love now

Love.

Songs.

Ugh.

I was sitting in the theatre, we'd arrived way too early, waiting for Joe to come back with hot tea. The ride down had been very, very cold and we both wanted something hot. The theatre doesn't sell tea but they allow it to be brought in. There is a Starbucks close by and Joe had headed off to get some for us. I relaxed in the dimness of the theatre and listened to the music they piped in. Most of it was pop, most of the songs were about l'amore. The lyrics, as I listened to them out of sheer boredom, were really crappy. Well, maybe, creepy is a better word. There were songs about wanting to stay up all night to watch someone breathe. Another about wanting to lie with someone forever in bed. It seemed people weren't in love but clinically obsessed.

I know it's not romantic but I thought, 'Don't these people have jobs?'

It's just that I'm older I guess, and maybe when you are older love means different things. I sat there in the theatre and I thought of love now.

Love is when you begin a flicker of a smile because you know exactly, without possibility of error, what someone else is going to say before they even start.

Love is when you both play the same practical joke on each other for year after year and find it gets funnier and funnier each time.

Love is when you lose your last name in context of your other relationships, mine, for years has been andjoe.

Love is when looking through the crowd you spot someone, not by their clothes or their hair or their face but simply by how they move in the world.

Love is when you decide that there is only one person in the world that you want to tell about something good that happened that day.

Love is when you can sit at the computer while someone does a crossword puzzle and be quiet for a long time but feel like a conversation happened.

Love is when you both see the same thing at the same time and just have to glance at each other to communicate everything that needs to be said.

Love is when you see kids tongue kissing and realize that the only public display of affection you need is in how you look at and speak with each other.

Love is when you sit alone in the theatre waiting for a cup of tea to arrive and when it gets there you know it will be exactly what you want, even though you never said.

I leave the creepy night watching, every breath you take stalkerdom, to the song writers. I'll keep the kind of love that started with heavy breathing entered the phase of heavy lifting and finally got to heavenly partnership. When Joe arrived with the hot tea, I noticed again how handsome he looked in his new coat - I considered staying up later ... but not to watch him breathe.