Scales (all you needed to say)

 

When you propose, and that rush of the past and the present swirl around you as a life moment presents itself like the final act of an opera, you are both a giant and a tiny little boat at the same time. Humble, in the face of your deepest wish. Lost and found. Life itself spilling out past the edges and onto the floor then running away under the couch. Heart on your sleeve, hat in hand you inch forwards. She knows, she must know but of course she has no idea that the moment is presenting itself here by the ocean and the waves, the comb of the wind, as tourists wander in the dark, as umbrellas turn inside out in a fresh gust, as you lean down on you knee in jeans soaking wet the words you rehearsed twisting around in your mouth, fast and free, a three car pile-up of language that is way too complicated. The ring in the box that you rested your hand against two thousand times today, reminding yourself it was still there, dying to take it out but not yet, not now, not here. Wait until you are there.

There were no thoughts in your mind beyond "and after we get married, we'll have a kid together." You could not have imagined days like today while your child practices piano, making it sound like bears and rabbits. This was far beyond that simple dream. Her banging the keys with tiny fingers, face lost on concentration. This perfect music, of scales played up and down.

If you could have described all of this eight years ago, it is all you needed to say.