i married Isis on the fifth day of May
but i could not hold on to her very long
so i cut off my hair and i rode straight away
for the wild unknown country
where i could not go wrong
…

she was there in the meadow where the creek used to rise
blinded by sleep and in need of a bed
i came in from the east with the sun in my eyes
i cursed her one time, then i rode on ahead

Isis, oh Isis, you mystical child
what drives me to you is what drives me insane
i still can remember the way that you smiled
on the fifth day of May, in the drizzlin’ rain

- Bob Dylan

we do not have the usual kind of anniversary.  there is no ceremony to commemorate, barely an event that marked one day from the next to anyone around us.  we began almost in secret, taboo, old friends evolving from one life to another in a window crowded with empty bottles and full ashtrays and late, late nights that became early mornings crouched at sunrise on damp concrete stoops together, still talking, whilst a foreign country woke up around us.  and i had known you too long not to know that a part of you belonged to me, beyond faithlessness, and yet was sure the boundaries on the rest were tied in chains.  and how heady, how terrifying, to watch the chains slide, to hold the Pandora’s Box of you & i in our hands and risk opening it, risk losing it all.

we slipped in eyes wide open, staring at each other, afraid to look away.  it has been seven years.  i still remember the feeling of relief, the recognition of now, i have lived.

we have lived more than i’d bargained for, and survived.  you have remained my friend, the one who knows me, the one i trust.  you have held me up through days and years i couldn’t see my way forward. you have had the grace to let me hold you up, in my different way.  we have each become something we were not before, and there is balance in it, better.

i look for the itch.  i know it well, have lived its dissatisfaction, its loneliness, its regret and wonder and longing for elsewhere…in another life, eight, nine years gone.  but i cannot remember its contours, anymore, cannot see its shadow.  we chose well, i think, in this gravely embarked upon and most serious fling.  this life’s work.

and too i remember the way that you smiled, that very first morning.  i made oatmeal, served up in plastic bowls.  it was the fifth day of May, in the drizzlin’ rain.

all i have…and love.