An Incompleat Post

The human mind and heart are a mystery...Psalm 64.7

...he was already far ahead of me in anything relating to fishing and it was he who first found a copy of The Compleat Angler and reported back to me, "The bastard doesn't even know how to spell 'complete.'"

- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

~~~

Me: "Do you want me to shut this window for the night?"

Her: "No, it's o.k.  Just leave it open."

And that was that.  The season has changed.  When my girlfriend is willing to sleep with the window open, then I know the winter is over.  As an aside, I might clarify that my girlfriend and my wife are one in the same.  Years ago she attended one of my graduate school classes one day and the prof noticed and asked, "John, is this your wife or your girlfriend?"  In front of her and him and God and a roomful of ethics students I said, "Yes."  And that was that.  You see, she compleats me.  And, I might add, if you're a writer and you write a sentence like "sleeping with my girlfriend last night" then there's an air of mystery and intrigue about your human mind and heart.

But when she said that last night, I knew the times they were a'changin'.  That's fine really.  I'm ready to put away the coats and gloves and bring out the linen.  As an aside, I might say that linen is the perfect fabric for spring and summer.  When you wear it, or at least when I wear it, I feel like I'm practically wearing nothing, nothing at all.  And that, I might add, makes you, or at least it makes me, feel all mysterious and intriguing, like a man who has a girlfriend or writes cosmopolitan sentences using the word compleat.

Yes, it'll probably snow once more around the 4th of July or something, but for the most part summer is here.  The kids are all wearing flip-flops.  I must say that I do not understand this shoe choice.  Sure, I've worn them in the shower at summer camp or kept them in the boat whilst doing some compleat angling, but as daily footwear?  Sweet christmas, what if a rottweiler started chasing you or your girlfriend and you had to run for it?  Yeah, the news at ten would report something like: Earlier today, a mysterious man wearing linen was suddenly chased by a family of rottweilers.  He looked fairly swift of foot for a forty-something, but damn the luck, he was wearing flip-flops.  The rottweilers reported that due to him being rather skinny combined with the linen, it was like eating nothing, nothing at all.

So yes, the girlfriend and I slept with the window open last night.  I was gently wakened about 4:30 by the sound of birds, chirping mysteriously in the moonlight.  The chirps were suddenly overtaken, rottweilerish, by the sound of the train.  I snuggled next to her for a moment.  It was quite chilly, the window being open and all.  And then, for just a few breaths, there was compleat silence, like nothing, nothing at all.