Journeying with You
I tried to think back.
Warm and happy memories.
There were times not perfect,
I have been less than stellar for periods.
But steady?
We hope! I hope I can leave you with those hopes
Too much hope? Not enough? We cannot have everything, certainly not me.
But having you has certainly been enough for me.
There are are others who go farther, who provide with more, who are even less selfish.
I am not a lot of all those things.
Maybe enough.
We went to Mexico.
Cabo San Lucas, Los Barriles, La Paz, in the southern Baja.
Then La Bufadora, Ensenada, San Felipe in the north.
Again by the Sea of Cortez, the Gulf of California. With a little one.
They looked over our car outside of Ojos Negros. Mexican security, as it were.
Mazatlan, Obregon, Guasave...
The Mexican Riviera.
Points on maps, you and me, and a baby.
But wait! Before that, while pregnant, there was Acapulco,
La Ciudad de Mexico, Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan.
Finally, Zihuatenejo. Romantic moments on the beach.
Guitars and some moonlight, I think.
Add another child, we went to places like Ciudad Juarez, after Arizona and New Mexico.
Sleeping in the RV, camping in western Texas.
We went to a few places.
Journeys. Not perfect, not opulent and bougie,
Close and nice.
Flew to Indiana, drove to Chicago or Asheville in the Appalachians, or Tennessee.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina.
We went to Boston, and New York, Manhattan, the New Jersey side with that tall lady...
Cape Cod, some Vermont.
Places, journeys, remembered and forgotten.
New Orleans, Mississippi, the Carolinas.
Smoky Mountains. Like the Sierra Nevadas or Yosemite of yesteryear.
Chile for six months.
We did okay. We lived a few dreams.
Did we not?
As we aged and raised more children, we went to new places:
The Turks and Caicos
The Bahamas
Canada
Mexico, briefly.
With our children, the apples of our eyes.
We went to mountains and beaches, plains and lakes and rivers.
Time would pass, years added on.
You and I went to Iceland.
We took most of the kids to Peru.
We went places, and sometimes we were apart.
I could hear your voice from far away; you were close by.
In my heart and mind.
Across the miles.
In all, we have spent about 8 months away from the United States in seven foreign lands.
States? Dozens, including Alaska and Hawai'i.
We go on sentimental and emotional journeys.
Sunday morning interlude: I meant to write and publish this poem
yesterday, Saturday.
I am composing it still,
While you go walking.
Snow is still melting,
Slowlier (not a word!) than ever.
The ice of mid-Fedruary,
After observing the sun, scrutinizing the moon...
Its heights, its ranges, its seas of just moon dust or rocks
Distracted again, by heavenly bodies.
We do not wish ...
I lost my thought.
This is about you and me.
Not all the distractions.
Ahh, death!
There you are.
Existence! The afterlife.
Not looking forward to bodiless entrapments...
Where has the journeys of this Valentine's poem gone?
Ugh, not the intended romantic Valentine's I had thought of!
Saturday morning, the 14th, all light and gay.
Happy, passionate, full of life.
Today, somber and gray. With some hope. Just enough, or not sufficient?
Either way, we are on our journeys.
I thank you, and love you, eternally, for all the journeys,
Remembered and forgotten.
Eternally.
Whatever that means.
A poem, not perfect or perfected, like the journey of you and me.
I love you now.
