Just a few miles separate us now – a cacophony of crisscrossing streets, traffic signs and slanting hills everywhere! The four-hour drive from the airport has taken me past small towns, craft shops, filling stations, and roadside cafes – friendly signposts guiding me closer and closer to the place where my true heart lies.

Last year, we made this drive together. We fled the harsh shiny surfaces of the city for the cool uncomplicated mountains. Tall leafy-green trees shaded our upward passage; cascading waterfalls could be seen through their branches. You drove carefully up the narrow ledges, taking us higher and higher until cotton-candy puffs of white danced about our car.

Now your house rises up before me, a bright beacon after a long separation. Against all odds, I have arrived here, after months of obstacles and misunderstandings.  A spark of forgiveness rekindled between us, became a brushfire of love, passion, and purpose. Vines lush with roses of Sharon drape your open gate in glad welcome.

Your parked car is a visceral reminder of times past, days of deep conversations, long lovely lunches, and quiet drives when we held hands over miles of city roads.  I pull my bag from the trunk of my car and start towards the house, but before I can get far, there is the slam of a screen door,  and above me on the landing a vision appears. It is you, my precious darling, my bright angel, in white shirt, slacks, and sandals. You run down the steps towards me, radiant anticipation on your laughing face.

My bag drops to the ground; I am struck dumb, overcome as I was the night you first kissed me. The house, the drive, the painful months of separation all fall away as we crush into embrace. Your cheek presses against my own, your voice is happy in my ear, your body fits perfectly, as always, into mine. Can two hearts, two souls, contain this much joy without bursting into millions of sunlit cutouts that shoot up to the heavens? In the driveway, we stand holding each other, hearts beating in unison, surrounded by whirling trees, gravel, and houses, a universe unto ourselves where particles, suns, and planets resonate in orbits of implicit order.

And then we are walking towards the steps, arms around each other, both carrying my bag, talking of the days to come. We climb the stairs, one by one. With each step we leave the past behind us, keeping our eyes ever fixed on the clouds, the sky, and now the screen door you have reached your hand out to open.

(excerpt from “Whitegate,” published by Liz M. Weiman © 2000)