At the kitchen table, gusts of giggles punctuating a regular flow of commentary, faux accusations, blurts of triumph: the sisters are playing cards. King in the Corner is a circular solitaire-like game and my sister-in-law has just gone out on her first turn, and to me in the other room, it sounds like a gale of laughter.
These red-haired women have been in each other's purview over 60 years, have clashed and comforted, rescued and resented, been witness to the vicissitudes, the celebrations, of each other's lives. All of that falls away, or rather is present but unremarked, in their enjoyment right now of the slap of cards down on the table.
Another pair of sisters I know is my mother and aunt, two women on either side of 90. From this small sample, it's clear that sisterhood is a complex relationship of loyalty, irritation, affection, concern active simultaneously in dynamic ratios. What simple word can characterize this meteorological melange?
I join to make a threesome, and observe up close my wife's sharp, amused eyes and my sister-in-law upwellings of enthusiasm. Their lives so intertwined, so many shared events, memories--this very game used to be favorite of their grandmother--and she had a poker face--so many issues still being worked out, and everything that is ahead, all coming down now to this moment.
This relationship, this thing impossible to fully plumb, to completely characterize at any point, much less over years, is what I mean by the word encounter, in this case between two persons. If there were a mathematics of such, it would have to include a suitcase of ineffable values to finally balance the equation.
Do you recognize us all, your Beloved, around the table, God-in-love? Is that your laughter I hear?
These red-haired women have been in each other's purview over 60 years, have clashed and comforted, rescued and resented, been witness to the vicissitudes, the celebrations, of each other's lives. All of that falls away, or rather is present but unremarked, in their enjoyment right now of the slap of cards down on the table.
Another pair of sisters I know is my mother and aunt, two women on either side of 90. From this small sample, it's clear that sisterhood is a complex relationship of loyalty, irritation, affection, concern active simultaneously in dynamic ratios. What simple word can characterize this meteorological melange?
I join to make a threesome, and observe up close my wife's sharp, amused eyes and my sister-in-law upwellings of enthusiasm. Their lives so intertwined, so many shared events, memories--this very game used to be favorite of their grandmother--and she had a poker face--so many issues still being worked out, and everything that is ahead, all coming down now to this moment.
This relationship, this thing impossible to fully plumb, to completely characterize at any point, much less over years, is what I mean by the word encounter, in this case between two persons. If there were a mathematics of such, it would have to include a suitcase of ineffable values to finally balance the equation.
Do you recognize us all, your Beloved, around the table, God-in-love? Is that your laughter I hear?
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