“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”
I was having trouble sleeping the other night. I would fall asleep, only to wake up a short time thereafter. Last time this happened I glanced at the clock radio on my nightstand whose luminous digital numbers read 12:30.
As I laid there staring at the ceiling, trying to fall back to sleep, I decided the thing to do was to count the number of angels dancing on the proverbial pinhead. Problem was that every time I put my ocular organ close enough to distinguish individual angels, they dispersed. I begin to think that rather than semi-divine beings with a spiteful sense of humor, they were Tricksters, demigods so popular in Native American and African religious mythology.
Fortunately for me, Señora begin to talk in her sleep, well mumble is more like it. When I first started sleeping with Señora almost two decades ago and she did this, I would try to ascertain what she was saying, thinking I might gain some insights into her inner life. Since most of the time she was mumbling this was a fruitless endeavor, and I gave it up as a useless exercise.
This particular night the amount of well-formed words were numerous. Then she said the words that I never expected to hear from a spouse, current or past. And she said them in a sweet, melodic tone, rather than in the grudgingly manner I would have expected.
“You are right,” she said.
I would say I can now die content, but, in all likelihood, she was dreaming of someone other than yours truly. Could I go back to sleep after that revelation, no, not really.
And so it goes.