Coming Home :: Mary Oliver

When we’re driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we’re weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

Neel and I were married 19 years ago today. Alongside the Susquehanna River, on a day that bridged winter and fall. Some of you were there. Before Pinterest and first looks and multi-thousand dollar budgets, we stood together and made formal what we'd long known in our hearts.

I belong to you. You belong to me. The road continues to open up before us, and much like we walked down that aisle, we always turn and face it together.