The stars lined across the April night are peeking through the blinds and illuminating the parts of my bedroom that the straining night light by the bed cannot reach. I am seldom without sleep but this night is different.
"You should see my bedroom I mean there is nothing special about it, just an ordinary bachelor bedroom – you should see how the light from the stars tear through the curtains and draw patterns on the wall. It is beautiful just like you my Darling."
It was easy to write about the night and the moon and stars and Camilla's beauty but to string together enough words to describe how my heart felt at that moment was impossible. The word happy felt too inadequate – a drunk in a bar is happy, a child chasing a stray balloon is happy, a mouse that outruns a cat is happy. There must have been more words, weightier words to describe how I felt for Camilla.
I tore the page from my notepad and threw it towards the bin and missed, again. The floor was littered with scribbled and scratched- out pages. There was a point when I thought I could draw how I felt for her but then ended up with a bunch of balloons and hearts. ‘Love'- this word could probably describe how I felt, if only I knew what it meant, If only I could describe and explain the word itself.
I remembered the first day that word came to mind. She had worn that dress that I liked, that dress that was short enough to keep me interested and flowy enough to reveal her black, lacy briefs whenever a draft sped along. She sat facing me and talked about something that I either couldn't remember or was not paying too much attention to. Her eyes intrigued me; whenever she spoke they often made as if to close then suddenly flew open. She was beautiful and enchanting. I walked her to her door that evening and waited till she walked in. She closed the door and ran to the window and flashed a goofy, awkward sort of mixture of a smile and a blush and at that moment, as if by inspiration or some other- worldly knowledge, I knew I was in love and had found the one I would spend my life and grow old with.
Only when the page is three- quarter scribbled on, with a ‘P.S' covering the quarter left then carefully folded and sprayed with a whiff of cologne is it ready to be posted. The bright mixture of red and orange prelude of the rising sun paints the sky as I head out towards the post to deliver my night long labor. My flat soled canvas shoes insist on sipping the morning dew as the birds chirp the last songs before the noises of the cars, the animals, the factories, the people and the earth drown their beautiful sound.
The post box sits there, unmoved, oblivious of the weight of its role that morning. In my view, I'm on one side, Camilla is on the other and the post box stands between us. It had the duty of conveying my heart and thoughts to her. Only my bed and the food I ate had equal importance to the post box. I stood beside it and stroked it, the mixture of dust soaked in dew clinging to my hands and spoke to it of my feelings for Camilla. Somehow I felt like it now understood its role and would get my letter to Camilla as quickly as it possibly could.
The rest of the day was an endless blur wrapped up in constant anxiety and anticipation. I pictured Camilla receiving the letter from the mailman or from her maid or her sibling or maybe her mother and springing up and down the house before opening the letter. She would probably open it alone in her room, head rested on her pillow and feet arched up against the wall. Or maybe she would be in the dining room with her mother and sisters, reading the letter out loud and giggling and springing to every sweet word I wrote. Then I pictured her penning down her reply the night through. Page after page she wrote down her feelings and passions and desires and hopes for the future: our future.
Sometime toward the end of the next day, her little brother rode along to my house and delivered her reply. It was single page, twice folded and not even enveloped with her brothers tiny chocolate fingerprints all over it. Maybe her words would impress me. I unfolded the paper and nearly died when I saw two sentences, barely legible scribbled recklessly and sliding off the margins every now and then. It confused me and drove me to edge of disappointment towards a girl that I had decided I would spend the rest of my life with.
I decided that letters and post boxes did not have the ability to fan the flames of our love or to allow our relationship to blossom. A bar of chocolate acted as a bribe for the little boy to hastily deliver my rendezvous message to his sister.
The venue had not been thoughtfully picked. It was where all boys my age took girls when they anticipated the activities of the evening to be more than talking and flirting. I had no idea why I was surprised when she was on time. I expected her to be late, as most girls always are. But then again, maybe her letter had painted some sloppy, lazy picture of her. Either way, she looked ravishing in a slightly longer dress and a matching sweater. She listened intently, smiled her dimpled smile and nodded to every word that came out of my mouth much like I did in class or when my parents spoke to me and my mind was slowly switching to daydream mode. She sobbed the words ‘I love you' when I asked her how she felt about me and I held her and embraced her as the evening wind whistled through the trees and rushed to bear witness to our declaration of love.
We walked home hand in hand, my lips almost sealed and my eyes disturbed from the words running from her mouth. It reminded me of the time I babysat my ten- year- old nephew. Every word she spoke had to be deciphered and interpreted before any sense could be made of it. I could not understand much of what she spoke about but my heart did not care. It spoke about her with warmth and tenderness while my mind, time and time again, reverted to the sobbed ‘I love you'.
At home, sleep eluded me as I sat on my bed and mused on this thing called love and how it made one foolish and blind and willing to overlook the stop or wait or turn back and run signs littered all over its path. It is said – by who exactly, I couldn't tell – that women in love are blinded by their feelings and sort of become foolish. I had come to realize, in my brief existence, that this fact was true but what I had never realized was the fact that love had the same impact on both the male and female species. I had imagined that listening to her incoherent, immature talk would send me sprinting for the hills but here I was weeks later in a jewelry store picking out an engagement ring that I could not afford but that I knew would make her happy.
Being an engaged man was both exciting and tedious. Finding ways to keep Camilla from spending time with my family long enough for them to realize she didn't make mush sense was hard work. Once, I left her with my mother thinking there wasn't much that would be said or that could go wrong with two women cooking a simple meal. Later that evening, after I had seen Camilla off, my mother called me out on the porch and gave me a long talk about women, love, marriage and the daughter of a friend of hers from church who has a degree and is quite intelligent.
"Mother, what exactly are you trying to say?" I asked at the end of her talk. She looked at me with the same look my elementary school music teacher had before she told my friend Jesse that he was tone deaf and should join the debate team instead.
"Are you sure this is the only girl you want to marry?" I felt sympathy in her words, the kind of sympathy that a mother would feel for a son intent on making the biggest mistake of his life.
I, more than anyone knew exactly how difficult it was relating with Camilla. She was my fiancee now and I spent most of my free time with her. It was not about how she spoke or how much sense she made but how my heart tripped all over my chest when she was around and how her dimpled smile could brighten up a dull day.
Yes, it is tedious to be engaged.
I'm glad that it's now over.
I'm a married man now. It's the weekend and we are having some friends over for a meal. I've begged Camilla the whole morning not to talk too much. She is not amused. Every time she talks and her conversation starts to wander off and stop making sense I cut her off and change the topic. It's difficult to tell if my friends are laughing with her or at her or if their "Congrats, she's great" remarks are honest or laced with sarcasm.
I remember the days before I met Camilla, hardly any woman wanted to be seen near me let alone date me. I asked one out to the movies once and she looked me straight in the eyes and said,
"Why would I want to be seen with you? You have the kind of face only a mother could love!"
But Camilla was different, she gave me the time of day and sobbed the words ‘I love you' to me. This is probably the explanation of love that I was desperately searching for.
Work Cited
Love. Government Clerk a Pink Stocking at a Summer Villa.
