She would teach him stillness and laughter, how to enjoy and appreciate, a meal or friend or show, and the puppies in the park. He would show her patience and kindness, wanted her to feel seen and known, appreciated and beautiful. His dream became to love her, and to be loved by her.
Love is a choice as much as it is magic. Magic comes in moments, but choices stretch out over time. We make them new each morning. In the first fall, they were magic. Then the seasons brought their storms, as they always do. Summer brought a winter. There was crying and silence and he would go away to change, for sometimes we have to lose a thing to find it.
In her New York now, there is talk of fall returning, cool air and boots and tights and certainly the colors. There is hope in him that they will see it all together. Love is a story, and theirs is now and happening, uncertain but hopeful, like any good story. Fall suggests it’s possible to change, that things can still be new, alive, and bright again, alive and bright like Brooklyn.
