"We just don't recognize life's most significant moments while they're happening."
-Moonlight Graham, Field of Dreams
It started, all of this, the gentle snore on the next pillow this morning, with the sweep of fingers through a lock of hair.
March 19th. P and I had been talking for hours, literally. That was nothing new; we'd spent years at that point just talking, getting to know each other better than I'd known another person before, or since. That day we reflected on the people who'd shaped our lives and the experiences, good and not-so-good, that made us what we'd become.
We were walking, Peg three steps in front of me because, well, you know how she is, how she walks, with those broad shoulders thrown back and a vector, a purpose. And you know how I am, dallying, distracted, taking in the first golden flashes of daffodils awakening in a brown winter landscape on the cusp of spring.
Who knew we were all on the cusp of spring that afternoon?
Then P turned and looked at me over her right shoulder, and as our gaze met a lock of hair fell over her right eye. Without any thought or hesitation, I reached up with my middle finger and swept the tress back over her ear, fingertips sweeping her forehead and her brow, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
This was not the most natural thing in the world, not at all. I can't recall ever sweeping the hair out of a friend's eyes before that moment. But I suppose Peg wasn't just a friend at that point, no matter how deeply in denial we both were.
And it had to ripple through both of us. She didn't brush my hand away, or dodge backward to avoid the touch. She let me touch her hair, although there was a surprised stillness between us for a fraught moment, both feeling something had passed between us, something was rising on that spring afternoon we would have to face at some point.
But that was later.
We turned back down the path, continuing our walk and our conversation, as if nothing had changed although manifestly it had. The world shifted on it axis for me. I knew--I felt--from that moment on, life with Peg was something I couldn't do without, if she'd have me. I wanted this conversation to go on forever, or at least for what's left of our lives. I wanted to hear that gentle little snore this morning, every morning.
And here we are, on a day I mark as the turning point of my life, a day the significance of which I couldn't fathom at that moment when I drew back the hair to expose the gaze of the most beautiful eyes ever to come out of Blue Grass, Tennessee.
Yep, those eyes right there, in the earliest photo on my phone of P. I still sigh a little.
There's no 3.19 tradition in our household, although I always mark the day. Tonight will likely be private and low key, just an evening together and early to bed because Peg's working early tomorrow morning. And this is the life that started to come over the horizon that day, a life I never take for granted.
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