Hope

I think we fell in love with the hopefulness of it all.  It was autumn in New York and we could eat dinner at a taqueria on the Lower East Side and then step outside, grab a taxi, and speed up the FDR towards your bed and all the newness of a love that had not yet been defined, and as the taxi sped uptown we could watch Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens rise and shine above the East River.   Or we could take an early evening walk by the boathouse in Central Park, just as the moon was gracing the blue-purple sky.  And the air would feel heavy with the deceptive permanence of fall.  I remember when you said it was passion that you saw in my eyes, but I think it was hope.  Bright and shiny hope.  We were still young enough to believe that dreams can come true and just old enough to worry that they might not; our hopes had never been higher or more precarious.  It was a beautiful thrill.  When I smiled because I had just said something clever, or because you had, you pictured me smiling like that forever and my smile held all the hope you had for yourself.  And you held my hope too.  When you laughed my mind moved between now and eternity, until forever felt like it was already happening – and I believed it was.