Drinking Beer by a River

Isn’t that why we live here, to drink beer beside rivers, take walks in the woods, have deliciously decadent sex outdoors, dance to live music, eat fresh and local, climb mountains and swim in lakes and rivers, enjoy cocktails on porches and in gardens, drive to the beach?

Today, we put a couple of beers, a quarter bag of multigrain chips, keys, phones, and a blanket in the wagon and took a stroll by the river. Chief ran off down the path, leash following like Mary’s lamb.

This is how long the dog has been gone down the trail. There’s a breeze on the river, and my heart is in two places. I need rivers for that, to reconcile these two great loves. Neither follows your rules about what you think love is. No big to-dos in either.

My husband came back with the dog, and we let him nose around the riverbank while we drank beer and enjoyed light conversation and laughter, always lots of laughter.

You wouldn’t ask Persephone to choose between Hades and the flowers, so don’t ask me to choose either. I’m honest with my first love and my final love, my alpha and my omega. I truly love them both, want the best for each, whether or not that includes me. They both know my heart.

I find peace watching the river flow, among the trees. The green air and dappled light filter out the harshness of the world for me.

If you’re one of those people who cling fiercely to monogamy, that’s fine, but I don’t need any small-minded limitations and boundaries putting restrictions on my heart or telling me who or how to love.

I met my first love in 1987, fell hard and fast, still falling. It’s not a fairy tale romance; it’s raw and real and gritty, full of betrayal and abandonment and forgiveness and reconciliation. It’s also full of moments crystallized outside of time, speeding trains, my daddy’s shotgun, cars and bars, sneaking out and sneaking in, clandestine meetings and phone calls, an agreement to try to resist our attraction to each other. We’re good at failing, almost as good as we are at falling. It’s been one hell of a ride so far, nearly forty years into this spiral, a Yeatsian widening gyre.

But we can’t stay together, never could. We take up so much space together that it forces everything else away. He needs everything else and can’t stay unless I can’t, so we leave each other. That count is in double digits. When we had to part last year (huge mess, still not cleaned up, and I’m not doing maud duty on this one), my husband held me while I cried enormous, heartbroken tears. It’s like a piece of my soul is ripped out of the fabric of me, leaving a gaping hole that resists filling.

My husband fills it with gentle words, chess, love, and understanding. He knows that I love him, can never be replaced, that I would be a fool to leave the man who never left for the one who always returns. He also reserves the right to give me an ultimatum. I don’t follow a bunch of stupid rules in matters of the heart, but I play fair, and I’m as true to both of them as the river is to the trees.

So we spread our blanket by the river and drink beer, read poetry and put our hands and mouths on each other, breathe in the green light, and give thanks for the love we have. If we ever run out, we know how to make more.