sometimes, all I can do is look up at the sky

These days, it's hard to write about the tiny details of my life without feeling a little guilty.

The shooting is so horrific: all those young people dead; a Holocaust survivor blocking the door to save their lives and losing his own; the sad haunted kid who killed them all, clearly in need of help, for years, and no one could do anything.

This morning, I was reading about it in the newspaper, not moving in the bed, no longer wishing for another cup of coffee. When I put down the paper, I let out a big sigh. Danny turned toward me and opened his arms. I snuggled in, and he held me.

That felt a little better.

There is so much suffering in this world.

Last night, on the news, they called it evil. They bandied about that word as though it is an accepted fact. After one more news story about it, I turned to him and said, "I just don't believe in that word."
"What do you mean?" he asked me.
"I mean, saying the word evil means believing that there's this quality, something beyond us, a quantifiable entity, for which we are not responsible. The fact is, we are all capable of cruelty. And if we remember that — instead of calling someone evil — we can find some compassion for the people who do these things."
He sighed, so deeply that he didn't talk for a moment. I thought, perhaps, he didn't agree. He was raised Catholic, after all.
Instead, he turned toward me and said, "I've been waiting to find you all of my life." There were tears in his eyes. "I've always wanted to meet someone who believes the same thing I do."
We held each other. That's all we could do.

Sometimes, in these hard times, all I can do is look up at the sky. White blossoms blot out parts of the blue sky. At least there is spring.

the pictures painted on him

When I was a kid, you could not have told me that I would marry a man with a tattoo.

In the 1970s, tattoos only appeared on the body parts of sailors and hoodlums, bikers and rapscallions. Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront — he was the tattoo type. No way. Stay away.

But we have all grown up. I certainly have. And on the first night we spent together, seeing this tattoo of his was the clinching moment. I already felt myself falling in love with him. But when I saw John Lennon on his arm, I surrendered. He was my love. He still is.

He didn't know I took this. He was sleeping sweetly after I rose to make us coffee. In the mornings, nothing makes me happier than turning toward him in our sleepy state and seeing his face for the first time that day. He always smiles when he sees mine. But sometimes, I love kissing his forehead, and climbing over in the bed, and going into the kitchen for a little time alone. Mostly because, when I come back, I see this.

our hands at the spot where we will be married

It's more than six months since we took the first one, the photograph that became our Save the Date card. Here we are, not at the ocean, but in front of the Sound. This water made its way all the way from the ocean, to our feet.

We are standing on the beach at Golden Gardens, where we will be married in three months, and a few days. Three months!

If my love for him grows any more enormous, I might just split open.