“How do you keep the music playing? How do you make it last? How do you keep the song from fading too fast? ~Alan and Marilyn Bergman
“You’re cooking snails for our anniversary dinner?” Babe’s face is a mask of terror.
I close my eyes and count to ten. “Not snails. Escargot. The first course.”
He rolls his eyes. “Whatcha fixing for the second course? Grilled Geckos?”
My plan for a romantic anniversary dinner at home with just the two of us is going south faster than snowbirds in January.
Our years together are passing too quickly and we seldom have alone time these days. I miss that. I hope that on our anniversary we will sit across a candlelit table recalling our years together. I’ll laugh at his bad jokes and he’ll say, “Yum” to the escargot.
I picture him pouring champagne and saying, “Remember the priest that married us? He looked like ‘Radar’ on M.A.S.H.”
I’ll reply, “I remember you staring at him and laughing, and him bouncing on his heels like a slinky until you said, ‘I do’.”
Babe will roll his eyes. “Well, unlike you, I didn’t giggle when he asked the Richer or Poorer question.”
I’ll give him a point for that.
The table will be set with good china, good silver and the champagne flutes saved from our wedding twenty-five years ago. The tapers will dwindle down to soft, waxy puddles while music wafts through the room and poetic breezes snuff out the world beyond our little nest.
I’ll wear the dress I wore on our wedding day ifI can still get in it. He’ll say I look better now than when I walked down the aisle. Getting him to change from sweaty golf clothes into something decent will be a stretch. I’ll just put some jeans and clean underwear out for him. I’ll tell him he’s more handsome than ever and he’ll believe me because the truth will shine in my eyes.
I picture the two of us alone and content for a few precious hours. Joining us at some point will be our memories needing no prelude, no clarification.
While he pours more champagne to toast our days, weeks, months and years together, he’ll say he thinks often of the day we met, at which point I’ll hum, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. He won’t frown or beg me not to sing.
Neither of us will bring up past disagreements like the dented fender or the coffee stains on the carpet. Gone will be the notion that I don’t appreciate him taking out the garbage. I won’t nag him about his favorite meals I’ve cooked that went unacknowledged.
On second thought, maybe I’ll slip it in. We can’t focus all night long on those wonderful can’t-live-another-minute-without-you-days or we won’t get to the second course.
We will dance. We’ll kick up our heels because we love dancing with each other. I’ll play romantic CD’s programmed for a magical evening. Between courses, we’ll waltz to the refrains of poignant ballads, though not always with our feet. At times, we’ll glide together with a look designed to keep our inner music playing. (Sigh)
If things go as I hope, the evening will evolve in layers, one course following another. After sipping champagne and eating too much food, when I’m convinced that he is sufficiently mellow, I will suggest a trip to Paris.
“Why not go to Austria, too,” he’ll ask mockingly because he’ll think I’ve had too much bubbly.
Without a moment’s pause, I will counter with Australia, and he’ll grin knowing, as I do, that it is all pretend.
We are old, Babe and me, although we don’t feel it since we’ve always found new things to love about each other. Okay, so he won’t wear his Tux on our big night. In fact, he may not even change into clean jeans. He might even fall asleep while I’m tossing the salad.
None of it will negate the way we feel about each other after all these years. Those feelings are still as young as first love. What we have may not be as fresh or as filled with dreams as when we walked down the aisle a quarter of a century ago, but some of it might surface with good wine, candles and slow dancing.
We will do the dance before his bad knee begins to give out and my bad back steals the slow shuffle from our anniversary waltz.
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