Taboo...

I was in love once....a very long time ago and forever. We tumbled into a makeshift romance, accidently falling into each other's worlds.....continents and languages apart, there was really only one language...ours. My children were babies and they understood only laughter and love and he was the whisperer of both.... 18 years later they still speak his name and beam if his number pops up, his name on a card in the mail. I smile, too. "Go to him"....they've said, many times.

And the places were far....Saudi, Germany, Africa, Oregon, Colorado....lifetimes from the place we call home. "Why did you break up?" they ask and I have no answer, only a story with no ending to share, and they listen again and again as if hearing the fairytale for the first time. They recite the middle parts, filling in where I forget, nursey rhymes in nonsensical words, and they remember....

It was taboo. This love affair. "The chasms are too great" my Father said. He forbade it. In his own little world.

And he was happy to watch my my children grow up in a house without a man....

And his daughter alone,

but strong and devoted and independent

and

mad as hell....

I've loved again since then. And I never thought I would. It was taboo and we played with matches. Drank cherry wine and danced under disco lights. Drove 1000 miles an hour to nowhere, laughing.

If I live long enough, I'll do it again...