in those days,
2005-12-21 4:28 p.m.
something about us -for many days we had gone with small hopes, for weather that would let us travel lightly, for shoes that came close to fitting, for fortune in finding a good meal (or a better way to make one). this left us quiet, and we had taught ourselves to read one another, to read eyebrow arches and stressful smiles, or to follow the direction of quick glances. this was friendship heightened by necessity, and the pacts that stand between us now were made during the late nights that we spent huddled in hotel doorways, cuddling closer to keep the cold from passing between us.
then, suddenly, it ended. not the relationship, oh no, but the element of necessity that had kept us so well bound up in small hoping. the unexpected happened, and we were suddenly caught thinking in abstracts - using words that once were inconceivable - future, family, children. we began planning, indifferent to the changes within us.
i found myself saying that i wanted the kids to say bag and pants in the new england way my mother had given the words to me, stretching out the a's and making them harsher. he wanted to make formalized commitments and use impossible words like forever.
and we smiled at our big hopes. in those days, we were happy.