Journal for Wed Oct. 14 1998
It's an anniversary of sorts today. I met, wined and dined Iman for the
first time. It was also our first meeting. We had been brought together
unwittingly I tend to believe, by a mutual friend of ours. He had also invited
another, most lovely young lady, and by the way he would keep directing her
conversation toward my end of the table, I presumed this was matchmaking L.A.
style. Whatever bright witticism and I remember her as having several,
whichever way she turned and shaped the conversation, there really was no-one
else in the quiet, seductive room but this wondrous woman sitting to my right.
Both of us being at the best of times unreasonably shy we had both coped in
our respective professions by willing ourselves to become social animals. On
my part, I'm glad I took the plunge as the circle of friends that has grown
around me has given nothing but joy for the most part and corny jokes for the
worst. Having seen Iman in so many public situations now I feel for her every
second. She is usually petrified, but so well has she learnt to 'cope' that
one would never know.
Not so on this personal auspicious occasion. We were both virtually tongue tied. Two courses passed before I reverted to my easy standby of dodgy, slightly surreal humour. Knowing that little of what I was to say would have come out coherently I presumed that the way forward was to give everything a funny spin.
When people who sit next to each other for the first time and immediately grind to a mental halt, it's often for one of two reasons. You can't stand each other or you are irrevocably drawn into a dream called love at first site. Heart beats faster, spontaneously fall apart inside etc. I wished beyond hope that, for her, it was somewhere in the area of the latter.
We lived together for twenty months and during that time I had to learn how to evaluate what sharing one's life meant. Strange new things like learning to listen, knowing when a reply was not necessary but just being a receptive human. Understanding one's partners desire to fulfill herself outside ones own career. She may have the desire to keep being herself, ya' know?
Most importantly though, turning ones asocial possessive and inevitably destructive characteristics around. harnessing that energy spent and honing a love that is unquestioning and trusting. You may think that I sound a little hung up on this woman. We met eight years ago today. I still send her flowers on the fourteenth of every month (and when It does slip my mind I feel such a pang of disloyalty that I certainly dont miss it the next).
We've so grown into our love that I think we both feel that we've also grown up. And the feeling that our relationship being so joyous that we're getting away with something has transformed into the realization that despite all odds we actually were meant to find each other. Hey, gentle vanities are the domain of the older man. Darling Iman, I can't imagine life without you. I'm reluctantly grateful that I hadn't known you before as I know I would have lost the best, most stabilizing thing in my life. I was a dumb guy for many years but I'm only stupid now. I love you. Happy anniversary.