We agreed to marry in Florida in a small place by the beach. She was everything for me. We had loved each other many years before, my first love, but that had been broken by betrayal and selfishness. The intervening years had only proved what we had missed. It was such an obvious thing, but she reverted to old ways, unsure and scared of coming too close again. She couldn’t go through with it, in spite of my prostrations and cajoling. And then it was back to the old ways, making stands, walking out, calling again, trying to reach across that torturous gap.

It didn’t work. There seemed to be hope and she was still there, but all conversations were through others, attempts at sex were in vain. I confessed that I saw nothing in free love. She insisted that bodies were only that. I comforted myself with games of exploding balloon Frisbee, jujubes and singing along with The Grateful Dead. And it almost worked. A beautiful young woman came to me, undressed to her wonderful glory, and I was into that.

But then she had other things to do and so I entertained a whole retinue, played the role of sage with drinks in the fridge. There were so many, and I never had time to think, even if I did, not able to get the thought of her out of my head, the wonder of what we had, like flying into an unknown land and never waking up from that.