47 years

47 years ago today, John was on a ferry heading to Victoria to participate in a fund-raising poetry reading at Open Space for bill bissett, organized by Warren Tallman. He was going to stay with a mutual friend, who asked me if I’d like to join them for dinner before the reading. I did, I didn’t like John (and I think the feeling was mutual), but somehow during the reading itself, I found myself deeply interested in him. Never mind that he had a partner in North Vancouver and I had someone I was going to return to in the west of Ireland. Later that night, after drinks with the mutual friend, he walked me home along Rockland Avenue and in some ways he never left. Well, of course he left, the next morning, and he sorted out his relationship, I sorted out mine (which meant going to Ireland), and after a sweet few weeks travelling together, including a boat ride on the Seine where we decided to break up as soon as we got home but didn’t, our lives have been entangled ever since. What you can’t see in the photo at the top of this post is that I am pregnant with our first child. In the study at the top of the stairs in that old house at the top of Lonsdale Avenue, John was drawing plans for the house we built, beginning when that baby was 2 weeks old. 2 more children, extra wings on the house to accommodate us all, and now the wings are closed off until summer when our children and their children come to fill every inch of space with noise and laughter (and sometimes tears). The first gift John brought me when he came to visit the week after we’d met was Van Morrison’s album, Wave Length. I put it on my turntable (remember those?) and listened to the songs that became part of my wiring. I could sing them all now. But maybe instead I’ll put a disc in the cd player (because I don’t do any of those streaming things) and remember how it felt to be newly in love, a life unfolding, and the memory of walking along Rockland near midnight with the scent of something sweet rising around us.

I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light