The Dull and Slow

Sometimes I try to sound like we’re having fun so that you’ll come and hang out with us. I admit, while poking at the mushroom risotto he’s made with rice, Parmesan cheese, portabellas and chicken stock. My finger tips are purple from skinning and slicing a blue violet beet for our salad of greens, orange carrot bits and red tomatoes.

I miss him. Sometimes when he’s home, it feels like he’s farther away. His body, --his long slender frame buttoned up in flannel and denim-- is here, but before the round puddles of his deep, dark eyes flickers the vibrant, intoxicating images of a designed world far more interesting, more captivating than the flesh of me and our seven-month-old baby. 

He’s been distracted, yes, unable to sit still when he’s home. He doesn’t find us boring, he tells me.

It feels like we’re boring. I tell him. My chin is shaking. I feel like you don’t like spending time with us.

He just wants to move already! He’s sorry. He has a lot of things that are about to happen and so, he thinks, this is why he hasn’t been very good at being in the present.

We don’t have to sit here staring at the baby when you’re home. We can do things! I like to do things. I want to go out. When you’re here, it makes me think: good! -this is something different. I figure you want to see her and me, to talk and watch baby roll around and put toys in her mouth. I assume this is enough, but it’s completely fine if this isn’t enough. It isn’t really enough for me either.

A little is nice, but too much is…

Dull ...and slow! I get it. I know.

I find myself waiting for him to come home or anticipating his days off. I don’t want to be like this. My daily life shouldn’t revolve around his arrivals and departures. It doesn’t, really. I have other things going on, work I’m making for myself [my potted vegetable and herb garden (much of which has wilted and whitened, baby leaves laying in the dark, organic dirt, dead), my bread baking, my recipe writing, my writing writing, my reading,] but I know his schedule and I’m happy to have him home and so I can’t help but anticipate it; plan around it. His free time, however, must also include alone time. He has his own things, aside from work, things that don't involve me or baby, and that’s good. I'm happy he has hobbies.

Can I have you tonight? I ask. Can we not do our separate things?

Of course.

***

Sunday, we push the stroller up and down our small city’s sunnied sidewalks. Baby kicks her feet, watching the skin of strangers sway and smile, their colorful clothing flap and blur. We buy coconut, pineapple smoothies and while we wait in the warm, steamy bakery, I keep baby happy with melodic talk and tickles and by feeding her bits of a browning banana. Outside, we sip and chew our sweet drinks, walking awhile longer before stepping into a café where I change baby's diaper in the bathroom, while my husband orders a salad and an ice coffee for us to share. A corner table by the window is empty and so we sit, passing baby and leafy bites and creamy coffee sips between us. We have no plans, but we're out and out, it so happens, is enough. It's good.