Stick figures in love.

Twenty five years and still going. I make mistakes. You see that. I am not perfect. You see that. Thirty five years ago, I was a silly young man, with half the ability to see what was and what will be. In many ways I was like any tenth grade boy in high school. A sophomore: a wise fool.

But you saw my moments. You paid attention when I was excited by a play on the football field. I never thought girls paid much attention to what goes on between the sidelines and the goal posts. But you did. You saw my failures, the losses in elections. The junior year with one win and eight losses. Basketball loss after loss after loss. A bunch of slow, slew-footed white boys trying to hold onto the basketball, to let it fly.

But you saw the grace to come. The cool to come. Something higher than what was on the surface.

And I saw you. And more than the temporal, the flittering heartbeat. The possibility of twenty five plus years. And more.

It burned through the surface and found its way to paper. Letters between Virginia and California. Letters spanning the years, building, until we touched down near City Park and the snowball stands and po-boys, fully dressed.

My love for you is bigger than the physical. It is metaphysical in scope. Greater than we two.

The algebra of we two equals one. Not always, but often enough for two poor stick figures on a page.