symbiosis

My tidy husband has swept old journals back into their box and up to the shelf.  I had hoped to pick up where I left off yesterday.  Now they are out of reach and I am left grinning at my childishness and his care-taking of me.  He prompts me to wear my seatbelt, to bring the insurance card, to vacuum the mini-van. I accept all this guidance because I know I am only mostly an adult.  Like a teenager, I still believe I don't need a seatbelt, and all ailments will be cured with a stout, sweaty 4 mile run.
When I wear high heels, our noses meet.  Without them, my head rests under his chin.  This creates an illusion.  He is stronger than I am.  He is taller, wider,  heavier more capable with his rough mits for hands.  I used to hold his palms in mine and study them.  I'd turn them over and over like a sandy, beach treasure.
How can they be so dry and not hurt?  How can you just let them crack and bleed?  How can there be spots  which will never come clean?  Engine grease is pressed so deep into the crevises that it didn't even come out on our wedding day.
He can withstand things I can't understand.
He props up my everyday life.  He is my steel frame.

Pepper and Dad at our first house

Because he of him, I am free to simply tell the truth and let it be.
I get to write without worrying that it will ever be lucrative. He offers me a luxury far better than any object.  I have stumbled over this often, but never told him.  Without Andrew's support, I would feel immense pressure to BE something.  One thing I learned in school, when you MUST be creative, it is nearly impossible to think of anything good enough.
Without a partner, I could not be a whole-hearted artist and a mother.  My energy would be sucked away by the daily tasks and expenses, which he assumes for me, for us.

I get to be with our kids every single day.  I greet them when they wake up and hold them in their jammies.  I sing to them, "Good morning to you....we're all in our places...with bright shining faces."
We stay in our p.j.'s until 10, and make pink waffles.
They move in and out of days with ease, one trickling onto another like a pond accumulating a delicate soul.

Sarah

This is my gift to him.  This family.  Sarah, Sophie, Pepper and Beckam.

Sarah to fold into at the end of the day. Sarah to sit on the back of the toilet and listen to his stories while he takes a shower. Sarah to make morning coffee.  Sarah to dance with at weddings.  Sarah to catch eyes with across the room and to know without words.

Sophie

Pepper

Sophie to battle and to adore.  Sophie to challenge his authority and make him laugh at himself.  Sophie to flip through the house and stir up the air.  Sophie for tenderness to Pepper when we have none left






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Pepper to wear sparkly shoes at the end of whispy legs.  Pepper to squeeze into Dad hugs.  Pepper to ask questions from her world of imagination, "Do elephants use their trunks like a telescope when they swim under water?"  Pepper to remind us to read books and to slow down.

Beckam

Beckam to marvel at the strength of his noggin.  Beckam for being stout and studly.  Beckam for his red hair and for looking just like Grandpa Andy.  Beckam to snuggle the tags of his tattered blankie.  Beckam to bop his head to a music beat in the back seat.  Beckam to bring us all together, and sew up our family tight.



Thank you husband.  For being exactly what you are.