Romance Is Not Dead

Warning: Nauseatingly Sweet Content. Read at your own risk.

Fourteen. My Beloved and I have been married for fourteen years. Our history is actually much longer than that, as we were in love back in the mid-sixties, too, but parental disapproval served to separate us for 25+ years while we were married to other people. Some very good things happened in those intervening years, so we don't mourn them, but each year we celebrate the day we found each other again. And yesterday was our formal wedding anniversary.

My Beloved is very romantic - all my friends are envious and I, myself, am continually surprised by his romanticism, even after all these years. Because it was close to the date, he wanted to celebrate our anniversary while we were in Hawaii, so he made reservations at a very swishy restaurant in Waikiki and we dressed up (yes, in Honolulu!) and had a splendid dinner overlooking the beach. 

Not content with that, he also wanted to celebrate on the actual day, once we were home. We don't usually give each other anniversary gifts, so that meant another dinner out. He took me back to the restaurant where we had what he calls "our second first date." The food was disappointing but I still get a thrill holding hands and looking across the table at those loving blue eyes.

We have a little after-dinner ritual that we perform there in Tiburon every time we go. We each throw a penny into the water with a wish to spend the rest of our lives together and we share a big kiss, right there in public with the passersby wondering what has gotten into those two crazy old folks.

Earlier in the day, I made a light lunch in anticipation of the restaurant meal, and we ate it outside on the sunny deck. Just a plate of smoked turkey slices, melon and prosciutto, Irish soda bread that I found in the freezer, cherry tomatoes, and crackers with a tiny round Inverness cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. The colors were summery, the flavors rich. We picked our way through the offerings, idly talking about this and that. 

I know this just sounds like bragging and, in a way, it is. Sometimes, I can hardly believe my luck. But I like to celebrate the good things in life as a way of balancing the inevitable sad ones, and he is the very best thing in my life, past, present and future.