remember: un long dimanche fiancailles 2

neither Mabel nor i have been very good with dates. i suppose it may be because we aren't very sentimental about them: what matters is what 'special occasions' celebrate, not the special occasions themselves. these occasions are just markers, signposts, excuses to make a fuss about what you are and from the beginning i suppose Mabel and i have never been about that.

but really, we just forget, that's all.

the fact is, i'm a little uncomfortable even mentioning this now. owing to our situation at the moment, i won't be flying home til late May at the soonest, 'special occasions' are less reasons to be cheerful than reminders of exactly where we each are right now. still, all that said, now that i've remembered, it seems inappropriate for me not to say anything.

soon i'll have been here a year, Mabel, and the desire to come home and be with you is as strong now as it was when i first left; no, stronger.

on 20 January 2007, we were engaged.



and, as i've never had any qualms about repeating myself and it is as true now as it was then:

Out of the chaos of my doubt
And the chaos of my art
I turn to you inevitably
As the needle to the pole
Turns . . . as the cold brain to the soul
Turns in its uncertainty;

So I turn and long for you;
So I long for you, and turn
To the love that through my chaos
Burns a truth,
And lights my path.

-Mervyn Peake, Out of the chaos of my doubt

and, again:

The vastest things are those we may not learn.
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
With love.
How pitiful is our enforced return
To those small things we are the masters of.

-M. Peake, The vastest things are those we may not learn