Maple Drive: Come Down in Time

Part 8 of 9. How I fell in love with my wife 33 years ago. The story of the the nurse who married the waiter and the waiter who married the nurse. The happiest two months of my life.

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

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I drove home on the surface streets, taking the longer route that night, bypassing the on ramps, driving past the fast food restaurants and the gas stations and the all-night convenience stores, letting the coiled energy unwind and expand, trying to get my mind around the evening.

I wound all the car windows down and let the air stream in. When I got home it was late and my roommates were asleep but I was still unspooling, so I sat on my unmade bed, put headphones on, wrapped my head to my knees, and listened to Sting sing Come Down in Time.

It’s a sad song, an I’ve been waiting in the rain for hours song, but there is also something sincere and tender about the love described in it, something infused with melancholy– and I let myself feel the words that fit and disregarded the ones that did not.