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poet.
performer. activist. teacher.
THE DREAM BEFORE US
For Bill and Elaine, on their wedding day
I knew Bill first.
I called him "friend" for years,
and yet I'd never known him with a woman in his life.
His hands were always full of a guitar,
stringing one song or another endlessly,
for a room full of people, or a room full
of only himself and the song that he was playing.
Bill, in image, was the black beret and the pony tail,
the quiet, vibrant smile,
the guitar, and its song, that was in his hands,
as natural as his hands, themselves.
"I met the most amazing woman this weekend."
The week after a Mountain Acres Memorial Weekend jam,
and Bill's voice on the phone, recounting that weekend
and the mystery of this woman:
"Yeah, she sort of kept appearing and disappearing.
There for a minute, and then gone.
And then she'd reappear again later.
I looked for her.
She was like a woodsprite," he said.
"She is beautiful, and her name is Elaine."
On the phone, he said to me,
"I want to know this woman."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Months later, I finally met Elaine,
this woman whose presence changed the tone
of Bill's voice when he spoke of her.
I was in town on a brief jaunt from my new home in Kentucky.
We all met at Spats for dinner, a whole table of friends.
I remember Bill saying to me, "I can't wait for you to meet Elaine."
They came in together, holding hands,
and joined us at our back table.
And I remember thinking,
Oh, he's right: She is beautiful.
And listen to her voice…what a beautiful voice.
Of Elaine, in image, I remember the paleness of her skin,
and her long hands, and her hair.
I remember the way she looked at Bill,
her green eyes tilting toward him, and then away,
and then back again.
Elaine sat between Bill and I, and at dinner,
I leaned back in my chair, and beyond Elaine's back,
I caught Bill's eye.
"You're right," I said.
"She is beautiful, and so like a wood sprite."
His smile made me reach for his hand,
and I told him, "I am so happy for you.
I am so happy for the two of you."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That dinner, and my first meeting of Elaine,
was seven years ago.
Not one of us could see the future,
but we could sense, perhaps, some of it.
None of us knew then that we'd be here today,
for their wedding,
and this intersection of so many lives and histories,
but we may have dreamt of it.
After I'd moved back here from Kentucky,
Elaine and I became friends.
I watched with growing admiration her navigate her life:
raising Mel;
growing Webster's from a bookstore to a community;
taking on many a stage as actor, director and teacher;
loving Bill throughout it all.
And Bill there holding her.
Both of them doing it all with grace and humor.
I learned that she'd dreamt of the possibility of this day
even then, seven years ago, as did Bill.
Over the years she has said again and again,
through each celebration and challenge,
each new layer of her and Bill's and Mel's lives together:
"He is the one. He is the only one."
She told me a year ago, days before Bill's surgery,
her hands resting briefly, quietly in front of her:
"I love him so much.
I cannot imagine my life without him."
And to me, Bill said:
"I'm not worried about a thing.
I'm not going anywhere.
I love her."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And now, here we are.
Here we all are, third Saturday in June,
back at Mountain Acres together
to celebrate Bill and Elaine,
and to share this next adventure with them
as they further fold their lives and Mel's life together.
For many of us,
Bill and Elaine and Mel together
are so much of what we dream of for ourselves,
right here before us.
That dream of finding for ourselves that one love that will sustain us.
When I think of Bill and Elaine,
and the stories I have heard from both them
over these seven years,
learning this love between them,
I am still stunned by the mystery of it,
of people loving one another the way
that these two love each other.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It seems to me, that when we fall in love,
we fall in love with the mystery of the other person.
Not only what is easily seen of them,
but also the hinted at and the unknown.
We are drawn in by that mystery,
and the loving becomes its own discovery,
its own path and journey.
We are drawn in by the wanting to know,
and then the knowing;
the discovery, and then the familiarity,
of the elements contained within
the sleeve of spirit and body of this one person
whom we love.
And the best of all loves holds us there,
in the balance between the mysterious
and the familiar.
And isn't this what we dream of when we dream of loving?
That in the balance, we will continue to find and hold our love.
And that we, too, will be held, our own love reflected back,
as though in mirror image.
This is what we dream of:
To be fully seen,
and wholly known.
And not only accepted
but truly cherished.
To be both the mystery and the discovery.
And to know that our souls are at home in the world
with this one other,
within this love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Love is built by heart and hand,
by emotion and action,
step by raucous and careful step.
To love is a verb,
it is a process in action.
It is the building of lives together,
individual and woven.
There is the backbeat and the rhythm;
and the constancy at the core that is ever present.
There is the lift and the loft,
and the thrush beneath and around the pulse
of both that steadiness and adventure.
There is the air,
and the very earth beneath it, and
both are sacred.
There is the rise and the fall,
and then the rise again,
together.
To love requires hands and voices,
backbone and passion,
courage and compassion.
And within it all,
and from it all,
there is a sense of grace that saves us,
and makes each one of us whole again and again.
Perhaps this is of what we dream when we dream of loving,
and this is the blessing we pray to be bestowed upon the lives
of our friends and loved ones:
That you and your love find each other,
and hold each other,
again and again,
in grace.
That your hearts will lie beside each other beating:
No other, no other, there is none other
but you.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bill and Elaine,
may you each, and together,
be both blessing and blessed,
and may your love continue to grow,
from the first and the newest of this dreaming,
into its own spreading light and lifting song.
© 2004 Dora E. McQuaid
June 19, 2004
9:55 am
State College, PA
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