And there is joy. In moments that we squander and sometime it is only after the moment is spent that we see it, because at the time we were too busy being lifted up, flying, soaring, too busy to notice what it was. Then, when we are let down again and the ground is hard beneath our feet and the sky seems far off, then we feel it, feeling it as an absence then – joy.
Like with Annie and it was never easy between us, not ever. And she said it would all come clean in the wash, and I never understood what that meant, but I let it go. And she took my hand in hers and she kissed my palm and folded my fingers over that kiss, and she said it was for when the day got too hard to bear and only then should I unclench my fist and taste that kiss. She was always doing stuff like that.
In my lunchbox one day, and there were no sandwiches cut into neat triangles, or cut into the shape of a heart; no sugared and sliced strawberries (and they are like love-hearts, too, delicate and red and pink); and no snatch of poetry written on a scrap of pink paper – Donne or Shakespeare or Keats. Nothing at all except an address printed onto card and a time.
I took a cab and I asked if he could put his foot down because I did not want to be late. He said he’d been waiting to hear that all his cab-driving life.
It was a plain looking red stone building. She was waiting outside all dressed in white and holding a fistful of flowers and looking pretty as always – Annie. I didn’t get it right away. I thought it was an invitation for lunch and I said I had to be back at my desk by two.
‘Do you take this woman?’ she said, holding out her hand to me.
I looked at her funny.
‘To be your lawful wedded wife?’
I was breathless for a moment and lifted up and swept along. I could not feel my feet, and all my thoughts were like the blown seeds of dandelions – all scattered and drifting. And Annie kissed me, there in the street, where all the world could see if it looked.
I wasn’t really dressed for the occasion and a part of me still fretted over the clock and being back at my desk on time. And a woman in a dark suit asked if those gathered could think of any impediment to the marriage of these two women – and I did not at first think she was talking about me and talking about Annie. And then she pronounced us married and we kissed.
There.
There was a moment of joy. I can see that, looking back. And a hundred other such moments the same, all folded into an album of joy. And Annie is gone now, and I am alone and my pockets are empty. I hurt inside, remembering what I once had and what I took so much for granted and what I would give anything and everything to have again. And I go back to that time, remembering Annie dressed in white and holding flowers in her hand, and I try to picture those flowers, what they were exactly and how many – and I cannot, and it is a source of some greater loss that I cannot name them or see them clearly in my head.
Patricia Ann McNair 
And there is joy. In moments that we squander and sometime it is only after the moment is spent that we see it, because at the time we were too busy being lifted up, flying, soaring, too busy to notice what it was. Then, when we are let down again and the ground is hard beneath our feet and the sky seems far off, then we feel it, feeling it as an absence then – joy.
Like with Annie and it was never easy between us, not ever. And she said it would all come clean in the wash, and I never understood what that meant, but I let it go. And she took my hand in hers and she kissed my palm and folded my fingers over that kiss, and she said it was for when the day got too hard to bear and only then should I unclench my fist and taste that kiss. She was always doing stuff like that.
In my lunchbox one day, and there were no sandwiches cut into neat triangles, or cut into the shape of a heart; no sugared and sliced strawberries (and they are like love-hearts, too, delicate and red and pink); and no snatch of poetry written on a scrap of pink paper – Donne or Shakespeare or Keats. Nothing at all except an address printed onto card and a time.
I took a cab and I asked if he could put his foot down because I did not want to be late. He said he’d been waiting to hear that all his cab-driving life.
It was a plain looking red stone building. She was waiting outside all dressed in white and holding a fistful of flowers and looking pretty as always – Annie. I didn’t get it right away. I thought it was an invitation for lunch and I said I had to be back at my desk by two.
‘Do you take this woman?’ she said, holding out her hand to me.
I looked at her funny.
‘To be your lawful wedded wife?’
I was breathless for a moment and lifted up and swept along. I could not feel my feet, and all my thoughts were like the blown seeds of dandelions – all scattered and drifting. And Annie kissed me, there in the street, where all the world could see if it looked.
I wasn’t really dressed for the occasion and a part of me still fretted over the clock and being back at my desk on time. And a woman in a dark suit asked if those gathered could think of any impediment to the marriage of these two women – and I did not at first think she was talking about me and talking about Annie. And then she pronounced us married and we kissed.
There.
There was a moment of joy. I can see that, looking back. And a hundred other such moments the same, all folded into an album of joy. And Annie is gone now, and I am alone and my pockets are empty. I hurt inside, remembering what I once had and what I took so much for granted and what I would give anything and everything to have again. And I go back to that time, remembering Annie dressed in white and holding flowers in her hand, and I try to picture those flowers, what they were exactly and how many – and I cannot, and it is a source of some greater loss that I cannot name them or see them clearly in my head.
Holy man, Lindsay! I feel this in my throat, friend. In my heart. “the blown seeds of dandelions, scattered and drifting…” Lovely and haunting.
Thanks, Patty, for your response to this piece. It is always so pleasing when I know I have hit the mark with you. Thanks.