Seasons of Love

525,600 minutes doesn’t really sound like that many to me. Maybe I’m just crazy; it is, after all, more than half a million. Part of my brain, however, refuses to believe that’s all the minutes that are in a year.

A year ago I had a dream that involved a tight rope and safety wires and a ravine that I couldn’t believe would end and the irrational fear that if I let go, the safety wires that were there to keep me from dying would fail; and then there was Ryan, who put his arms securely around my forearms and promised to let go with me and promised that he would keep me safe; and then I woke up and knew there was no second guessing that, and at 6:41 (according to his clock; I still say it was 6:42 but I don’t argue) I called him and the rest is history.
It’s been an entire year. That seems so impossible; at yet, at the same time, I don’t remember what it was like to be without him. For all that I spend so much time complaining, I don’t know what I would do without him.

The enrichment seniors took a day trip to Lawrence today. We went to the Bob Dole Institute of Politics and then spent three hours on Mass Street; I ate dinner with Ryan on his 45 minute lunch. Now this is in my purse and I finally have a necklace to wear with my dress (because the other one I was planning on wearing turns out to be too long; I am too lazy to try and make the chain shorter).

The old man sat down on the bench in the middle of the park and pulled out his newspaper to start working on the crossword. On the other side of the fountain, there was a young girl; she pulled a deck of cards out of her purse and starting playing a game, obviously in no hurry to be anywhere or do anything, obviously passing the time until something happened.
After 10 minutes, she reached over to her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and made a phone call; as she never said a word, he assumed she was checking her voicemail. The cell phone quickly went back in the bright pink and black purse, and she continued playing her game.
Five minutes later, she kept sneaking glances behind him, and he heard someone walking across the park.A young man, about the same age as the girl, with his hair cut short, wearing a blue-and-white button-up shirt, was approaching. It took no knowledge of the situation at all to know that this is what she had been waiting for; as the boy approached, she put her cards away and stood up. They embraced and climbed up the stairway to the gazebo in the center of the park. He stood up and walked out of the park, his crossword less than half done, allowing them some privacy (even though they were in a public park; it seemed wrong to intrude).

Spreading a blanket out on the concrete floor of the gazebo, the boy and girl exchange greetings. She sits down and he reaches over to the Pizza Shuttle box he’d brought with him. Proclaiming loudly that they’d given him the wrong order, she rolled her eyes at him. “Do you want it?” he asked as he turned the box around to her so she could see the white jewelry box and the expensive chocolates sitting inside.
“Because I didn’t know it wasn’t pizza. Who brings a pizza box and a picnic basket?” she teased.

They ate sandwiches and fed each other grapes; they lay on the blanket and stared at the gazebo ceiling and held hands, letting the quiet lull of traffic on the other side of the block, the running water of the fountain, and the wind in the trees build walls that kept them seperate from the rest of the world.

At one point, she noticed him staring at her. “What is it?” she asked.
He smiled, a quiet, self-assured smile, and said, “Nothing, I’m just… being in love. Is that alright?”
“Absolutely. Can we do this more often when we’re older? Go on picnics?”
“If you want to, sweetheart.”
“We can just have a big tree in our yard and do it there.”
“If you want a big tree, we’ll have one.”
“I don’t have any trees at my house.”
They sat silently for a moment; her eyes were distant, not looking at the gazebo. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“Just… picnicking with you.”
“what about it?”
“We’ll have to keep the dog inside. I’ll probably end up falling asleep, I’d hate for him to wake me up.”

When they walk across the park toward his car, they’re holding hands and singing songs from Broadway musicals; when they hug goodbye at his side, their eyes are closed and their expressions seem to be nothing but content; when she walks away as he starts the car, she keeps turning around to wave and he keeps smiling and blowing kisses.

Even though it’s overcast, the world seems brighter than she could ask for.