in different lights

1)

Finally the weather has turned cold and we are promised snow . . . maybe.  But no one has been complaining at this stretch of unusual sunshine instead.

I never valued sunshine much, growing up in its relentless brightness, insistent clarity, bossy cheer.   No scope for the imagination.  Gray days - when they came, which was rarely - full of heavy clouds and a kind of plummy moistness in every breath, tingling with repressed lightning - promised, by withholding and obscuring behind fog and bluster, so many mysterious - read: superior - possibilities.

It's only now, at the rainy northwestern edge of my life, that I can welcome sunny days.  I still love gray days, charged as they are with portent and urgency.  But I have room in me now to feel glad for the dumb goodness of sunshine when it comes.

2) 

- Did you hear what Z was saying? Middlest asks me, Z being a friend of hers who's been over lately, regularly, as he makes his way through his own changes.

- No, sorry.  I was busy. What was he saying?

- He was telling me how sweet you and Dad were together.

- We are very sweet of course.

- He said you were watching that thing about families and both got teary-eyed and then you leaned over and kissed Dad on the top of his head.

- I suppose we did do that.

- He says he's always wanted that.  The way you are together.  He loves watching you.  He's always been afraid he'll never have that.

- You'll have to reassure him that if we can have it, probably almost anybody can. 

3)  

If we made a talking action-figure of Fritz, it would

1. be permanently crouched in bike-position
2. come with non-removable helmet
3. say, "The hills are your friends!  The hills are your friends!"

So many times has Fritz said this, that we've all found ourselves building our lives around the saying.  Calculus, said Eldest when it threatened to do her in, - it's difficult, but it's being hard? That isn't a reason to quit. 

It's just a hill. 

And I know how to climb hills.

 

4)

I made Fritz laugh during prayers the other day.  This is my gift, making him laugh when he's decided to be serious.  We were praying together, just the two of us.  When I gave thanks for our "supple marriage," he let out a startled snort-cough and afterwards, gleamed at me over the top of his glasses, grinning still a little reluctantly, Supple?

- Yes.  Don't you think so?  Isn't it amazing when you think of all we put it through and still it's strong. Supple, not brittle.  Aren't we lucky?

Later: talking with our biking friends, a couple married a dozen or so years longer, also juggling mostly grown children and diminished parents.  When I tell how Fritz laughed at supple, the husband lets out a shout of laughter, Sounds like a tough old piece of leather gnawed down into subjection!  While she laughs, risingly. They turn to each other and begin to nod. 

He says, Isn't that the truth?

She says, I'm sure it's been me.

He says, My fair share. 

They laugh, looking into each other's faces, touching each other's shoulder, ear, tip of the hair, sleeve.  Very tenderly.  Laughing.

5)

(more tulips here)