Jack and George

In these past two months, I've made a small number of incomplete drafts for this blog - movie and book reviews, a summary of my recent travels, a short highlight on Sufjan Stevens' two US state albums (something I thought I could write about now that I've spent time in both Michigan and Illinois), a list of fall films I'm anticipating, a list of things I've purchased, notes on writing and book purchases, a few poems I read recently.

All unpublished, obviously, which may very well be the fate of most of my short fiction and my also-incomplete novel that's just about ready to be delieverd to the resting place for failed creative works. I didn't feel like finishing any of those blog drafts, but today, I read something that moved me enough to write and finish something. Of all things, it was a wedding announcement in the New York Times, dated July 23. Mr Jack Anderson and Mr George Dorris, 71 and 75, married the day before on the campus of York University in Toronto. They attended the same university but met again years later on a subway platform after a ballet performance, and their relationship has lasted 41 years. We should all be so blessed. Another couple - Eleanor, 67, and Frazer, 84 - married eleven years after their first meeting.

I'd forgotten the courage that people can possess. It doesn't matter if you're 60 or 70, you can still marry the one you love. And in the case of Jack and George, companions for 41 years, love came and stayed long enough that they wished to celebreate it with a wedding. I have friends who cannot seem to find a good person to share their lives with (this brings to mind the title of a Flannery O'Connor short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"), and I wish things were different for them. My mother says it's possible that one's stars are dim, or in Chinese, it would be "no fate." Love may take a while to arrive or if it's around, it takes you to several places and it's hard to figure out if you're in the transit lounge or at the final destination. Everyone's deal with love is a little different. You just have to hope that you'll be brave and tireless when it does come, no matter how long you've waited for it.