D and I met while we were working for the same international firm. I was based in Portland, Oregon but traveling nearly constantly. He was based in the Cayman Islands.
We met at a company lunch on Grand Cayman, and the story goes that after setting eyes on me, he said to a co-worker, "She's a babe!" He calls me Babe to this day. I don't consider myself such, so I love him for the fact that he does. He's a Brit and his accent charmed me immediately. It's backed up by an acerbic, rapier wit that keeps me in stitches all these years later.
As a former bridge officer on large ships, he's extremely well traveled, having crossed the equator and transited the Panama canal numerous times. He's sailed six of the seven seas and set foot on six of the seven continents.
I told him once that the chance that we even met, let alone crafted a relationship that led to a marriage, seems so astronomically unlikely it must have been fated. I imagine us as little pinpoints of light on the globe... his circling the earth, transiting the seas... mine orbiting within the confines of my country, occasionally brushing Canada or Mexico. Then one day our points of light collide in the Caribbean and turn into a shower of sparks.
At first, the distance thing seemed insurmountable. We enjoyed spending time together for the remainder of my visit to the island. And both of us were sad when it was time for me to leave but it seemed a brief island romance destined to become a pleasant memory. This was before Skype, and it cost $0.25/min for me to call him on the Islands, and over $1.00/min for him to ring the States. So even keeping in touch seemed an expensive proposition.
He sent me the sweetest e-mail the day I left. He told me that he was listening to David Gray's "Please Forgive Me" and it made him think of me. Not that he had anything to apologize for - here is the lyric, which still melts my heart when I hear it:
Please forgive me if I act a little strange
For I know not what I do
Feels like lightning running through my veins
Every time I think of you
He had a business trip to the States the day after my departure, and I remember that we decided to take advantage of the low cost phone calls and had a few marathon overnight conversations. Somewhere in those calls we decided on his visit to Oregon at Christmas, sacrificing his holiday visit to England to come see me.
So two months after those first idyllic days on the Island, I was nervously waiting at the Portland Airport - back when you could still meet someone at the gate as they stepped off the plane.
The sparks were still there.
We spent the week between Christmas and New Years Day completely absorbed in each other. One evening, curled up on a sofa in front of the massive stone fireplace in the great room at Timberline Lodge, we noticed that when we were together, it was like we were in an insulated bubble for just the two of us. I wanted to stay in the bubble forever.
Three years and three days later - across the international date line and on another island in the sea, we did this:
Happy Ten Years, my love. You've made the world my oyster
and I'll never see it the same way because of you.
and I'll never see it the same way because of you.
Photo: Miles Holden
Our wedding album:
