A December Love Story
Mountains, las montañas, 山, in all the languages I know and hope to, with the longing of a mortal to understand something older than anything we know. They were the first thing I noticed when the plane landed. My seatmate was asleep when we began to descend, and had shut the plane window, wasting his luck, as if dropping thousands of feet in the air was as routine an event as any. (My own words now remind me now of Janet—the time she asked what I had bought at the grocery store, and I had muttered, “just fruit.” “Just fruit?” she had repeated, “Just? Isn’t it amazing that we can walk into a grocery store and have our own Garden of Eden?” I hope that she is still as amazed by life as when I met her.) I peered across the aisle to try to catch glimpses from the open window on the far side. When the plane tilted, the mountains disappeared from view, the small window revealing only bare sky. I was staying with a couple—Audrey and Brian—and their two sons. When Audrey picked me up...