The most attractive photographs you will ever find of Caitlin and I anywhere.
This day at Pont du Gard in southern France was extremely memorable to me. Those sandwiches were ham and butter, and there must have been about ten pats of butter on each of ours. Maybe half a stick worth. The ham was very good. The bread ripped the roof of my mouth and my gums, but god it was good, too. We sat about eating, watching families and groups of students, people in canoes. We talked a good deal about marriage and children. We took obscene amounts of pictures. Caitlin’s film ripped. The bus back to Avignon took forever, so we sat on the side of the road for an hour or so, talking about things we dreamt of doing with our lives.
My life feels so different now. I want even less now. I expect even less now. If all I ever did consisted of traveling with that woman, I’d be content. With the arguments, the snappy attitudes, the tears, the content silence, the thing about her is that she feels just as good to me as being alone. She does nothing to intrude upon happy solitude, she complements it perfectly. Makes it feel good. And I love taking her picture, among flowers, among buildings, cityscapes and mountains.
The bathroom mirror photo sessions, the unashamed attitude about showing our face in the same patisserie at least twice a day, every day, each time walking out with hands full of buttered, sugared, and creamed treasures, the arguments over wake up times, the satisfaction in finding the everything about the nothing. A year and a half later and the one thing that has always remained constant is that feeling of wonder whenever I think of our friendship—the thing is, we really are like spouses in so many ways. Like for instance: We met at a mall this past weekend to see a movie. Having arrived much earlier I parked my car and went inside to buy tickets and wait as Maddie sped her way down Manchester. When she finally reached the mall she frantically found a spot in the overcrowded parking lot and sprinted inside for fear of being late. When our movie finished and we both walked back towards our cars we found we had somehow managed to park right next to each other. I don’t know what that says, but it makes a lot of sense.
