon a choice

Destiny looked me in the eye

I found I had a voice

You trembled so, your lips abuzz 

The song our bodies sang

Together still we harmonize

More constant than when we were young

So come to me, my John the Baptist

My silver cloud in the rain

My blue-sky boy, my shining knight

That day, you were my gain