Adios to all that...

Adios; go with God.; Go be with God; Go! Into Oblivion!;

Last nite I relinquished some of my past, my baggage. It was after a sumptuous dinner of fried/grilled ribeye, garnished with a deglazed wine and fresh tomato sauce, on a bed of arugula, fresh from our garden, with sliced fresh beets, from our garden, and chilled green peas, fresh from our garden, washed down with a nice 2003 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo from Cantina Zaccagnini that Tova gave me. I was feeling privileged, exquisitely fortunate, sitting across the table from Sheryl; my very own sleepy beauty.

Suddenly feeling somewhat antsy, I got one of those urges. I abandoned Sheryl, and hotfooted it down into the basement, and dragged out the plastic mail crate that contained my old bank statements and the shoebox of old love letters. Earlier we had unearthed an ancient rusted steel barrel from the depths of the backyard jungle, and translocated it to the center of the backyard. I deposited the mail crate there.

When I returned, Sheryl was cleaning up, and I felt guilty. We talked, and I did what I could to make it right. When she was ready, I grabbed the Kingston charcoal lighter fluid, and a book of matches. Sheryl folded up the big yellow butterfly chair, and into the backyard we went.

I crinkled up a bunch of bank papers, enough to cover the sticks and other debris at the bottom of the barrel, doused it in enough lighter fluid to alarm Sheryl, place the lighter fluid can a safe distance away, lit a match and tossed it in.

The fire took off right away, I began crinkling more bank papers, and feeding it fairly continuously. Sheryl was seated in her butterfly throne, not too close, but not too far. When I threw in the shoebox she objected. She thought I should take it all apart and crinkle each document. I didn't want to get that close to it. I wanted to banish it from my life, forever more.

It took a while, but the box slowly began to burn, and I had plenty of bank statements, cancelled checks, business correspondences, and other useless, but dangerous documents, which I dutifully fed to the flaming beast. I momentarily thought, now and then, about recording it somehow, a photograph, or video. But, I didn't.

It was much like any steel drum fire. Except for the fuel. As it appeared to be dying, Sheryl stepped in and stirred the ashes revealing volumes of unburnt pages, which went up fairly quickly. I could see the handwritten script as the flames chewed through it, too fast to read the passion they carried so long ago, but slowly enough to remember the final parting blessing of the very last missive; Stay in Love.

I have. I am. I will.