“Of course. But I love many things. I love to sit here with you. I love to share the beauty of this place with someone I care about. I love to watch the osprey swoop toward the creek and find its dinner.”
She is quiet for a moment. She looks away so I can’t see her face. It has been her habit for years.
“Why are you doing this?” No fear, just curiosity. This is good. I know what she means, but I ask anyway.
“What?”
“Why are you spending the day with me?” I smile.
“I’m here because this is where I’m supposed to be. It’s not complicated. Both you and I are enjoying ourselves. Don’t dismiss my time with you—it’s not wasted. It’s what I want. I sit here and we talk and I think to myself, What could be better than what I am doing now?”
She looks me in the eyes, and for a moment, just a moment, her eyes twinkle. A slight smile forms on her lips.
“I like being with you, but if getting me intrigued is what you’re after, you’ve succeeded. I admit I enjoy your company, but I know nothing about you. I don’t expect you to tell me your life story, but why are you so mysterious?”
“I read once that women love mysterious strangers.”
“See, you haven’t really answered the question. You haven’t answered most of my questions. You didn’t even tell me how the story ended this morning.”
I shrug. We sit quietly for a while. Finally I ask: “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That women love mysterious strangers?”
She thinks about this and laughs. Then she answers as I would:
“I think some women do.”
“Do you?”
“Now don’t go putting me on the spot. I don’t know you well enough for that.” She is teasing me, and I enjoy it.
We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken us a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.
Time passes, and gradually our breathing begins to coincide just as it did this morning. Deep breaths, relaxed breaths, and there is a moment when she dozes off, like those comfortable with one another often do. I wonder if the young are capable of enjoying this. Finally, when she wakes, a miracle.
“Do you see that bird?” She points to it, and I strain my eyes. It is a wonder I can see it, but I can because the sun is bright. I point, too.
“Caspian stern,” I say softly, and we devote our attention to it and stare as it glides over Brices Creek. And, like an old habit rediscovered, when I lower my arm, I put my hand on her knee and she doesn’t make me move it.
She is right about my evasiveness. On days like these, when only her memory is gone, I am vague in my answers because I’ve hurt my wife unintentionally with careless slips of my tongue many times these past few years, and I am determined not to let it happen again. So I limit myself and answer only what is asked, sometimes not too well, and I volunteer nothing.
This is a split decision, both good and bad, but necessary, for with knowledge comes pain. To limit the pain I limit my answers. There are days she never learns of her children or that we are married. I am sorry for this, but I will not change.
Does this make me dishonest? Perhaps, but I have seen her crushed by the waterfall of information that is her life. Could I look myself in the mirror without red eyes and quivering jaw and know I have forgotten all that was important to me? I could not and neither can she, for when this odyssey began, this is how I began. Her life, her marriage, her children. Her friends and her work. Questions and answers in the game show format of This Is Your Life.
The days were hard on both of us. I was an encyclopedia, an object without feeling, of the whos, whats and wheres in her life, when in reality it is the whys, the things I did not know and could not answer, that make it all worthwhile. She would stare at pictures of forgotten offspring, hold paintbrushes that inspired nothing, and read love letters that brought back no joy. She would weaken over the hours, growing paler, becoming bitter, and ending the day worse than when it began. Our days were lost, and so was she. And selfishly, so was I.
So I changed. I became Magellan or Columbus, an explorer in the mysteries of the mind, and I learned, bumbling and slow, but learning nonetheless what had to be done. And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.