An Ode.

I am swallowing small stones. Little jagged things with dagger points that trace a line of white heat down my throat as I breath. I am rolling little marbles of sadness in the palms of my hands while listlessly listening to the rain batter the roof of this house. Thunder cracking and lightning vaulting across the bruise colored sky in some wild race with itself. Tonight, I am missing my husband. So I write. I put fingers to keys in an effort to stem the melancholy washing over me and to keep my mind moving. Moving away from the small swallowing stones and flighty restless fingers playing with my hair too much; to keep my eyes from really absorbing his empty shape missing from this house we share.

He is traveling for work and it is a necessary yet excruciating trip, having him so far away and for so long. I have not yet begun to count the days for it seems too facile a trick on my weary and tender heart. The cliche of heartache is a funny one. A tired one. A worn and overused one. We are usually so eager to ascribe these silly and seemingly childish flights of love fancy to those of us who don't know any better, to those of us wearing the dreaded rose colored glasses. Jaded. We have all become painfully jaded but my heart doesn't care about this. My heart knows better. My heart has seen the real deal and won't go back to that imitation stuff. My heart is smarter than I give it credit for most of the time. I find the rosy glasses fit just fine these days. I am old enough to even afford a really fantastic pair.

I miss my husband. And in this missing of him, I am remembering so much about why he is worth being missed. And it's not because he's gorgeous (because he is) or not because he's sweet and wonderful and all that other crap couples usually say about one another when they want to say nice things. It's for other reasons. For the hundreds of little tiny reasons everyday, that make me love him all over again.

I am difficult. I am temperamental and prone to moodiness. Rufus likes to say that I am a strong woman. He says this with no hint of irony or smarmyness. He is proud of this and exhausted by it in the same turn. And he would also probably tell you that I am more stubborn than is possible to imagine. On both counts, he is right. I am strong in all the ways that word denotes. I can and have lived alone, happily. I have traveled and explored and followed my curiosity into some dicy situations. I have camped and hiked with nothing but a backpack and my own will and whimsy to carry me through for days on end. So yes I guess that makes me strong. But I am also soft as well. And I bruise easily though I am loath to admit that. That's where the stubborn comes out to play and my stubborn is often a menace. A mean and surly pouty lipped girl with a bad attitude- the one your mama warned you about. My set mouth and immovable stone face when I am not willing or, too proudly able, to budge on something. He loves this about me, regardless of how much of a pain in the ass it makes me. I call him the saint. The patient and penitent one. He laughs at this, ribbons of song unfurling from his beautiful mouth.

He is my counterpoint. My equal weight of commonsense and good judgement when I am losing my pretty little head. Both introverted and quietly reflective he is a man of few thoughtless words and unlike his wife, chooses to think before he speaks. There is praise here. For that, is a gift and one that I honor so much in him. I suppose all of this reflection just distills itself into this, I am grateful. Grateful that my partner in this marriage and in the general mischief making of life, the father of my son and my confidant and closest friend, is someone worth all this missing and longing I'm throwing around so recklessly.

So yes, I miss my husband tonight. I will roll into my side of the bed and bury my face in his pillow. I will inhale deeply, his smell of fresh cut wood and clean sweat. And I will fall into sleep and my warm bath of dreams holding on to the shape he makes, the one closest to my heart.