Ginger Snapped

March Head Wanderlust. Each spring, your mind shifts to Italy, to Roman skies, to marble mosaics, to churches and monuments. You itch to fly away, to see something exotic, to walk upon ancient roads, to breathe in air that has wound its way in and out of spaces for millenia. You check airfares. You check vacation schedules. You think in Italian, in Spanish, in the words of any other language you can conjure up, though not much remains of anything but English. When you were thirteen, your grandparents took your sister and you to England for a summer. It was a celebration of their 40th wedding anniversary, and they let you join in. They rented a flat in Surbiton, Surrey, the upstairs of a beautiful house. It seemed palatial to you, coming from your 900 square foot post-WWII urban home. You lived upstairs from a single mother and her three boys, who must have thought you were terribly American. You suppose you...

This is me. This is you. This is where I worked when we met, the downtown shop, all expensive and flowery. This is you, driving up in your car, and here I am, waiting. For you. This is where we ate, our first date, and this is the song that made you pause, grinning at its serendipity. This is the park we drove to that night, the paths we strolled down, the roses in bloom. This is you, driving away in your car. This is me, wishing you weren't driving away. This is my plane ticket, to return to college. This is the telephone I spent hours on, listening to your voice coming from so very far away. This is me, home once again. This is you, driving up in your car. This is the place where you hugged me, hugged me so hard that you gave away your mission: one square ring box in your chest pocket. This is the park we went to on that first date, but the roses are no longer in bloom. This is you, on your knee. This is me, smiling so hard that I cried. This is us. An...