a love note

We're one month into marriage and my husband follows my loud calls into our bathroom where I am staring at the sink. I point at a large, spindly spider that's clinging to the slippery bowl. Here's a note for the future: know where danger lurks so you can be prepared. I guess that means sinks. Later, I listen to him exclaim over how scarring the elimination process was. "I killed a bro!", he mourns.

Autumn has me restless, like usual. During sunny days, before the months and months of rain, I long to be out and about in nature. I crave the earth beneath my feet and to be present as the amber leaves slip down beside me. This time of year always feels like a dance just beginning. That kind where you have to leave before the final scene and your heart is pumping and the music is growing and growing. I don't want to miss the crescendo.

Marriage has seen my husband throw on his coat, wrap a scarf around his neck, and take my hand as we wander the trails behind our house. I know he would rather remain inside, but here he is and we are grinning like fools. It has seen us unabashedly weep in theaters and whisper reverently all the way back to our car. It has witnessed us stumble, hurt the other, and come back together in a jumble of, forgive me, and, I'm sorry. Not as an excuse, but simply, a reminder of our shared humanness.

One month in: my husband has an ever-growing fondness for singing loudly while grocery shopping, driving, or (quite alarmingly) during a stroll with my parents on a particularly beautiful Sunday when the sunlight turned our sky into an unbroken promise. He enjoys his vocal stage immensely, and here's a secret between you and me: so do I. Which is why, when I am at work and wishing I was at home instead, I think of this song and hear his voice lift the corners of my mouth.

Marriage has looked like coming home to a nest of safety. Like escaping out of a driving wind and finding the dance of a fire or the thickest coat. It has taught me how to swallow words that are unnecessary and petty, but also, how to crack open my thoughts in an empty gym as I sit cross-legged and still. Hurt and anger are constructed in silence and even though I so often don't know how to invite someone into my fears, I drag them out one by one. We're learning how to throw out the trash and not wait for it to build up into a fortress of miscommunication. Always learning, always trying, and reaching for: that's the thing.

Little hints of magic: the way he thanks me for every meal, even when I over-salt or accidentally burn the food until the house is smokey and I open every window so we shiver through our meal. Or how I found him at our front door one day after work, sunflowers in hand, his face glowing from the cold. Or when I'd expressed my longing to go out and amble through the streets, he linked his arm through mine and we wandered the same places we'd been to so many times before. Except now, as man & wife. All these ordinary joys, littered into our days. What an extravagance.

We're learning how to concede and that some days marriage is hard work. This too, is a gift. What can I say? I hold his face in my hands and I am home.