It’s been six years since I met my husband; six years since we agreed by phone to meet for the first time at a local restaurant. I drove out of the city that Friday evening and lumbered along the length of Jefferson Road in my Jeep, thinking about how dinner might go. My thoughts scattered.
We made first contact in the parking lot on a crisp, rapidly cooling evening with the sky layered in darkening pinks, cold grays and winter whites. It was the final day in September and I carried a black and white checked coat over my arm.
I was surprised. His voice from our phone conversations did not match this man in the parking lot; this flesh and blood person leaning casually with folded arms on the backside of his car. On the phone, he sounded older and more cautious; careful with words and given to long pauses in between thoughts. This man with salt and pepper hair and legs loosely crossed over each other was younger than I imagined, leaner than expected and wore a grin on his face; subtle traces of island heritages finely lining brow and skin tone. He wore a black shirt and charcoal jeans. He strode slowly toward me as I got out of the Jeep, reached out his hand and introduced himself. I noticed I was about one to two inches taller than he was. I adjusted the black leather bag over my left shoulder and moved the black and white checked coat to my left arm so I could shake his hand.
I don’t remember much of the opening conversation; the cooling air and the swift darkness covered my shoulders and throat and we both remarked on how chilly it was. We moved closer to his car and he said he had something for me. Lying on the cloth car seat were a dozen pink roses and a manila folder. The flowers were lovely and ever since then, September is no longer lathered in pumpkins and yellows, rather she is bathed in pinks and greens and air thin tissue paper; fragile to the touch, brilliant to the eyes.
The manila folder contained papers; his license, his birth certificate, a certificate of ministerial ordination, proof of undergraduate work at a local college, other papers indicating a clear and free path toward a serious relationship. I opened the folder and thumbed through things, shifting my coat from one arm to the other while thanking him for the roses. He said simply, “These are papers which let you know that I am who I have told you I am. I know how you white people are”.
I am forever surprised at how thin the edge of life’s dime can be; finer than tissue paper, more fragile than a single rose petal; a wispy turn to the left or right in which a lifetime changes. In the split second of inhaled breath, words wound or heal, direct or scatter, irritate or calm and sometimes there are no words, only laughter. I heard him and I laughed and laughed and laughed. On the razor’s edge of that dime, I summed up more than four decades of my life and said to him, “You are right”.
He sat to the left of me in the restaurant instead of across the table. Eating was uncomfortable for me because I strained to turn left to look at him as we spoke. He did not seem to mind. After a heavy meal; pasta and sauces, salads and bread and wine, we moved to ice cream across the street at a different restaurant. Around midnight, I indicated it was time to go home and he asked whether or not I felt safe returning to the city by myself. I did and he bade me good evening.
That was on the 30th of September, 2011. I married him at the courthouse downtown on the 27th of October, 2011. My moment of hesitation came only when I looked at the name change option on the document we filled out. I felt tremulous and steady; clear and muddied; surprised and relaxed.
It’s been six years and a lifetime. We live well. We live clearly and we live on balanced ground. It was as simple as coming home at the end of a long day to a pair of well worn slippers, a warm fire, and the promise of the beginning of an excellent book. I have read the preface, some commentary and some endnotes. I am now turning the real pages.
690 Saint Paul 