daybreak

Its the buttcrack of dawn and here I am, plucking away at the keys. Getting my bearings. The house is coming together, slowly, and I consider materialism. I considered it when I was packing, but it meant something else then. My stuff becomes our stuff. It is a slow process, like roasting or stewing. As the days pass (4 now) and this place becomes a combination of he and I, we adjust to the process of release and acquisition that is the essence of blending lives. I get a basement, he gets new towels. I give up twenty-seven bed pillows, he considers the possibility that there actually may be a limit to how many weedeaters one guy needs. The lawn is small. It doesn't feel like winning or losing anymore. It is not a contest of wills. It is no longer about what do we want, but what do we use? What has real value? Constructing one life out of two, one home out of two, and all of the memories that go along with it. I have mine: my son's first grade projects, the mother's day cards he made for me that I was too loaded to remember, or maybe it's just that time has passed and I've forgotten. I need to get a picture of him up so he is part of this. I bought him an easter card yesterday, and will mail it today along with some jelly bellies. I will be his mother from a distance, I don't care if he's forty.