Disharmony
Two days of chilly shoulders and frosty undertones. No more snow outside. It has gathered on our hearts.
We rally round our daughter, coaxing her from tears to joy again and again. It is exhausting, but she keeps us in some kind of contact.
The Solstice fire has died. Christmas has been unwrapped. Another year looms and I am unready to meet it.
Another 365 days of nappies and hoovering and washing up and surviving from coffee with a friend until a cup of tea at playgroup.
I feel physically dis-heartened. Something has gone so wrong. I am tired, but I am always tired and I didn't feel like this last week. I don't remember feeling like this since I have been in partnership with my husband who is usually such a source of joy for me. Today he is an irritant, possibly acidic. Not even a bath of asses milk would be balm enough. I need something else.
Feeling Rather Tense
My husband needs something else too. And though I ache to give it, I cannot name it, much less find it in myself.
He cannot stay in a space with me. He laces his boots in a silent, depressed fury, kisses our girl who sits on my lap goodbye and opens the door to leave.
My breath stops. He has never, ever, refused to kiss me like this. A desperate voice from inside me calls,
'I love you.'
The door shuts. The tears track my cheeks and I hug the baby tight as I watch him descend our steps.
He turns around. He'll take his bike; get further from me.
But no. He has opened the door again.
He is in the room.
He says,
'I love you too.'
More tears. And we tell of the mirrored smallnesses which have sucked the heat from our lives.
We kiss. Find resolutions. Find comfort in each other again.
There is a bright flame in the dark and we gratefully warm our hands; thaw our hearts.
Later, I ponder what had led us to that place. Many things, of course, had interwoven the net which caught us, but I see one thing clearly: I had forgotten my machete. When the world is tangled and dense and catches at my hair I have a tool which never fails me if only I remember to use it: I can write.
I recall evenings too busy and sociable or too tired and miserable to write my journal and the dream-binding which followed; which always follows.
I am a fool. If I achieve nothing else this coming year, may I remember that writing is not only my passion and my talent and, newly, my job. It is also my lifeline, the lighthouse beam which sweeps an arc accros the unknown so I can catch a glimpse of my mind-corners and chase the scuttling creatures away.
And I am wise. 2 days of iciness out of 365? We're not doing so badly. I did call out. And he did turn around. He is the source of much of my joy once again.
And all those nappies? That's where the real love is. One nappy at a time, I am saying to my family,
'I love you'.
In Love; At Peace
