I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

History is filled with befores and afters.

There's BC and AD, which refer to the years before and after the traditionally estimated

birth of Christ.

There's pre-war and post-war, meaning World War 2,

pre-9-11 and post-9-11, pre-pandemic and whatever time we're in now.

I've heard people call the years before COVID the before times, but certainly

there have been other before times. I think we all have experiences in our personal lives that mark

the end of one era and the beginning of another, moving out of your childhood home,

and beginning your adult life away from your parents, graduating from high school or college,

moving from one place to another, or getting married, or having children.

I can remember a few before times in my own life, though some are foggier than others.

It's hard for me to clearly imagine the life I had before my kids. It's also hard for me to conjure the

life I had with my ex-husband and the life I had before him. Now is so well present. I'm happy,

and I feel like my life is as it should be. I don't want to go back.

But the past is never really past. It's with us because it changes us. The past shaped who we are in the present. Today's poem is a love poem,

one in which the long married speaker can hardly imagine their own before times, the life before their spouse.

This is a poem by Kecha Kuyper's.

Now that we've been married all these years, tiny prop planes drag banners against the sky, selling us things we already have.

And whatever else crosses the landscape, smoking engine of the trawler, polka-dotted lantern fly,

tendril of melted ice cream,

snail-stickying your wrists,

...