Why I Love Her

Posted on May 20, 2004 in Crosstalk Partnership Recent

Sometimes, I don’t understand immediately why I act as I do, why I write a particular comment at a particular blog or feel a stickiness like a rotten peach pressed to the sidewalk. Then I go to read or write or play a game and it hits me.

This has to do with the way another commentator at alembic struck a memory. Maria tells a fine story about how her husband complimented her mind as her most beautiful attribute. Burningbird and Maria called him “smart” for saying that.

It recalls to me an occasion when we were with a group of writer friends of mine. The conversation got to who people thought was the most handsome or beautiful person they knew. I blurted out “why Lynn, of course.”

“You have him well trained,” said a woman to Lynn.

Only one person got how hurtful it was of this dinner guest to say that and I had married her back in 1988.

One could curse about this other woman’s bitchiness, cattiness, cynicism, cruelty, etc., but I will say this alone: I married a friend. It’s easy for me to speak of how much I love her. It comes from that unencumbered place where truths snap like flags; she knows that there is no artifice involved, only affection.