Long Love

My sweetheart is home from the woods and the clothesline is already filling up with camouflage jeans and jackets and shirts and hoods and hats and a bright-orange vest.
The cooler, however, is empty.
Ah well. It's all about the woods and the wardrobe, I believe. (Don't tell him I said that part about the wardrobe, okay?)

I spent most of the day on my annual chopping back of the confederate jasmine. I dare not call it pruning. That would imply some sort of talent or actual skill or deliberation. No, I chop at the vines braided together like giant green dreadlocks, the sap flying everywhere. I pull and cut and pull and cut and no matter what I do to it, it will bloom in spring in almost too-intense ecstasy, the scent enough to make you reach for the smelling salts with one hand and a hankie with the other. It felt good.

I got a call today from a friend telling me that a man I've acted with at the Opera House died last night. He and his beloved wife had just gotten back from a trip to Europe and he was on a canoeing trip with a friend and out of nowhere, he went into convulsions and died.
It's unbelievable.
He was one of those men who brought joy into every room he entered. We weren't close but the news made me cry. Mostly for his wife. They met and fell in love later in life and were so happy together. I feel so sorry for her and for his children.
Life is just so tenuous, isn't it? My god but we have to hold on and be aware of every bit of goodness and love that we can. I am thinking of him this evening. I am thinking of his wife who adored him.

Last night I just couldn't bear another bowl of leftover soup and so I made a faux curry of chicken thighs and carrots and sweet potatoes and red peppers and onions and mushrooms and green beans with a pot of brown rice to go with it. I say "faux" because the only half-way authentic ingredient in it was the coconut milk I poured from a can. I used curry paste and curry powder and frankly, I thought it was delicious.

Mr. Moon claims not to like curry but he's getting it tonight anyway and I think he's going to like it. I picked a few more tiny greens from the garden to make a salad and am trying to make naan. I got the recipe from the internet so you know it'll be delicious. Right? How can you go wrong with fried bread? Well, it's not really fried but it is cooked in a skillet. It is rising now. I'll let you know how it works out. It is good to have this man home to force into eating foods he doesn't like. At least I am not going to make him eat beets. I will eat those when he is in Canada. And probably more curry but with tofu. Not that I dislike chicken but I do love the tofu and Mr. Moon claims he does not although one of his very favorite meals (perhaps his favorite) is the egg rolls I make with tofu. And the hot and sour soup I also make with it. So, you know. It all depends.
I'm pretty sure though that no matter what I did with beets he would not be happy about it.

And so it goes. We had a porch martini and talked about all sorts of stuff and I seriously do not know what I would do without him. I remember when we first met and he had been dating a girl much younger than he was. Much younger than I was. And we were in that just-getting-started phase of a relationship and we were in my bed but mostly just talking and I told him that it was such a pleasure for me to have such a god of a man in my bed (oh, and he was and he still is) and he did that "time-out" thing with his hands and said, "And it's so nice to be able to talk to someone who knows what I'm talking about."

"Something's Gotta Give," the movie I watched last night is a woman's fantasy movie. A middle aged woman is courted by two men- one much younger than she is and one her age who has never, before he met her, been able to commit. Who never fell in love before he met her.
But thinking about it, I have to say that when I met my now-husband, I had been courted by younger men myself. No need for details but they were sweet. But when I met him, one month older than me by a day, it felt right.

And thirty years later, the history we share is all-encompassing. Not to mention that we still very much love each other. That we still find new ways to love each other while the old ways are always there at the same time.

Fuck. I've said it before, I will say it again.
I am the luckiest woman on earth.

Wish me luck with the naan.

Love...Ms. Moon