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By Garrison Keillor Submitted by Kirk Date: 2003 Sep 27 Comment on this Work [[2003.09.27.07.52.28056]] |
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It was good, making love two nights in a row. Doggone it, maybe
we men are right about sex not being the answer; sex is the question,
yes is the answer, and it blows away a ream of troubles, especially
when it's your old beloved. Oh, miracle of miracles. Authentic
rapturous passion between two old pros. You lie in bed afterward in a
warm daze, tired, rapturized, like a salmon who made it back to the
headwaters, like an old stallion who has fulfilled his destiny one
more time, and life begins anew. In the dark, the judges are holding
up their scorecards--8.1, 9.0, 9.0, 8.9--but that doesn't matter so
much, what matters is that the war is over, the roads are open again,
the ice is gone, spring is here, and you have discovered, for the 863rd
time, the great beauty and simplicity of your life as an animal here on
earth. You rise naked from the bed and go down to the creek for
a drink of water and far off in the distance other males sound their
cries of manly joy and you reply with a deep, chesty
roar and the forest is quiet. You drink your water and return to the
warm nest of percale and eiderdown and fit your naked self into the
dozy curve of Madame's body where she lies swooned on her side
and you smell her dew and roses and absorb a simple thought about
marriage: this woman is all women, and when you chose her, you
became Jay Gatsby and Robert Jordan and Prince Andre and Raskolinov
and Ishmael and embarked on a life of imagination, which adultery
cruelly violates, and breaks up the music in your head, and
also it's a hell of a lot of work to scout up something inferior
to what you and she can create at home. You have roamed the Western world
in search of a the perfect tuna sandwich; your wife makes a good tuna
sandwich; your powers of imagination are what make it perfect.
--Garrison Keillor, "Love Me", at a point of reconciliation between the narrator and his wife. |