What It Can Become

I’m not sure how well this is going to translate, but no one will be able to say I didn’t try.

That photo up there? If it looks familiar at all, it’s because it’s in the masthead I designed for Waltzing in Perdition. I intend it to symbolize myself (Very Dashing and Powerfully Strong Man) and Cute Redhead (aka Absolutely Gorgeous Girl) and the season of life we’re in and, hopefully, convey how I see the dance so far.

Seventeen years into this and we’re learning. We’re finally learning. Finally. Meaning, I’m finally learning. Which I intend as a joke (half a joke), but which I also intend to mean that I’m (we’re) rather past that stage in marriage where you think the goal involves changing the other person.

Yeah no. For those of you ahead of us , you can stop smiling now. For those of you behind, you can wipe that smile off your face.

See how close we’re holding each other? That takes practice. Some days just five minutes at a time, to quote my brilliant friend Sarah. The closeness also comes with more than just comfort. I comes, year by year, argument by argument, blessing by curse by insult by flattery, (and with the scars to prove it) that only that person who holds you that close knows what it is to also hold everything about you. Warts and all.

See those flames? That’s Perdition. Which is, I’m told a nicer word than the word I think says it much more beautifully. Which is Hell.

I like this photo because it’s fair.

You learn to dance. And, learning, you get to admit that though you might never consider divorce, you most certainly consider murder. But it takes two to tango waltz.

And while the music of Life is playing…why the hell shouldn’t we stop looking at our feet, trying to master this, and just appreciate the song for all its vivid, melodic, percrushion (I just made that word up), moving, and terrifying notes?

Just. Keep. Dancing.