on the East Coast, this is already fact; on the West Coast, there is still about forty minutes… so I sit on the cusp of my two month anniversary, happily wedded [though too often separated] to Iryna Clark, born Kotlyarova, and formerly Zinchenko. It is with pleasure that I overlay my name on these former ones.

This picture, shot by my mother, is first official [by paperwork, though not by vow] portrait of Iryna and I as a married couple. It was cold. I had been nervous (refer to the water in hand). But while pinning the flowers on my lapel, and seeing Iryna with the much-coveted nosegay (oh there is a story there), my heart sang; deeply into the dinner in Little Italy and on into an elated drive up north. I can see with stark clarity the dark umbers and cold-browns of the corner of Manhattan, on into the Bronx, as I sat in back with my new wife; it reminded me of so many bus-rides I had taken throughout the northeast– always alone, book or sketchbook in hand, looking out the window, musing, wrapping my thoughts into the clouds. How strange, how far the distance from those times, and what a milestone of memory. I am too tired and screen-struck to explain the fine nuances of it, but the core of it is fairly easy: I was rippled-through with potential, with the striking open of new vistas, with a new panorama laying itself out before me in the soft purple and crushed-leaf shadow of dusk. I loved being married, which is one of those things I always expected to be surprised at and was only surprised that I wasn’t; that is, I loved it thoroughly without clinging to any remainder.

The length of this two months has been measured in hardships not related to being married– in fact, it is this marriage that enables some sanity whilst the rest of the environment contorts with ambiguity and flux. And I promise you, all you people of the world, that I will bring such joy and happiness into my wife’s life, bring such light to her days that all the days before will seem in shadow.

So goodnight; or, if you’re reading this Iryna– good morning. And Happy Anniversary. I love you