My Wife

Juliet, when we made love you used to cry
You said, 'I love you like the stars above; I love you 'till I die.'
Dire Straits

Hey Calamity Jane:

Remember gliding over the grass flats in your little sailboat and up onto the white sands of the island when you said "I wanna do something funner" and we broke out the Moet?

Remember when we snuck up into the tower and spent all night on our backs watchin' the lunar eclipse?

Remember fryin' up speckled trout with ho cakes and buttery scallops caught behind Black's Island?

Remember when I played that song for you under the magnolia tree in Ferdinand Plaza?

Remember when I cast so hard I tipped over the canoe?

Remember laughing when the jackass got loose and ran through the lot across from us while we were having morning coffee? Remember how you yelled, "run Jackass run!" and I 'bout spit coffee across the room?

Remember snorkeling for lobsters in the keys and the fin you saw next to me as I swam out to that island? Remember the steady breeze pushing in over the water while we grilled our catch over the campfire?

Remember the mongoose at St. John's on New Year's eve? The cat that took up residence with us in the Monkeypod treehouse at Waipea Valley? The geckos that used to feast on the mosquitoes on the lee side of the beach house?

Remember hiking from Phantom ranch all the way up Bright Angel to the south rim? Remember how the day tourists walking a few yards down eyeballed us, dusty and plodding out from the canyon.

Remember canoeing back to the dock at Crystal River after swimming with the manatees and that Tampa Tribune photographer snapping our silhouettes?

Remember stopping on that Nevada Road in the middle of the night, turning off the lights and looking around? It was so dark you could see the tendrils of the Andromeda galaxy.

Remember bobbing in the clear Gulf water Sunday afternoon with the little booglet? Makin' a tunnel in our sand castle by digging until our hands met sandy and salty on the beach?

Remember the "fall spring" trip? Nipper key? King Pokie Lickie? Rocky and Mugsy ("never catch me alive copper!")

There's so much now isn't there? We could talk our inside jokes for hours like another language only husband and wife can translate. We've created our own universe. Now we've populated it with one 30 pound inhabitant.

I know exactly what you're saying, "Hey Yacky! What's your point?"

Remember what Van Morrison said?

"The best is yet to come."