Bonfire &
This playlist has me thinking about bonfires on a cold Pacific beach, something we never did, but a part of me wants. I have so much ambition and longing for simple easy things that may never be for one reason or another. You or me, practical natures notwithstanding.
I don’t even think we know people that would host or attend a bonfire like that. I mean, realistically, if we’re in a place that boasts a beach where the cold Pacific laps, you and I are more likely to be sporting orange and black at Oracle than we are to be bundled in many layers around a fire where I’m never fully warm and you’re never fully comfortable.
Still, having said that, the chill would be sharp and bright, the fire cheerful and soothing. My layers insulate me just enough that i can have a good time. My nose will most certainly be cold and the same for my cheeks, but your smile is always warm and your kiss says enough. This is just a pit stop before i find something something warm (a shower or soup or heated seats). I can’t wait to fall into bed next to you, limbs both cold and war, drowsy and pliant. You won’t be ready for sleep yet (you never are when I am), but you are always ready to rest with me, lay there until i have shifted positions enough to free you from cuddling responsibility and you are free until sleep pulls you back to my sleep-warm side.
I dream too much in a world that feels too uncertain to sustain this level of intangible ambition. I want squeeze everything out of this life before it’s gone and I want every drop to drip from between my fingers into your hands like watermelons on a hot summer day (the pool is a clear blue, the sun shines, the oldies play, the black seeds fall forgotten to the pool deck). Or maybe it’s you that makes me reach for stars just past my fingertips, empty roads, rainy quiet days, the drudgery or working-from-home (wherever the good internet is), and a life that just stretches on. I could get wine-drunk and tell you these things [my mascara will run and so will my words. My sentences won’t quite make sense and at the end of it you’ll just smile and let the quiet fill the space because you don’t know what to say.]
But this is also the desire of a person who is afraid to watch you pass before me, shuffling off your own mortal coil years before you should, thanks to service to a cold and callous Uncle Sam. I probably worry as much as I dream, even though there’s nothing I can do in either case.
So I dream to forstall any sadness, picture us in a myriad of places once our kids are grown. A bonfire by the ocean in the City by the Bay; Oracle Park on Orange Friday in a city that holds our collective beating heart; in a house not ours while being a home that welcomes us with open arms and an upstairs bed freshly turned down.
This isn’t at all where this post was mean to end up, certainly not based on its inspiration. We all pass, I know. At some point, it all ends. But for you, any ending is too soon for me. But for us, any ending at all is unacceptable.
I am sad. This too shall pass.