second sunday. or, how some friends show you yourself.
i had the pleasure of a work
weekend in sunny san diego last weekend, as well as the delight of
getting to share a sweet historic hotel room with one of my very nearest
and dearest, who drove down from long beach bearing tulips and
champagne, a long awaited bean in her belly, and thoughtful trinkets for
my boys.
i want to go
into great detail about the phenomenal woman that myriam is. i want to
tell you how being her friend means having your heart memorized and read
out loud each and every time you are together. how your secrets spill
out to her like you're the bag of rice while she wields the knife. that any attempts at b.s. are blown away when she clobbers you with one of her own truths or aims those beautiful brown eyes in your direction. that one moment the two of you can be weepy, cracked open, and an eye
blink later she will have you falling out of hotel beds, howling with
laughter. how she's brave enough to tell you when you might possibly be wrong, and
loving enough to make you feel invincible. how she can make magic out
of golden beets and stinky cheese. and every lucky soul to cross her
path. how she carries in her a long awaited little one that will be
truly one of the most blessed of people, to call her Mama. how i
cannot wait to love that baby.
that day i had sessions to do and we had checking out to do so i turned
my camera on her only for a few moments. standing there with the world
in her belly. waiting there to lift off with the love she has to give.
i want to gush more. but will leave you instead with the poem she read that day.
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
