paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary

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eight years ago today

September 14 is a big deal around our house�. But lately we keep letting it slide. Last year, because of the events of September 11, Quinn and I completely forgot to notice that we turned seven. At some point, in the fall, we asked ourselves if we even recognized the occasion � a little uncertainly, hesitantly, we both sat there amazed. That is exactly what happens after a few years. In June I was talking with a friend of mine and wanting to do something neat this year. Instead, the car happened. Milton. The binder gig. One day flows into another with the same rhythm.

Last night I asked a groggy Quinn, do you know what tomorrow is? She gave me the list: Saturday. What else, I asked. The play. What else, I continued to pry. She said the name of what we secretly call Saturday in a language we made up while we were dating and accidentally got really drunk one night. This language in which we were convinced that we actually were able to communicate with each other, or so it seemed. Sexual tension can grow amazing energy between two people. We started out just getting together for a couple hours � one drink � and then, before I knew it, I was running out the door early in the morning to go home and get ready for work. I asked Quinn again, what else is tomorrow, and she offered a few more answers. Quinn was an A-student in college, the second time she went, so she is not unskilled at producing answers. Then all of the sudden, a striking and elated look appeared on her face, she bolt upright, �my god, it�s our anniversary.�

When we say we have been together eight years, we are actually cheating. We count our eight years before we went on a date, before our first kiss, before we fell in love. We count the beginning of our relationship at 12:15 on September 14, 1994, because on that day, we walked over to a museum near where we worked, looked at my postcard collection, and it occurred to us both, that we had chemistry.

The honest truth of the matter is, before I had a conversation with her, I thought she was attractive. As a more mature person, I write attractive, but back then, I think I thought of her as being �hot.� I used to work with her son Carey at the university. Being the sort of mother she is, she occaisionally brought him a bagel and a banana in the morning. She had longish, wavy brown hair that was sometimes still a bit damp underneath. She leaned on his desk and it was difficult to keep my eyes focused on my work and not to watch her, play with his koosh ball, his rubbery lizard, or other sorts of office-worker toys that Carey had on his desk.

They had races to see who could complete the daily crossword the fastest. They both kept lists of funny and/or unfortunate student-names. In the midst of these various ways to kill time during the slow season, I got to watch her quite a bit. Once I had a problem arise and there was no one in the office to help me solve it, and I had the lowest job with the least amount of authority to make decisions, so I ran back to her cubicle. And she helped me, I think. At least I remember it that way, because really, I was nervous. Not in that way that I get when I am afraid of someone, but more in the sense of being aware that I was attracted to Carey�s married mother. My attraction for Quinn was as fragile as the petals of snapdragons and as consuming as air. Intelligent, creative, wise, a bit unapproachable and mysterious � these qualities added to her charm.

After a few months, Quinn and I started talking. Once we talked so long, her husband had to storm in and get her after waiting all of five minutes. Once she said to me �marriage is �.hard.� We talked a lot about that. About being in marriages where the passion was gone and life feels pointless and irritating. At that point in my life, I was contemplating divorcing my husband and felt that there was nothing to save in our relationship. Any amount of friendship we ever had, any good times or fond memories had been imprudently spent by him. And I could look at him with nothing but dislike punctuated by bits of fear.

Quinn leant me a book called Too Sad to Sing . As I read it, I noticed certain passages she had underlined. I studied these and tried to get more of feeling for her. I let myself imagine, reading this book of Quinn�s, what it would be like to kiss her. Then I would become afraid of any happy look that might cross my face and give my husband reason to be suspicious. He had already refused to let me be friends with Carey, swearing that he would kill him. I did not believe he would have been able to accomplish this; I was embarrassed by the possibility of a stupid confrontation.

So I offered to show Quinn my postcard collection, given her interest in post cards and my extensive collection of them�. It was there, sitting on a set of stars, in front of a Henry Moore sculpture, that our relationship began. We sat close and I spread my notebooks out across her thigh. We looked at the postcards for a long time during that perfect fall day. A few times, bravely, she or I would turn and look at the other person. And maybe we looked a little too long, I don�t remember. We looked long enough for us to mark this day as the beginning.

When we got back to work, I wrote her a letter. I started it �I am so glad we met.� After I finished it, I threw it over her cubicle wall. And soon, I noticed a ribbon hanging over mine, with a note attached. �me too.�

That fall, so many things happened so quickly. We wrote letters to each other after our husbands were asleep. Letters about our lives and the small details of our days. Quinn invited me over on a Saturday night when her husband was out of town and her son, certainly, would have plans. �I don�t mean to be clandestine about this, �� she wrote. But it was fortuitous that she was. As we continued to become friends, we drifted away from our unhappy marriages. We got divorces. We both moved into apartments. At some point that year, our friendship became more intense and our bond much deeper. And soon we realized we were falling in love.

And then we fell in love. After dating for a about a year, we wanted to associate some day as the beginning of our relationship. Because our friendship came first, is what we both hope lasts longest, and is what continues to strengthen our love for each other, we set our date for September 14.

Today.