There is a scene in the television series ‘Poldark’ where the main protagonist (of the same name) is with his wife at a friend’s country wedding. The wife has joined a circular group dance and is radiantly smiling and thoroughly enjoying herself. The husband, Poldark, watches on slightly bemused. And then his face changes to one you see every-so-often in a blue moon.
The face of a unabashed pride.
Eyes with wrinkles in the corner. A small smile with the corners upturning more and more. Eyebrows furrowing upward in a gentle steeple-like manner. *That look.* The look that you see when you watch someone slip through the doorway gracefully into a deeper vein of love (whether they know it or not).
This is usually when they keep that smile on while they distract themselves with something else. In the case of our friend Poldark here, it was him drinking his beer from a small tin cup and then looking elsewhere.
That smile, those happily upward eyebrows were those I saw on *them* on a somewhat regular basis.
Whether it was in their character or daily nature to be so jovial, lively, and all-over-happy…. I couldn’t say. Whenever you see that sort of happiness, it absorbs into you. Maybe at first you reflect it back; both of you feeding the other’s hilarious fuel. Next, it comes out when you both hit a lull and that smile pulls you back into an ambling bliss with them. Then, you try to fight it if you were frazzled enough that day, however, their cheery demeanor would eventually thaw you out over time. Maybe not that day, maybe not that week… but soon. It always did.
Back then, we were living on modest means. The kind where you had enough to pay the bills and maybe write-off a bit on some extra comforts like a late-night run for take-out wings or a trip to the local neighborhood Irish pub. There was a richness in living like that.
And as all tides come and go, what started as small lapping of waves turned our boats out to sea in different directions. They to work where they could find it (understandably as one human should reasonably feel the compassion that you’ve got to make your own way… even with a partner) and I to the need for soul-support in the aftermath of the death of a very close family member.
It’s bittersweet to see that type of deep display of affection (in different media, in different formats). Nostalgia takes over from there. In a never ending loop (thank you internet for your GIFs), you can vicariously hand-pick the moments of the more endearing, hard-to-find glimpses of deep undercurrent love as you try to replicate what was or could be.
Years go by, you change (even if standing still towards change is the change itself) and then this wave comes back at you.
Where once you worked hard to have a Poldark to smile at you, you want to *be* Poldark for that someone.
