For My Valentine

Funny, being cooped up with someone that you have known and loved for 40 years, you seem to syncronize your movements and become part of the atmosphere. There are moments of touch and go and doubt. After 40 years and an unforgiving snowstorm, can a very much in love couple run out of words to say? That is what I thought a few days ago. I spewed out my thoughts and caught my love off guard. He was speechless. I took his silence as an agreement that he had indeed fallen out of love with me on that very day.

So I left the house to run my errands and I lingered at each stop and enjoyed the civility of the strangers. I watched people intereact, or not. I noticed that many couples out in the real world interact differently than we do. I realized that when I am out in the world with my guy, we are together. We enjoy each other's company. We do exchange ideas and dreams we still want to see come true. Mainly, they involve our family. What we are going to do to help them and what we are going to do to make them always feel welcome at our home.

I stopped at Chipotle, my favorite place in the world besides Jolly Pirate (which I should have stopped there too). I had my Burrito Bowl and a diet soda and read a newsletter from the quilt shop. I savored my food because usually I take it home and it is cold. I am going to do that once a week or more now. MMMMMmmm.

When I went home, the air was full of some kind of sticky funky uncertain static. I expected a big ravaging hug and a long laborious diatribe of sappy love talk. I can't really think of the words I want to express what I was EXPECTING. Imagine my dismay when all of that did not happen as I had thought. So, I busied myself for another hour or so giving this certain someone another chance. Ain't I accomodating?

Anyway, after an hour or so I went in an plopped myself on the couch waiting for the beautiful words to come that would fill my soul with the love of the ages. After a few minutes of Bill O'Reilly, an episode of the Cheaters, and solving a couple mysterious killings on 48 hours, I decided that it was up to me. So I commented on the guy sitting alone in the interrogation room that the detectives were watching through a peephole and wondering what he was doing slumped over in his chair. He was chewing on an electrical cord apparently attempting suicide. For some reason I thought it was hilarious. And I laughed out loud. Then he laughed out loud. Then I realized it was indeed up to me. So I let it all go. I followed his lead and acted as if I had not said all those ridiculous things earlier in the day and that I must have been a mad woman driven to insanity by the ridiculousness of the whole 40 years and a snow storm theory.

Things have been back to normal ever since. It is amazing how much the mood of the house depends on the woman, in my opinion. Is it fair? I don't know. But, at least in my house, that is the way it is. I think that is the way I set it up from day one. I think, and really I am pretty sure, I learned that thing from our own dear mother! Ta Dah!!!!

I was really not going to write anything at all. I was just going to post a poem that I read a couple minutes ago that was in one of the blogs I subscribe to. That was it. Just the poem. A woman said she went to her parents house and the mother had planned a poetry reading. The father had dug up a book his mother gave him when he was eight. Here is the selection and it hit me between the eyes like a ton of bricks or something else just as heavy. I am going to bed now, but here it is. This is for me and my Valentine. Perfect.

ANY WIFE OR HUSBAND
by Carol Haynes
Let us be guests in one another's house
With deferential "No" and courteous "Yes;"
Let us take care to hide our foolish moods
Behind a certain show of cheerfulness.

Let us avoid all sullen silences;
We should find fresh and sprightly things to say;
I must be fearful lest you find me dull,
And you must dread to bore me any way.

Let us knock gently at each other's heart,
Glad of a chance to look within -- and yet
Let us remember that to force one's way
Is the unpardoned breach of etiquette.

So shall I be hostess -- you, the host --
Until all need for entertainment ends;
We shall be lovers when the last door shuts,But better still -- we shall be friends.