and though I close my eyes,
I see La Vien Rose…”
She’d written to me when we were first newly in love and in that letter, she intimated that she was visited by a dream in which she saw the home we would live in. It was an older style bungalow built in the early twenties, one that you could find anywhere along the old Kaimuki subdivision. In her letter, she said it was evening and the interior of our dream home was lit in a soft glow that gave the house a magical presence as if the magic itself was created by our love. I was in my study writing yet another book that would soon be published for the public’s enjoyment.
“ I was in the kitchen, cooking your favorite dish, you liked it most because it reminded you of the home you grew up in, ” she wrote.
The kitchen itself was the kind she had always imagined in her dreams, a variety of spice racks and hanging pots with large ladles next to them. It was large enough to host two ovens and two refrigerators but no microwave. In the dream, she felt that she had an aversion to the appliance and that it had no place in her kitchen where everything was prepared and made from the depths of her soul. The sound of the keyboard clicking away from my study became the accompaniment to the chirping of the birds who chattered in the branches of our mango tree toward the beginning of an early dusk. It was a sound she was used to because it amalgamated both activities and gave her a sense of the time of day. However, her sense of time was thrown askew when she noticed that there was a bit of silence coming from my study. She felt a twinge of concern come over her as she briefly dried her hands on a washcloth. On the way to my study she was surprised to hear a piano as it mimicked the sound of falling raindrops. There was a dramatic pause before the deep rumblings of a bass blended in; the rest of the orchestra appeared like a sudden cloud and elevated the music to a beautiful height.
“It was la vie en rose,” she wrote, “I froze in my steps and you appeared from your study and took my hand in yours and pulled me into you. We let the music carry us away until we made love there and then and the world was ours.”
In the letter, she said that this was our life, happy, simple, and filled with undying passion. It was devoid of any worry or concern because there was nothing but trust between the both of us,
“It was a life that most people dream of but only few can have. Should this dream come true, it would mean that you and I must have both exhausted every means possible to achieve such a life.”
I could not help but smile upon recalling this most treasured letter as it’s memory painted a smile across my face. Just then, the heady aroma of pork laulau steaming in the kitchen reached my scent glands, I inhaled its inviting call and made my way to view my wife’s creation. Of course, before I did that I stopped briefly to play la vie en rose on my playlist. The sweet melody made my old feet feel as if I were gliding across the wooden floor of our living room. It would be a surprise since the floor did not creak with every step I took. There she was as glowing and beautiful as day in her pink top and blue shorts, my how the years have been kind to her. Her eyes are still as young as if she were newly born and the smile….my god the smile could melt even the coldest heart. Poets muse that one can fall in love again and again when love is what moves their world. Truly I am moved as I stand here. My chest swells with pride as I come up behind her and place my hands on her hips, la vie en rose reaches its crescendo and I know all too well how the warmth of her body comes right through her clothes and it’s a comfort I never tire of, ever. The palm of my hands anticipated that all too familiar feeling but instead I touched nothing but thin air. The kitchen is dark and void of life, like myself, it’s empty and alone. The absence of her light has made me forgetful but the beauty of her letter always takes me back to the moment when this house was her dream which came true. When the keys were given to us, I found the same letter she wrote to me when we were newly in love and I read it back to her. Her dream became our life and our home became our love; I should stop reading that letter. The more I do, the more I am drawn back to a perfect time where I am completely lost.
The song has ended but I think to myself, "Just one more time, I'll read the letter and play the song one more time. Perhaps then we'll dance again and the world will go away..."
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