This Simple Little Life

I met Scott when he was 18. I was 19. Since then, I have witnessed his coming-of-age story. I lived beside it, inside it. He saw me and mine too in all my embarrassing, troubled glory.

He is a man now of 31 years. I am a woman of 32. We are dearest friends, life partners, bed mates, roommates, dinner dates. He is the father now. I am the mother. Amelia is the child, our doughy daughter with whom we are helplessly in love. He and I are married, have been for 6 years and 6 months now. We have a dog. Her name is Penny. She looks like a German Sheppard puppy, but she is not German, nor a Sheppard, nor a puppy. She is a mix, Norwegian Elkhound and Collie, we presume, and she’s nearly 8-years-old. To him, she is “the cheapest best friend [he] ever bought.” To me, she is my walking company, my home security system, my pain in the ass, and my sweet cuddle love. Scott has a career in a grocery store and beige tortoise-shell glasses. Our closet is full of his plaid shirts and folded solid color tees. He has white in his reddish-brown beard and combed-back hair and a hole in his jeans that I couldn’t quite mend. I am presently without a career, home with baby getting some extensive professional development in child rearing. I have stretchy pants, long sweaters and one denim shirt shoved into bins at the bottom of our closet. I have two pairs of boots and one pair of blue rimmed glasses. I have strands of white hair hiding in the bristles of my brown bangs and I always have a jar of drinking water nearby. He is an improvisational comedian and teacher. He likes to play video games and go to the movies and make up silly baby songs. I like to write and make big bowls of salad and crusty homemade bread. He likes Science Fiction, comic book heroes and Steven King novels. I like memoire, literary magazines and books about food. I like to hike. He likes his gold framed bike. We both play guitar and howl folk songs and take our coffee with cream.

He loves me and I love him and that is a perfect truth.

We started dating when I was 20 and he was 19. One night, I wept in bed because I realized then that we might not make it ---that we probably wouldn’t. Something, I didn’t know what, would separate us, splitting our newly trampled path into two narrow, solitary paths. ---I believe, nowadays, any 20-year-old who finds herself in a tremendous romance would agree that it is scary. We are not yet grown at 20. There is still so much to live through, an ocean of time, sprawling and stormy, open for all sorts of tragedy.

But when I was 22 and he was 21, our first big decision waved us down from where it stood in the middle of an intersection.  Surrounded by paper maps with creases; highway lines; blotches of ink for capital cities; bold state boundaries and bodies of water, it forced us to ask: Where do we want to go after we graduate college?

I wanted to move to Boston. Scott wanted to move to Chicago. So we compromised and moved to Queens, New York City.

After that, we always wanted to move to the same place.

Let’s move to Boston.

                                     Okay!

Western Massachusetts?

                                    Yeah!

Chicago?                                      

                                   That’d be fun!

Time to return to Massachusetts?

                                  Yes, please!

And now, all these 14 years later, the 10th place we will move to together will be our first house. We are moving to a converted old summer camp where conservation forests sprawl speckled with lakes, black bears, elk, birds, pines, maples, and firs. The inspector found a leak in the shower, but the carpenter and the plumber have both confirmed that it is an easy, inexpensive fix. We sign the papers in May.

Yesterday, I potted plastic pots with organic soil and seeds: lemon balm, basil, kale, chard, dill, wild flowers, parsley, thyme, lettuce, and tomatoes. This summer they will sit on our porch in the shady sunshine, birthing vegetables and edible herbs and pretty porcelain pots of posies. I have a bowl of sourdough starter bubbling on the kitchen table. I have diapers in the wash. I have the ingredients to make a coconut cake for Easter. I have to take the compost out back. I take my showers after baby is sleeping and keep my library books by the bed. I have lots of leafy plants to water and tend to, dog hair to vacuum, and spoons, pots and plates to pluck from the dish strainer and pile in the cabinets and on the counter tops.  I seek out these tasks. They are not insignificant chores, but purposeful work that make for a clean, happy home. I am grateful for this simple little life of mine. My people are healthy, fed and clean. We are fortunate.

We are still trampling upon this path we've made. We haven't split and we haven't strayed. It's a bit wider now with Penny marking every turn. And since baby is strapped to me in her carrier, we have to be a bit more careful, avoiding brambles, raised roots, and poison ivy. Soon, though, she'll be running ahead. And one day, our path will fork into paths. She'll follow one and we'll continue on the other. It'll be close to ours. We'll still be able to see her through the trees, but hopefully by then she will be prepared, ready for independence and perhaps even her own tremendous romance.