To Love Remembered

     Do you remember the day at the aquarium? Sitting in the grass, eating those awful, overpriced amusement park hot dogs and you still pretending I was actually funny? That was the day I discovered your feet. That was the day I discovered that face that really meant it when it said “stop it” through giggles, squirming, and curses loud enough for the ears of impressionable children.
     I know you’ll roll your eyes and purse your lips at me saying it, but that will always be my fondest memory of you. Ass all grass-stained from the struggle and laughing in spite of yourself, I saw the woman I’d always wanted then. Yes, yes, my love, you’ll say I was torturing you; violating the Geneva Convention in my selfish desire to see that gasping, unrestrained smile. But you were filled with a new kind of beauty.
     Yes, you were tired, sweaty, and still pasty from the winter. You were wearing the old t-shirt and shorts from college because I’d surprised you too early and demanded we get up and go without putting ourselves together. I remember you scoffing at me as we left the house. “Guys can go out without getting ready first and still look ok. It’s not the same for girls.” It’s too bad I know the power of a sincere look and a passionate kiss. You’ve never been able to say no to that one-two punch. Or perhaps you’re taking pity on a fool who thinks too much of himself?
     In any case, it’s important for you to understand what I saw that day. I know all of your preconceived notions about the sexiest iteration of you. It is little black dress and heels neither too high nor too ostentatious. It is subtle makeup highlighting the lipstick intended to focus my attention on your mouth and all of the possibilities (psychological, metaphysical, and impure) associated with it. It is gracefully swaying hips on your way to “powder your nose” and me wondering if that’s for my benefit or your own. It is that peculiarly frightening and comforting gaze of yours, appearing intensely interested while I speak and nodding earnestly at the appropriate moments. It is a wry, seductive smile forcing me to overcome my fears and press my lips to yours. It is relentless teasing and genuine, laughing amusement at my flailing, inelegant attempts to pretend that I knew you were kidding all along. It is, you hope, me completely enamored of all of the things you think I ought to be, finding myself wrapped around all of your fingers and wondering what a girl like you could want with a guy like me.
     You have been each and every of those things to me. You have been the pinnacle of feminine grace, beauty, intuition, obstinacy, generosity, and kindness. But among these great, generic platitudes of love, I’ve discovered that you’ve been hiding a good portion of your beauty. Indeed, I find it difficult to sleep on those rare nights I can’t hear your quiet snoring in my ear. The sneak attack nasal calamity of your sneezes is impossibly endearing, you know, and that incessant, idle wrist cracking you do when reading the paper makes the house feel full of all the memories of our life together.
     It was that day on the grass that I saw the first instance of the beauty you’d been hiding. Yes that old, ratty shirt was stuck to you with a day’s worth of sweat and your hair had been hastily pulled back, leaving a few errant strands to tug at your self esteem, trying to convince you that you were hideous. You had mustard at the corner of your mouth that you were trying to lick off and you were complaining that your feet hurt. Maybe if you hadn’t been so proud about not being ticklish, I wouldn’t have relished the discovery so much. Maybe I wouldn’t have seen you so sublime in your imperfections and maybe I wouldn’t have been able to kiss you this morning and wonder still what you could possibly want with me.