Tender Walls

Everyone keeps saying that they're the last one to post about Rhinebeck, and isn't it time we all just shut up already about who we saw, what we got, etc....

I've been putting off my post about Rhinebeck because while I've got a lot of "who I saw" and a few of "what I got" (dude, you can't have thought I exercised total self-restraint at Rhinebeck. I'm not that stupid), all that can wait. My deal with Rhinebeck is mostly about what I learned.

Normally I take the mickey out of every damn thing that happens to me because if I didn't I'd either cry too hard or get too serious, and we can't have that. But I'm about to actually say something totally serious and even image-less here. Mark your calendars, it doesn't happen very often.

When our wedding anniversary happened in September (our third), I said nothing, mainly because my husband is a private person and he feels that the wedding day is no more special than the day we met, or the day we...uh...anyway...

I let it pass, even though I'm a total Anniversary Person. I'm very emotional, you see...especially about him. The moment I first looked into my husband's eyes, which was before we even met, was a moment that is burned into my memory and is my favourite moment of all time. I could go on forever on that one, and I drive him crazy with the storytelling to total strangers. It embarrasses him. It's kind of a problem.

But there's one feeling, one recent event concerning my husband that I can't let pass. I just spent a whole weekend immersing myself into a crowd of people I know but don't know, opened myself up to total strangers in the name of wool, happily discovered that many of them are the type of close friends I've craved but haven't had in a very long time, and had in general a weekend that was all about my interests, my goals, my direction in life. And along the way, I fell completely, utterly, unequivocally in love with my husband.

My husband is not a knitter. He's not a spinner. (He had a brief dalliance with crochet to prove to himself that he could do it, but it was only once and although we've caught it on film, it has not happened again since.) Sheep are not his thing. He needs a major cheat sheet to figure out who the hell I'm talking about when I say "That's (K)(C)ate." But he spent every moment of the weekend finding things that entertained him anyway, talking with people, making an effort to integrate into a world that's not his, in a language that's not his, taking care of a small person who was totally overwhelmed by the whole situation and a bigger (sort of) person who was also pretty overwhelmed, and he did it beautifully.

This year has totally sucked for both of us, in many ways, mostly medical, frightening at best and downright horrible at worst, as recent as the day we got back from Rhinebeck to find that a close member of our family was in hospital. In most of these situations, I've asked him to set himself aside and be the caretaker for me, and when I was supposed to be his caretaker, his support, his person to turn to, because of my own crapola, I frequently fell down on the job. I still do. I've never loved a person more than I love my husband, but I'm very clumsy lately, and this seems to apply not only to the physical, but the emotional. It extended to me being a complete pain in the ass on, of all days, his birthday, and all I could do was sit quietly and hope the hell my brain freeze passed and I could regain a sense of what was important.

My husband sometimes drives me batty. Insane. (Okay, I don't need too much help to get there, but you know what I mean.) He's stubborn as hell, the online games sometimes completely take over his life, and I can't remember the last time he cleaned a bathroom or did laundry. He mishears me, I mishear him too, and we have misunderstandings and near-miss communication snafus that make both of us wonder briefly who in hell we got involved with before we hash it all out and discover again one simple truth. Or at least this is the simple truth I learned at Rhinebeck and I hope I never forget how to tell him...

In the immortal words of Peter Gabriel:

Accepting all I've done and said,
I want to stand and stare again
Till there's nothing left but
what remains there in your eyes
Whatever comes and goes,
I will hear your silent call
and I will touch this tender wall
until I know I'm home again
Home...it's in your eyes.

Spiff, every chance that I get to look into your eyes is a gift. I would be utterly blind without you, and that's no spinner's tale. Dude, I ain't that good.

October 28, 2006 12:44 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (56)  | Print