We love to go out to eat, as you probably well know by now.  Since our days of spontaneous, non-children meals are numbered, we are taking full advantage of it.  Sunday mornings are usually spent at our nearby diner, but today we decided to splurge and try something new.  Good Gods of Cuisine.  Tilth delivered and then some.

I ordered the Dutch Baby Pancake with Arugula, Grapefruit Syrup, and Pistachios.  It was so surprisingly good!  Joel had the Corned Beef Sandwich with Mornay, Choucroute, and Duck Egg.  We added a side of their homemade bacon, and I had to stop myself from licking the plate.  

Have a delicious Sunday,

When Joel leaves, even for one night, I get the smallest taste of how different my life could have been.  I realize how incredibly hard it is to fall asleep without him snoring next to me, and while that other life would have certainly been full of its own treasures, I know more and more that a life without Joel - well, I'll have none of it.

I am usually the one travelling away from home, and in that circumstance, I think it's easier to be distracted from how much you miss your lover.  When you are the one left behind, new mysteries of self-independence await.  All at once, you realize how simultaneously capable and incapacitated you are without your partner.   When I hadn't heard from Joel for the entire day, the self-pity began to gnaw at my pregnant heart (for those of you who are interested, pregnancy actually re-situates the heart chakra, exposing your vulnerabilities to everyone you meet.  It's not just the hormones that make pregnant women emotional, but the energy shift).  

"Why isn't he calling me?  Worse yet, this means he's not even thinking of me.  Why doesn't he read my to-do lists?  Why doesn't he bring me flowers, why do I always have to buy them for myself?"

After a few hours of this, I stopped.  Something inside me saved me and I determined to remember Joel's needs above my own.  Considering what I really wanted was for him to refresh his soul, how could I begrudge a day where I am not his first thought; a day where work doesn't consume all of his words; a day where his very best friend - the forest - nurtures him back to himself.  A day where his huge hands don't have to carry all three of us.  

I began to feel a slowly increasing empowerment, for it was in this realization that I found my hands big enough, strong enough to hold us.  And then I remembered that on his walk home from a 11-hour work day Friday, he picked me a small cherry blossom.  Marriage is very rarely about grand gestures; it is more the desire to share beauty in small ways throughout your days.  I don't want him to think of me as something to do, a relationship to upkeep, a woman to romance.  Instead, I want him to romance himself and in so doing, truly make me swoon.  Who knows if he picked that blossom because he was overwhelmed with appreciation for me.  Perhaps he picked it because its beauty struck him, and if beauty reminds him of me - I am romanced to my very core.

Stiff back, morning yoga.
Steamed shower, poached egg.
Orange off the shoulder, blue flats.
Salty sea air, umbrella'd skies of gray.
Farmer's market, lemon and sugar crepe.
Sound of lens snap, forwarded film.
Double short latte, flirty walk home.
Long kisses in the kitchen, big green eyes bat their lashes.
Washed strawberries, goodness of fresh-caught (this morning) mussels.
Productive photo shoot, the kindness of friend and neighbor.
He leaves but his goodness lingers.
Wishes for boating, friends ever-hospitable.
Saying no because "I have a deadline."
Solo work day, article quite near satisfactory.
Loud Ulrich Schnauss, hours of photo editing.
Caprese on crackers, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo swirling in glass.

Living. Breathing.
Goodness.

Sunday.