I’m back from vacation, it’s way too hot out and will be for the foreseeable future, and yesterday was my eighth wedding anniversary. That sounds like so many years! But I can still remember the first years, even the years when Dave and I weren’t married but were living together in northern California in a little apartment with crappy beige carpeting. (I mean, of course I can remember, I haven’t suffered a stroke, but what I wish to convey is these memories are still very clear to me, still feel as much like that day-to-day life I’m living now as they did back then. What I mean is, it is all still as good as it was before, when we moved into that crappy apartment and I knocked the screen off its slider by trying to force through some piece of furniture and then Dave dropped an entire plate of bolognese sauce on the floor and we had to go out at 8pm for carpet cleaner. It is still as good as the roses that grew in the courtyard of that building, the roses that were too good for a building so shabby and on such a large, loud road. It is still as good as Chicago, where we met so many friends and got married in the downtown courthouse by a judge who was sporting gold chains and some truly excellent chest hair; the courthouse was full of happy couples from all planes of existence, some in military uniforms, some with only one witness, some much older than us and a few who were younger, though looking back now we were, ourselves, very young. It’s still as good as sitting in a florist shop drinking coffee while someone made me a wedding bouquet, and it’s still as good as driving across the country many times, criss-crossing in and out of hot weather, which makes a big difference when you’re driving in January, when you leave from Wisconsin and then stop in New Mexico for dinner, and suddenly it’s warm enough to sit outside on the curb and it feels appropriate to eat green chilis on your burrito.)

I still remember it all and it’s still very good.