Went to sleep last night with a mission in mind. It's not hard for me to face the morning as I always wake up early, but I had to keep in mind that half priced tags started on Thursday and that a photograph I hung in an out of the way place was going to be on sale first thing in the morning. So I got myself out of bed and fired up my coffee water, turned on the 'net and sat down to read. Figgeted more like it. Jumped in the car at a quarter til nine and raced down to claim my prize. All that effort for a somewhat beat looking photo.
To say that might make me look a bit obsessive or mad or just desiring to accumulate more stuff before the move. But really, if you saw the photo you would understand. It's more symbolic than anything, I suppose, or maybe it's just a touch of our earliest letters, or that moment we shared in that row of flowers at Connell's. Maybe it was just one more thing that I wanted to have around, a reminder of the past, something else to hang on the wall or stuff in that wooden box. There's always something, sure, but this one piece was "for reals".
One of my fondest memories is about our mutual love of dahlias. As a matter of fact you mentioned them to me in one of our first letters, asking me if it was too late in the season to plant them. How would I know, when I couldn't even remember seeing them before let alone laying down tubers. But before fall hit I had not only seen and read about them in the Seattle Times, but found out about an open house in Tacoma and took off to see their show on Labor Day. Mentioned it to you and then, when we were stuck in traffic and looking for an alternative route to Sumner that one Saturday afternoon, passed by Connell's and decided to take in the "show". What was wonderful was the vast array of flowers blooming, and seeing you "ooh" and "aah" to the pom pom blossoms you love so much. And while I found my happiness in the bigger flowers, we still managed to find an awful lot that we both thought were grand. How could we not? It was an awesome day and a beautiful setting and another wonderful stolen moment for us.
So a month ago or so I saw a framed photograph taken by a local photographer at Goodwill. It's signed and numbered, but it must have been left in a garage or a basement because the matting got damp and mildewed. Didn't affect the photo from what I can tell, thank goodness. "What's the photo of?" you might ask. Well, in the background there are out of focus, oversized dahlias, flaming red, and in the foreground are these gorgeous purplish pom-poms. To anybody else it's just a photograph of flowers. To me it was all about the outset of our friendship, our day in that rows of flowers, a reminder of annual dahlia shows, flower catalogs and tubers to be planted. It is a reminder, too, that life is fleeting, that blossoms and friendships and love come and go, that the glory of the moment, if it is good and sincere and passionate, is meant to be lived, not shunted aside.
We lived gloriously, if only for a moment. Those blossoms in that photo live on, somewhat like the words and dreams and old wishes we had for each other live on in that satchel, in this place. We may not have a place in the sun anymore, but in the summertime I can wake up, pad my way across my yard, gaze at my dahlias and see our old emails come to life, or better, know that in the deepest part of winter I'll be able to look across the room, gaze at that print and see us standing there in that aisle of dahlias, you in the midst of a swoon. Who would think that all that could be found in a half priced photograph from Goodwill?
Your WHMB
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