Little Spice

Cai and i have been trying to have a date every month...
This month, we met at a little Indian restaurant that she picked. The server had brilliant blue eyes that sparkled against his dark skin and Chris Tomlin thrummed from their speakers. It smelled amazing. She was running a little late, so i waited, watching the window & felt my cheeks pull and rise into a deep smile as i finally saw her blonde head bobbing in the window - blue eyes searching for me...
There's something about watching your child look for you. At church last Sunday, i went to pick up Ephraim and Gage from their class and i was surrounded by parents taller than myself, but between their shoulders, i could see his platinum curls and his sky blue eyes searching faces... searching, searching... until his eyes locked with mine. His face was wreathed in grins and his tiny skinny legs started hopping as he called out and waved to me. He knew i was his, and that he is mine. And it struck me as i reached out my arms to him, how there were all these little pairings of parent and child at that doorway - each one magnetized to the other, in perfect matching sets.
She let in a tiny burst of spring air as she opened the door.
She's like food; like air, sun, light, warmth, softness and refreshment... all wrapped into a tiny passionate package.
Back home, folding laundry, Gage asked me, "So, how was your lunch with Cairo?"
"It was good, Gagey. So good. Sometimes i really miss her. I miss her living here with us..."
Time is measured so differently when you're a child. He lived with her for his first eight years, but these last 6 months she has been gone have felt like a whole other lifetime to him.
"I miss Colin."
"Yeah, i miss Colin too."
One can never have enough big brothers, and Colin with his gentle baritone and open arms has been with us so long, that Gage doesn't even remember a time when he wasn't...
But they are each other's more than they are ours now... Their own little entity - their own little circle of gravity envelopes them and keeps them orbiting each other... What kind of crazy alchemy is it that makes takes two and makes one? That separates from origin in order to create something new, something precious, something awe-inspiring in it's fragile beginnings? Marriage just takes my breath away.
The kids often ask me, "Are we nine in our family or are we eleven?"
And i never know how to answer.