Like New, Only So Much Better

Mr. Moon did a massive amount of work this weekend. He pressure washed almost the entire house, including much of the roof which scares me to death, watching him up there on that steep tin roof.
Heights, for some reason, do not bother him.
(This is sort of a joke because he is so tall that just standing upright could be a dizzying experience for him.)

I tried yesterday evening to sit down and write a post about that man, about our life together. I wrote about how we met and how quickly we became a couple and how very, very busy we've been for most of the thirty years we've been together. How despite our incredible differences we share things in common that must truly matter. How we meet at the heart. How we respect each other's differences. How his idea of heaven is a deer blind in the woods and my idea of heaven would be a library filled with books to read and Macs to write on. How over the years we have come to cherish the differences. I love to cook what he brings home from the woods and he loves that I keep a record here of our family, our children, our grandchildren, both with words and with pictures.

How we've been through too many deaths together and also, blessedly, so many births. How we've traveled and how we've dreamed and how we've made dreams come true.

How lucky we are to still, after thirty years, love each other, respect each other, meet at the heart. How we still have dreams.

How he is my comfort and joy. How he put up with the craziness within me for so long and gave me a safe, protected, loving place from which to find the strength to get help for that craziness. How he has supported me in every way. How he was with me when we had our babies at home, how over the years I have fallen more and more in love with him, watching his great heart open first to me and the children I already had and then to Lily and Jessie and now to our grandsons. How I have been in awe of his strength, his compassion, his open mind, his kindness.

His kindness.

How he thanks me every night for the supper I've made him. How he so often washes the dishes. How he tends the garden and built the chicken coop and bought me my dream house. How he takes me to Mexico.

I tried, last night, to write all of these things but there was so much going on. By the time he'd finished up he could barely walk, he was so tired. And then he helped me put the plants back on the porch and then we made martinis and sat on that porch and then a neighbor came over and his sister called and, and, and...

Dinner time. Bed time.

It was a good weekend. We got so much done. It is lovely and cool today and here I am, enjoying these beautiful porches that my husband cleaned. The sun is shining and everywhere my eye looks, I see love. I need to put that last porch back together again.

I need to put the canning kettle back into the closet where it goes because I did use it to make five half-pints of preserves. I think I may clean out some closets today. Possibly. The idea of the inside of the house being a bit less cluttered like the outside is a good one. There are things, like the canning kettle, which I do need to keep stored because I use it. Not so often, but I do. There are other things which I will never use and I need to let some of them go.

All weekend as Mr. Moon worked his way around the house, a crow kept following him. He would perch in whatever tree was above where my husband was and he would caw at him. When he was finished and came in for his shower, the crow came to the Bradford Pears beside the back porch and called and cawed, as if he wanted his friend to come back outside. He even dive-bombed the porch as if DEMANDING that he come back out. I don't see him this morning. Perhaps he, like Mr. Moon, has gone to work, doing whatever sort of enterprise that crows do.

It is the most beautiful day. The chickens are out and feeding on the corn I've thrown them. The roses are blooming, the garden is coming along so nicely. I see the beautiful results of all the work we've done here together and I see that our very lives are a result of all the work we've done here together and somehow, this still isn't exactly what I have wanted to say. It rambles and it goes down paths that I didn't mean it to and isn't that just like life?

You meet a guy in a bar. Okay, you've already met him before but somehow, that night, in the bar, his eye goes to you and yours to him. A week later he's putting some of his things on a shelf in a closet in your room and you tell a friend, "This guy is going to ask him to marry me." You're not even sure how you feel about that but there is a sense of destiny, of fate, of purpose.
You have adventures, you work hard, you go through hell sometimes, you hold each other through it all. You don't give up. The family you create knits you together so tightly that you can't give up.
You keep doing the work.
You keep having adventures.
You take care of each other as tenderly and thoughtfully as possible.
You keep remembering to kiss and to say "thank-you," and you always, always tell each other, "I love you."
You always say, "We are so lucky."
You mean it.

Well. This is how it's worked for us.

I am grateful for him. I love him. I am so lucky.

I mean it. With every bit of me, I know it and I mean it.

Good morning. It is such a good morning. I hope it is for you, too.

Love...Ms. Moon