Afternoon Blues

Afternoon Blues I never thought that at age 82, I could feel such contentment with my life and be hopelessly in love with my husband of 36 years. Our years together have always been easy, although people find that hard to believe. Oh, there have been sad times and grief. One can’t escape those emotions in this life. But we’ve held hands and held tight through it all. We meet on our front porch every afternoon around three, have some wine, and don’t talk that much. Eddie has never been much of a talker. So we let the music speak. The blues talks while I write, and he taps his foot to the music. Sometimes I look over at him and wonder how all those years slipped by without either of us noticing. We might imagine ourselves somewhere far away—Paris, Key West, New Orleans, some place where the music spills out into the streets.  But elsewhere could never be better than our screened-in porch in the late afternoon, with the party lights waiting for dusk. At three o’clock, we have nowhere left to go. We are already there.

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