Silver

This past year has been rough on many romantic relationships.

Perhaps it was the copious and unprecedented amounts of time together huddled at home. Few opportunities to be social with others. Plenty of access to alcohol but zero access to the gym. Maybe it was sudden financial upheaval or unrelenting political banter; so much so that even those who tended to agree, began disagreeing. For some, it might have been the idea of our country crumbling underneath us while death skulked around every corner. 

A few of of our committed friends have faced one other in the tumult and said, "I'm done." 

We've been emotionally gutted like fish, enduring sickness, a loss of faith, foundations shaken to the core, as we pored over 24 hour news documenting lonely hospital bedsides and health care workers with expressions from mournful wails to defeated silences. It was hard leaving the house and walking by the empty and naked tennis courts, netless and chained on our way to several, (probably germ-filled), stores to find a squashed package of overpriced not-our-brand of toilet paper being stocked by a dog-tired but devoted employee who'd probably rather be home. It was enough to make us take an exhausted, sorry look at life and ask, "Is this where I want to die?" or "Is this who I want to live with when things get back to normal?"

Thankfully, for me and my husband, our answer is yes.

I want to squeeze his hand. I want to pet all the dogs as we walk and guess the prices of houses for sale. I want to peer into the discarded junk box on the side of the road while he gently pulls my arm to leave it. I want to make grocery lists with his steak and my tofu. I want to debate world events. I want to make sure we have the coffee he likes and linger for a moment over the perfect headprint on his pillowcase before changing the sheets.

He wants to wash my car. I want to wash his clothes. 

When he is done saving the world, he comes to me for healing. When I am tired of healing the world, I turn to him for saving. 

Like two sides of the same coin, we are forged in heat. We are silver.  

He is heads. Plowing through anything in life that presents a challenge, noble and wise, steadfast and strong. Sharp roman profile, he is our engine. 

I am tails. Observational, I hold situations and people and things for too long, my unremitting emotions smoothing them like stones in a raging river. Soft bottom, I am our caboose. 

If we are the Chinese lion, he's up front, dipping and diving in a swirl of fast moving color, while I am rushing to keep up but also simultaneously anchoring us; one simpatico movement of thrum and choreography.

He can accomplish twenty things to my single task but when his twenty are complete, he returns to me with his shoulders aching and his countenance nearly bested by the burdens of this life. It is then that I become the bird who turns to ash, loved ones kept safe under her wings in the fire.

When the one task I have been working on has spun me up, down and sideways like a seed on the wind, he plucks me out of the air and buries me deep in the soil of his stability so that I can live to grow another flower. 

The lockdown made him determined and manic. It made me pensive and worried. He ran. I stood like my feet were stuck in a bucket of cement. I helped him slow down. He helped me speed up. In our twenty fifth year together, we are emerging from the friction of our last trip around the sun, a silver anniversary celebration on the horizon. Corrosive-resistant, we dwell in the pocket of this life, tumbling around in the dark, spent and recirculated. 

Precious and priceless. 

Silver.

#mushroomtumbler

You're a Wet One, Mr. Grinch

We had a drenching rain this afternoon. A spectacular, thunderous, good for the earth deluge.

All of the soaking, however, overwhelms some of the sewer drains in the old streets of our town, especially at the larger four way stops, which tend to "pond" and become temporarily impassable. 

Strolling with the min pin by one of those underwater intersections this evening, Hubs and I enter the splash-happy realm of a gaggle of puddle loving kids, ranging between 5 and 10 years old. Three of them are doused in wetness, wearing rainboots in fancy colors - kumquat orange, tulip pink, and a sassy patterned pair with bright citrusy-hued circles. Child number 4 is mucky, soiled and barefoot and his feet, as he sprints and somersaults, grow dirtier by the second. 

It does my heart good to see these kids racing about and pretending to swim in the calf-deep water. They throw their hands in the air, playing what we immediately recognize as the rock/paper/scissor game. Apparently the loser amongst the foursome has to dart back across the street to check in with a small and patiently watching crowd of parents. These kids, full of life and joy, are 100 percent pure, unadulterated glee, with messy hands and scuzzy feet. They will surely eschew the foot pull. 

Have you seen the foot pull?

I stopped at Target to pick up a to-go order of pet food and coffee. It's safer for me to place Target orders at home and then claim them at the counter immediately inside the door. You might think the safety to which I am referring has to do with Covid, but no. In actuality, I am talking about the safety of my credit card. A quick two item pick up at Target without this courtesy can easily turn into an expensive cart full of nonessentials like individually wrapped organic almond butter pouches, ceramic cookware, sunscreen made from pulverized cornhusks, and seven dollar bottles of Mojito mix. 

Ridiculous, I know. 

Speaking of ridiculous, I noticed from the corner of my eye that someone was entering the rest room while I stood in the pickup line on my red, carefully placed 6 feet apart circle and that person was using her foot to unceremoniously yank the door open. 

Her foot. 

To yank. 

After being handed my single brown sack and avoiding the delicious bags of Sour Patch Kids placed so cleverly next to the register for our sugar-addicted convenience, I strolled over to the bathroom to see what people were doing over and over with their feet at this suddenly very busy ingress. What I observed as I got closer is that we no longer use our hands at Target to enter the rest room. Instead, we place a foot in something labeled a "foot pull" so that we avoid all tactile contact with said door. Covid safety signs placed just so remind us that this is for our own good. Our feet are part of our protection. 

I walk away hating how Covid has robbed us of our sense of touch. I hate that I am supposed to wipe every handle of every cart and avoid using cash because of its tendency toward germy grossness. I hate that I am now expected to use my foot to open a door. Heading to my car, I work to flip my thoughts and concede that maybe a foot pull might be of benefit to someone without arms. It's the only way I can spin the weirdness into something of good measure, necessary and useful in its newness. 

But here I am in the city hearing these kids singing their high pitched songs while slapping the corner light pole to bring out its hollow metallic clang; clomping and sloshing through Lake Macadam, hair plastered to their faces with the backs of their necks soiled and resembling the color of dingy fish scales in their slimy abandon, and my spirit soars.  

Screw the foot pull. 

Coming toward us, we see one of my favorite neighborhood moms tethering a damp, chubby cocker spaniel which is desperately pulling to gain close proximity to the min pin. Trailing behind is her youngest son, a pint-sized towhead wearing, despite it being June, a long sleeved red and green thermal shirt showcasing the original Grinch holding a Christmas star.

"He was ready for bed," she said. "But we got a call that his friends were playing in a huge puddle so of course we came right down."

Our Seuss fan's name is Augie. He quietly stoops down to pet the min pin's head even though his pals are less than 50 feet away doing the backstroke in the middle of the street. Sporting nylon shorts and stoplight yellow rubber clogs with little jibbitz placed randomly in the holes, I giggle and confess that I would dress exactly like him if I were five years old and making my way to the largest neighborhood puddle around. He smiles. Mom smiles. The cocker spaniel coughs and wheezes from having been held still while Augie spent a minute of sweetness with the min pin. We exchange goodbyes and part ways. 

Meandering through the streets, Hubs and I cannot avoid the water. My socks and sneakers absorb the gritty runoff. It's muggy and I squish but I do not complain. Several streets later and circling back, we spy Augie, his Mom and Chester the cocker spaniel once again. Augie's Grinchy pajama top is a soggy green ball wound tightly around Mom's hand and his bare little chest is puffed out like he's the Grand Marshal of a town-wide parade while he swings his arms, plunking his crocs down heavily upon the sidewalk and stopping beneath low hanging branches to shake them free of all their drops of water, providing a surprise makeshift shower for his family. His precious laugh shatters the quiet in the most beautiful way. It is a burst of cherubic amusement set against the placidity of dusk. Hubs grins and we squeeze hands.  

We know how lucky we are to have been part of this evening of dirty water and the troupe of kids who rightfully relished it. We love walking around and seeing such enjoyment in the simplest of things. Buoyed by something that feels like a combination of hope that we might collectively be getting back to normal, and a silly desire to find more places to bespatter our calves with the kicked-up mud of the place we love, we promenade down the back alley on our way home. 

Bring on the Target bathroom door so I can grab the damn handle. I am not afraid.  

#mushroomtumbler

Email Subscribers - Please Read

There are some of you who get an automatic delivery to your email accounts of my blog, Mushroom Tumbler. I appreciate your dedication and am truly honored and humbled.

Blogger, by Google, has alerted me that as of July 2021, they will no longer be offering this email service; therefore, I am here to tell you that the easiest way to find my blog is to add it to your browser "favorites" and you can pull it up whenever you like to check for new entries.

www.mushroomtumbler.blogspot.com.

The next easiest way (and one which will alert you to each new entry) is to "like" my Mushroom Tumbler Facebook page. 

Finally, if we are Facebook friends, I post my blogs there, too. You have to "like" those, also, or they will not populate to your feed, so please read, like, and comment in order to keep seeing them.

Thanks for being there! I can't do this alone.