A kind of forever

Separation

Your absence has gone through me/ Like thread through a needle./ Everything I do is stitched with its color. W. S. Merwin

One of the benefits of being an English major/instructor/professor/whatever is that I have a lot of literature in my head that can come in handy. The above is a poem I came across in preparation for bludgeoning some hapless college sophomores with poetry. I didn’t bring it to class, but it spoke to me in a way that kept it in my mind. At the time I was in a very unhappy marriage so I didn’t feel it in connection with any one person.

Years later, while Randy and I were still in the early days of our relationship and traveling between Iowa and California on short visits, separating from him felt like a shortness of breath, a physical manifestation of loss. After one of these trips I sent him a card with this poem in it. He saved everything I ever gave him so I’ll probably come across it one day as I sort through his things.

The amazing thing is that I never thought about permanent separation - I thought of separation as space between periods of connection. I never thought of us being together forever, and until now I never thought of us being apart forever either.