Monday, February 11, 2008
CARDED
My Valentine is a prolific sender.
I, on the other hand, am a bit late in the card category this year. I got started on the second day of the week preceding.
The cards fly back and forth.
We have always been a card-centric couple.
When I was on the road, we would exchange a card a night. I would get a deck in my bag and leave a deck on the bed.
I still have many of those cards. There are a lot of them. I was on the road a lot of nights.
In fact, this year, in attempt to be green and also avoid having to go out shopping, I decided that my cards to him would use the archived valentine cards of the past, each with a new message.
Oddly, or perhaps not, given our longevity as a couple, it turns out that we are both sending "memory lane" cards.
He is sending me new cards with old themes.
One, a bare foot drawing a heart in the sand, reminds us of the many beaches on which one or the other of us did the same thing.
The first memorable such event was a huge sand heart drawn on such a scale that it was only readable from our second story rented deck over the beach in Provincetown.
It was also perspective-corrected. Hey I married an architect.
Another card celebrates our three-some life today. The history is that, in the old days, I was a frequent three-some promoter. The three-some in question today involves Franklin. I got what I wanted, in general, if not specifically. A permanent menage a trois.
This morning, I sent him a card that has one yellow rose on it (next to a nice young man) reminding us of the many yellow rose bouquets that were tossed from one to the other over our 33 years together.
Yellow roses were the old 'secret' symbol of gay relationships. It is said that, for years, there was a yellow rose on the grave of J. Edgar Hoover until Clyde Tolson, his reputed lover, died. Like that kind of closet symbol.
Our lives have been lived in the open.
Something to celebrate fully.
We have not had a secret moment as far as I know. We even fought the closet when they tried to build one around us.
We were the ones who demanded to have a single room with a double bed as we travelled the United Kingdom long before they removed the law that required two beds for two men. Really. They had such a law. What a fuss we would make if the issue was raised.
I am not bragging. I am just saying.
Not to say that most of our lives up to the time we met were not secretive.
But when we met, the wraps were off. This was an unspoken agreement from the beginning.
We had nothing to hide and everything to celebrate openly and joyously. Our love for each other.
Hence all the cards over the years. Hence the cards today.
We have been a boon to the gay card industry. They should put us on a commemorative issue.
Above all, it has been fun to have the constant celebration that the cards represent.
Traditions arise from momentous events. Our meeting and our life together qualify this tradition nicely.
