We wake, and there are no dogs nuzzling us out of bed with their hunger for food and desire for love and need to be let out and back in. No one needs us here in this room where we are reading aloud from a book, asking each other questions, and listening to answers. We talk about our creation myth: how did WE come to be, and why and what did we represent to each other, in this magical time of presenting as ideal lovers to each other thirty one years ago in Albuquerque? It's a time of life we can choose to be entirely alone with each other again, as we were those two weeks of April in New Mexico when we saw - no, when we felt - we are more than friends. Will we take the next step? We asked this question then, and it would be months before we would come to our answer. He is still my ideal lover, but that doesn't mean I haven't felt the blows of his shadow, and scoured him with mine. We have lived with each other's shortcomings, and we have let go of illusions and still, here we are here we are here we are

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017