A Jeep In Summer

Orange (Continued)

There are many marks. Tattoos, scars, piercings, carvings, slashes, burns, stains--all these can be left behind, to say (with and without intention), 'I was here' or 'This belongs to me' or 'I spilled something.' Also footprints and fingerprints. And marks on paper: love notes, goodbye letters. Crayon on the wall.

I remember when he moved in. We were waiting with pizza, the brothers T. were late--car trouble. So we started on the pizzas, finished, but left them some.

We couldn't see the next three and a half years of the late nights, the road trips, the laughter, the hurtful words and actions and consequent apologies, the prayers, the beers, the tux rentals, the confronting talks, the changes, the few moments of crying, the walking through life together. But somehow, in that moment of arrival, I knew that he was someone I wanted to know for the rest of my life. There have been moments when I've doubted that knowledge and almost abandoned it, but my doubts have proved groundless.

So there is some sort of mark somewhere in my heart. Orange paint is sanded and gone away, the new white has drenched the door, I have walked and am walking through this change, because things and housemates and all the components/factors/ingredients of life change. Inevitable. Here we are.

And you know, we weren't able to get all the orange off. It's still there, hiding. It's in the history, in the story of this house, in the story of several lives.

I do have a new affinity for that colour. It might be a permanent liking.

'So when the questions dissolve
into the silence of God
The aching may remain,
but the breaking does not
In the Holy, lonesome echo
of the silence of God'

--Andrew Peterson