The Big Picture and the Closeup

There’s a sentence in George Gissing’s novel Sleeping Fires which summed up my feelings about Mary: “It was the woman whom a man in his maturity desires unashamed.” And there I was, unashamed after a long process. To capture that feeling, a song would have be something that began in a long and hesitant fashion, but then moved from diffidence to confidence, lyricism, and joy. Bebel was the song.

The trouble was, if both of you were growing in unpredictable ways, were busy exploring, what would happen when each of you had grown into someone new? Could a marriage sustain such developments? One could not know for certain in advance.