Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Monday Morning

It's still dark outside as i creep past the slumbering children sharing their queen sized bed. Molls sleeps on the inside so that she can't escape to daddy's bed in the middle of the night - Cai has never looked more like a teenager than she does at this moment with her blankets covering her face & her body looking all long & lanky sprawled out across the outside edge of her bed.
Our house smells like the hazelnut coffee that Neil has already brewed. He's sitting by the fireplace checking emails on his blackberry.
i take my seat opposite him & put my feet up beside his.
i'm wearing blue denim maternity overalls borrowed from a friend, my 1972 roller rink t-shirt & flipflops. He's wearing a pristine dress shirt & pants that i had to hem 3 times before they were good enough.
i hate that i can see his suitcase sitting in the hallway from where we're sitting. Away, again this week - i know he's trying to get in all his travelling before the baby comes... but i miss him.
There's no need to exchange many words as the sky begins to change hue from black, to dusky grey. We get up simultaneously to get our coffee - his black, mine with cream & sugar - & as we return to our chairs that face each other & share an ottoman, little messy haired children begin to make their appearances one by one.
The minutes are slipping by too quickly - i know he'll soon be gone.

Is this what growing old together means?

These yielding moments in front of the fireplace?
The peace that comes just being in each other's company?
The familiar quiet - the longing in absence - the smell of 'home'?
i hope so...
Already, it's hard to remember a time when i wasn't crazy in love with the man sitting across from me. As these good years stack up on themselves - & our children grow - & our feet continue to share the ottoman between us, may there always be another monday morning with hazelnut coffee in the early glow of sunrise...

3 comments:

Jen said...

I should have come visit this week! :( Oh well...
Hope this week goes by fast and N comes home quick!

Lori-Dawn said...

Hmmmm, I love the picture you paint with your words...comfort, that is one thing my marriage has given me is comfort...not in money ways, but emotionally and physically. I can relate to your monday morning...when does your man get back?? Mine comes back on Thursday after he's done work...so sometime in the evening...
I hope it goes quickly for you!

Anonymous said...

Is this what growing old together means?

These yielding moments in front of the fireplace?
The peace that comes just being in each other's company?
The familiar quiet...

Yes, I think it is definitely part of it. The unspoken. The not having to say "I love you" because you "Know" and can almost feel it in the air. The connection. The reaching out for the other even in your sleep. Just feeling a hand on you...

Or when he comes back at 1:00 a.m. and wants to chat for two hours! Annoying when you want to sleep but it is another sort of the same connection -- getting caught up on the happenings of the day or the household.

I haven't always had that kind of "connection" so it is wonderful to find it... too bad that we are in our middle years and have less time to "grow old" together -- with the gray hair, we're halfway there!!!

Glad you and Neil have that "spark" and can keep it burning....

Saskatchewan Cousin

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