Love vanquishes time.

To lovers, a moment can be an eternity;

an eternity can be the tick of a clock.

Across the barriers of time and the ultimate destiny, love persists,

for the home of the beloved, absent or present,

is always in the mind and heart.

Absence does not diminish love.

-Mary Parrish

The anticipation that preceded my trip out to California to see her was almost overwhelming. It had been six months since she had been east for our "first date". Six months…

I like to draw things for her; mostly flowers. I find photos on the internet or a few times have sketched from pictures that she or I have taken and then add color with art markers.

As the time of my journey approached, our phone conversations would at times drift to reflections on the differences felt within ourselves and how that translated into what we were building. Six months is a long time and, were we not exactly who we are, that length of time could have faded what we thought we had after our first visit. But we are who we are and quite the opposite of breaking us down, those intangibles at work within us created an unshakable and growing bond during intervening months. And so we knew seeing each other this time would be extraordinarily different and we talked about how those differences might manifest themselves; some obvious, others...unforeseen.

I try to find subjects that have meaning to her or me or the both of us. The drawings are simple but it gives me a great deal of pleasure to have her on my mind as I work at them.

At last, the day arrived. I boarded a plane and chased the sun west to be with her.

And as we had anticipated, our time together was all we thought it would be and, somewhat unexpectedly, significantly more. More in what way? That is a difficult question to answer as I have come to believe there are parts of a bond formed in love that defy description by the written word. Or such is what I tell myself; I’ve struggled to define it but, alas, either my vocabulary or my ability to comprehend, or both, fail me.

But that won’t stop me from trying.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I imagine all who are or have been in the soft, warm and passionate embrace of love can appreciate, there are feelings and then there is…something else. Not a feeling per se, perhaps better described as a knowing. As one is able to identify the particular intricacies on the back of one’s own hand, it is a familiarity not breeding contempt but instead is known to be a tender confidence and a cherished trust; a level of intimacy that, while ethereal, is a stalwart foundation easily supporting the emotional weight of two incomplete people who together as one eclipse their own individual imperfections.

To clumsily put a finer point on it, we found our home during that week.

On my last night in California I took this photo through the window of a rustic French restaurant (I would not have used that adjective in this context had I not seen it for myself) way up in the hills of the San Francisco peninsula. The easterly scene we beheld was stunning.

A tree right outside the window of the restaurant struck her as particularly beautiful. Silently, metaphors danced in my head as we observed its scarred bark softened by a mossy plant symbiotically caressing it. She asked if I could draw it for her when I returned to Pennsylvania. Of course, I said. I would give it a try.

Although the wistfulness of this being the last night of my visit wandered around in the background of our emotions, it was a wonderful and satisfying way to spend the evening. The drive there was beautiful and our cozy table afforded me a million dollar view into her brown eyes, sufficiently distracting me into knocking over a nearly full glass of red wine.

But not before we were able to toast our week, and all it had brought to us.

We had come to the realization that it's not every day that two people, without expecting it, find their dream home.

 This is the drawing of the tree I sent to her.

Writing, images and photos by Smithery © 2010

~xoxoxo~