swooned. smitten.

The chair. Big, old, comfy, worn- found it at the auction for $10.00 over a year ago. I acquired it so there would be two chairs in the studio instead of one- my leather chair that was forever being hijacked by boys. Or they would happily drag one of the living room chairs in, disrupting the whole house hold. When Mel is here it is her chair, when no one is here it is Max's...but lately someone has been here.

Iron, bread. Old chairs and long weekends doing nothing but talking- and talking and talking and thinking and questions and talking some more. and singing, we mustn't forget the singing. more talking. hamburgers and dishes done and talking on the phone with Mother. More talking.

What happens when someone who is independent and stubborn like me (ya think?) suddenly doesn't want to be quite so independent any more? What happens when for the last two years I bought into someone else's dream and was being gradually pried away from my life- freedom because I wasn't there often and he was never here, but it was a slowly closing trap that I sprung away from? What happens when suddenly there is someone else who is long and tall and unapoligetically himself sitting in my old chair singing at the end of a long day? Someone who works hard for who he chooses, comes home dirty and happy and tells me that yes, he is smitten. Totally. Who pays close attention to what I like, what I need and does it- gifts of iron and bread, shed cleaned out, things fixed that I didn't even notice were in need of fixing. Someone where everywhere we go everyone knows him, likes him and is pleased to meet me- tells me that he is a good man and that I am lucky- the little old ladies in Hardees, the farmers at the store, the nice black lady that owns the dress shop and who hugged me in Piggly Wiggly, told me he was 'like my own son' and god-blessed me up and down. The tinker-men at the stockyard. The folks at the auction. Smitten.

And I am swooned. Because this is comfortable, because he likes my friends, my doggs, my house, my ways. Because he tells me it is ok that I work hard. Because I cried 3 times yesterday (and I never cry- unless it is a dead-animal movie) but I did. (once because of the ending of Big Fish, once because I was happy, once because I was talking about Christmas and how hard it always was to take Grendel to his dad's house). talking, talking, talking. secrets and tears and what-went-right and what-went-wrong conversations. We are not perfect. We have been around the bend and back, we are not kids. We are opposites in many ways- meat and tofu, country and whatever-I-am, routine and variable. I drink more, swear more but he smokes cigarettes. We both love coffee and desserts, he loves bears and I love old stuff. He lets me drive when I want to. He likes Cici's pizza, shopping with me at Walmart (I take forever) and sings to the doggs as well as me. They adore him, listen to him, steal his socks. What am I doing here? Does first sight count if he waited two years to ask me out? Yes, because he is a gentleman. Because he made sure I was free, and recovered. Because it was finally the right time. Smitten. Swooned.

This is a long post, after a long dry spell, but this is important. Unexpected and important and a whole like jumping into a swimming pool- you think the water is going to be cold but it turns out to be just fine.