scent Citations

The sky was aquamarine, stroked with clouds. She could smell the grass and taste the scent of small, crushed flowers. She looked back up over her forehead at the gray-black wall towering behind her, and wondered if the castle had ever been attacked on days like this. Did the sky seem so limitless, the waters of the straits so fresh and clean, the flowers so bright and fragrant, when men fought and

screamed, hacked and staggered and fell and watched their blood mat the grass?
Mists and dusk, rain and lowering cloud seemed the better background; clothes to cover the shame of battle.

I breathe in the full scent of her. If it ends tomorrow or in eighty years, I could breathe her for the rest of my life. But I want more. I need more. I tilt her slender jaw up with my hand so that she's looking at me. I was going to say something important. Something memorable. But I've forgotten it in her eyes. That gulf that divided us is still there, filled with questions and recrimination and

guilt, but that's only part of love, part of being human. Everything is cracked, everything is stained except the fragile moments that hang crystalline in time and make life worth living.

July 22, 1997
My Dearest Catherine,
I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I can almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have

been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away.
I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held

the fading sunlight. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think as I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. “Do you know her ?” they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer with the truth.

“Better than my own heart.”
I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again.
I raise my hand and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a

moment if you’ll pull back, but of course you don’t. You never have, and it is at times like this that I know what my purpose is in life.
I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.
But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one

another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us.
I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well up with tears because I know it is time for

you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is your place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that is

impossible.
And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. But soon, always too soon, your image vanishes and the fog rolls back to its faraway place and I am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry.
Garrett + Lire la

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THINGS I HAVE ENJOYED SINCE THE TIME I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER ENJOY ANYTHING AGAIN :

Sunrises, sunsets, the thousand suns and worlds that aren’t ours but shine in the night sky. Books. Cold beer. Fresh air. Dogs. Horses. Yellowing paperbacks. Skin against skin at one in the morning. Long, deep, meaningful kisses. Short, shallow, polite kisses (All kisses). Cold swimming pools. Oceans.

Seas. Rivers. Lakes. Fjords. Ponds. Puddles. Roaring fires. Pub meals. Sitting outside and eating olives. The lights fading in the cinema, with a bucket of warm popcorn in your lap. Music. Love. Unabashed emotion. Rock pools. Swimming pools. Peanut butter sandwiches. The scent of pine on a warm evening in Italy. Drinking water after a long run. Getting the all-clear after a health scare. Getting

the phone call. Will Ferrell in Elf. Talking to the person who knows me best. Pigeon pose. Picnics. Boat rides. Watching my son being born. Catching my daughter in the water during her first three seconds. Reading The tiger who came to tea, and doing the tiger’s voice. Talking politics with my parents. Roman Holiday (and a Roman Holiday). Talking heads. Talking online about depression for the

first time, and getting a good response. Kanye West’s first album (I know, I know). Country music (coutry music !). The Beach Boys. Watching old soul singers on YouTube. Lists. Sitting on a bench in the park on a sunny day. Meeting writers I love. Foreign roads. Rum cocktails. Jumping up and down (they’re publishing my book, they’re publishing my book, Jesus Christ they’re publishing my

book). Watching every Hitchcock movie. Cities twinkling at night as you drive past them, as if they are fallen constellations of stars. Laughing. Yes. Laughing so hard it hurts. Laughing as you bend forward and as your abdomen actually starts to hurt from so much pleasure, so much release, and then as you sit back and audibly groan and inhale deeply, staring at the person next to you, mopping up

the joy. Reading a new Geoff Dyer book. Reading an old Graham Greene book. Running down hills. Christmas trees. Painting the walls of a new house. White wine. Dancing at three in the morning. Vanilla fudge. Wasabi peas. My children’s terrible jokes. Watching geese and goslings on the river. Reaching an age – thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine – I never thought

I’d reach. Talking to friends. Talking to strangers. Talking to you. Writing this book. + Lire la suiteCommenter  J’apprécie          00