Breakfast. This morning: Eggs that my son collects each evening. And Froot Loops, the ones that have extra colored sparkle dust, just in case you didn’t remember that Froot is not Fruit for legal reasons.
The boys are absorbed in discussion about how to get me to plug in the Wii again. (“We should clean our room without her asking!”)
I look across the table to the farmer and I say, “I’m happy. I love you.”
He says, “That’s good. The kids need that. Interesting does nothing for kids.”
Then he walks over to my side of the table. He puts his arm around me and squeezes me. He says, “I love you, too,” and he goes out to the wood burning heater.
I watch him.
There’s something primal about a husband who literally cuts the wood to heat the house in the winter, and then keeps the fire going. And when he kisses me at lunch, his face smells like the fire.
We do not have an easy relationship. No relationship is easy. Thank goodness we know this, because marriage is starting to remind me of childbirth—it’s incredible that so many people do it when it is so painful.
But marriage is like childbirth also in that the benefits are so much. Read more