A Love Letter to a Love Letter

Jeff and I unboxed books for a book sale this past week. We were assigned the paperback romance novels which was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Some of the titles were pretty cringe worthy (The Greek Billionaire's Forced Bride). We were discussing good romance novels at knitting last night (think Gone With the Wind and Pride and Prejudice) and discussing if we had ever swooned at a book.

So this morning I'm thinking about swooning moments. Moments that are just so romantic and wonderful that they capture your emotions. And I thought of one. One of the few times where I've actually swooned at a book. It's from Jane Austen's Persuasion. Persuasion was the last book that Austen wrote, and her most sad. It's about unrequited love, something I have some good experience with. And it's my favorite of her novels. At the end of the book there is a love letter that made me weak in the knees when I read it. It's a love letter filled with passion and hope and a bit of pain. It's some of the best romantic writing I've ever read. So I thought I would quote it here. Sorry for the spoiler. If I destroy the book for you, I apologize. Although it is still well worth reading, just for Austen's wonderful phrasings.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.
"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

Love of my Life

Years ago, Jeff broke into my phone and changed his name from the rather boring "Jeff" that I had listed it as, to "Love of My Life". He did it as a joke and it certainly worked when I tried to find him in my contacts the next time. But it's been rather long lived for a joke. Five years later, he's still listed as Love of My Life in my phone. I still address him that way when he calls. And he still is the love of my life.

My dear husband has a birthday today. I won't tell you how old he's turning this year (I'm pretty sure he'd be mad at me for that). It's been a year of changes. The next one will have even more. Jeff has shown me incredible courage and poise this year. As one of our good friends told me recently "he's really grown up a lot". He's so different now from the man I married but I love him just as much, if not more. We've lived through some incredible times together. I just hope he knows how special he is to me. Happy Birthday to the Love of My Life.

Poetry Tuesday

I was never much of a flirt until I got married. Suddenly I went from quiet shy introverted Cat to a much more outgoing version of myself. While I'm far from extroverted, I am willing to open up and put myself out there a bit more. I'm willing to step out of my comfort zone and meet people. And now I find myself thinking about all that time I wasted not flirting or talking. All that fear and uncertainty that was misplaced.

Andrew Marvell tries to talk his Mistress into bed in this bawdy poem. Like Robert Merrick's immortal call to "Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May" in his poem To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time, Marvell urges to seize the day (and the sheets). It's a good lesson for every part of life, not just sex. Time is short, make much of life.

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side.
Should'st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster then Empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast.
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to durst;
And into ashes all my Lust.
The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning glew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Poetry Friday

I hate to miss two days in a row on the blog (and I'll miss even more next week) so here are two posts for the price of one. Oh wait, you guys don't pay for these. Well it's a good deal anyway.

A small poem but one of my favorites. I'm always moved by unrequited love stories. And this short classic poem makes me happy and sad at the same time.

The Look
by Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

For Jeff

Ten years ago today, Jeff and I got married. When I think about the number of years it seems like forever, but it feels like it has gone by in a flash. It hasn't and last night Jeff and I sat down to think about all the things that have changed in our lives since that day, a full decade ago. I was 22 year old, fresh out of college and he was 24, young enough that we still had problems renting a car for our honeymoon. We have gone through multiple jobs, multiple homes, multiple returns to school, and many fabulous vacations. We've been together through thick and thin. And I love him.

I tried this morning to find a poem (since it is Poetry Friday) that told him everything I wanted to say. But nothing really works. Poetry tends to be about new love, new lust, attraction. Not ten-year old love. Not love that has lived together for almost 4000 days. Not love that has grown comfortable with itself. I thought about that on my way to work this morning. And came up with this. Not good, not really even workable, but my feelings nonetheless.

I was young,
certainly way too young
for walking down an aisle in white.
A fairy tale moment,
of Cinderella finding her prince.
Trembling with love,
and lust,
and promises that had yet been spoken.
And you were young,
young enough that you seemed unfazed
by words like "I do" and "forever".
Barely a man, in tux and tails.
I was white, and pearls, and heels
and I was in love.

I stood this evening in jeans,
t-shirt, flip-flops,
A smear of ink on one of my cheek.
Champagne replaced by coffee.
Momentous replaced by mundane,
A life of mornings and evenings
often the same.
Ten years on and the pearls are gone.
But without the momentous,
without the artifice,
without the heels and parties and thrills,
I find I love you far more than I did,
the day we married.
And I have to wonder if the fairy tales were false.
Love is not one instant flash of passion
Real love is a gathering of days.