Category — The Superstar Husband

The fifth day slipped through my fingers.  And again I fell asleep when the kids did, which was very romantic on my husband’s first evening home. I think I felt safe and my body just collapsed. I’m still fighting some sickness. But I’ll keep trying to post every day this month.

Renee was an angel and watched the kids while I went to the airport with Cypriano, my house owner and the taxi driver.  I grow exhausted driving so far here, so I took the easy way out, and spend an hour catching up on reading.  I was reading a novel about the U.S., and blinked whenever I happened to look up, very surprised to find myself in India.

I find the local airport a very odd place to hang out. I’ve spent some time there, over the last year and a half, waiting to greet beloved people, noting all the strange shapes of people whom I haven’t seen before.  I stand outside, trying to get a piece of shade, hot in the sudden humidity that has returned. People spill out of the doors, everyone grumpy in the inconvenience of flight, noses wrinkled as they withstand the calls of taxi drivers and hotel touts.  This is a mild airport, nothing like Delhi, or Mumbai.  Even the taxi drivers are fairly lackadaisical, falling back when you tell them you’re not interested, rather than pursuing with increasing volume.

I’ve been living in one village or another for the last year and a half, used to people who mostly dress alike.  Here it is Indian housedresses or little Catholic dresses. In the Himalayas, it was Salwar Kameez with a dupatta tied around the head. The men here wear towels most of the time, towels or shorts. The men in the Himalayas wore Gaddi hats and vests over white shirts, herding their goats and cows.  So it is strange to see all these modern Indian people.  They seem very pale, and they wear many different things, not just one traditional costume.  Many women wear glittering saris and have perfect pedicures, while some have cropped hair and are wearing jeans and t-shirts. One woman is wearing a toque with a button up shirt and a swishy skirt.  She seems odd here. Just as I seem, to the people around me.  She and her husband, who is wearing many gold chains around his neck with a pink shirt that is slightly open at the collar, welcome two irritated-looking men who seem to be hardly able to walk.  The two that are oddly dressed walk quickly after taking the suitcases, leaving the two other men toddling in their wake.

I watch, and watch, and wait.

And then there he is, and he is beaming. “I hardly wanted to expect that you would be here,” he says, “just in case you weren’t.”

On the way home we eat baklava that he brought from Israel, and we look at each other.  I tell him my strange experience of reading the book in the car and feeling like I left the country, and he nods and exclaims, “I know!  Isn’t that strange?”

It is good to have him back. He is my perfect grown-up.

Today I have been married to this man for eight years.

I’m not exaggerating.  I love him more today than in all the days before.  He is my adventure mate, my musical genius husband, the one who bought me two pendants for our anniversary, the one who arranged for me to have an Irish whistle shipped to me from England (and from America, and possibly Australia? We will have a lot of flutes), the one who supports me and all my crazy writing moods and who says his favorite place to eat is at my table. I am so humbled by the gift a good husband has been in my life.

And for anniversary posts; I’ve always liked this one best.

There is so much love all around this place that sometimes we don’t even notice it.  From someone’s hand on my back to a little boy sitting next to me, telling me, “I’m sitting next to you, Mama!” just because he loves me.

I need to be paying more attention.

Just look at the love between Leafy and his Superstar Daddy.

(This is my post for Love Thursday.)

This evening, after a day of hard rain and fog, there was so much sky that it seemed impossible.  Kid A and I glimpsed pink over the hilltop through the tiny kitchen window, and then we ran outside to see the rest.  I had Solo in my arms. Chinua was away, and the kids and I had just finished dinner.  Aloo Gobhi; potatoes and cauliflower– their favorite. I’d thrown in carrots for the orange.

We didn’t look down into the valley, because all the radiance was up and over the mountains.  Great swathes of pink cloud contrasted with sky of a blue that was the first blue ever seen; a newborn blue. YaYa danced on tiptoe in leftover puddles and said, “This is soooo beautiful!  Even as beautiful as a rainbow!”

To the left was an intense monochrome, layers of clouds tipped silver and grey and feather white. Steel clouds and platinum.  I looked for a minute, but loving color, turned back up to watch the pinks and blues shift and change for as long as they were there.

After a while, I looked around me, and there, down on the path, was my husband, holding a closed umbrella that was almost the same blue as that sky.  He was smiling, just watching me watch the clouds and their journey.  I had no idea how long he’d been there.

He smiled into my eyes from that far away and at that moment a whole flock of birds broke into flight inside me.  They almost carried me off into the sunset I’d been watching, but… ah well. Everything was shifting to dark blues and greys, and so we carried the color along inside with us. It was time for pyjamas and goodnight stories and the well lit circle of home.

First of all, this man is incredible.

I mean, check out the photo.  It’s obvious that he’s one of a kind, one of a beautiful kind.

And then I would like to say that when I moved back to San Francisco when Kid A was a toddler, every homeless person who I stopped to talk to would mention that they sure do grow up fast.  “Treasure them,” they all said.  And I nodded blithely in my 23-year-old way.

But today I was looking for the perfect picture to illustrate just how much Solo looks like Leafy and I found THIS. (A picture of neither Solo nor Leafy.)

OH MY WORD.  It’s Kid A’s fourth birthday, and he’s looking pretty much as he’s looked since he was born, but YAYA!   I want to cuddle that girl in that photo, just one more time, but now she’s a lanky five-year-old, and if this trend continues, at this time next year, she’ll be an even lankier six-year-old.

She sounds less like a duck than she used to, too.

Oh, and I found my first white hair. I pulled it out and woke Chinua up to show him.  And then I carefully carried it downstairs to show it to my sister. I would have walked down the hill with it to show Cate, but that might have been overdoing it.  It was wiry.

We are all getting older.

Here’s the Question.  Questions.  Interrogation.

Are you ready?

1. Why do you come here?

2. Is there something you’d like to read more of?  What are you interested in?

3. Is there anything that I write about that you feel “hits the spot” like the perfect latte?

4. Who am I?

5. What is my purpose in life?

Okay, all but the last two are real questions.  I’m intensely curious about the wherefores and whys of how this blog will continue. (I am not going anywhere, but trying to shape my writing into something of order.)  I would love to get the feedback of my friends, the people who read these words that come flowing from the fingers that first learned how to touch type in the seventh grade.

The good news is that I’ve found my camera battery charger, which means that I’ll be taking photos and uploading them again. It’s only taken me a month of looking for it to find it, which really means a month of telling myself to look for it, and then finally finding it right where it should be; buried in my computer bag.

I’ve been rather busy. But you already know that.

(I hope that underneath all my exhaustion you can read the pure and joyous love that I have for my family. You can? Good.)

Chinua is in Amsterdam for a week, and judging from his emails, he likes Goa better. He used the word “grey” a lot in his description of landing in the cold city.

Whenever Chinua is away, I shove down that lost child that wants to wail inside of me, and become my strongest self. I need to. Of course, it’s all just preparation for the meltdown that occurs as soon as his travel-weary feet cross the threshold again. That lost child is now very well aware that it was left alone for a long time and she is mad. Kind of like when your kids are playing nicely with some other adults, but as soon as you reappear, they all start crying and running toward you and clutching at your clothes in misery, and the other adults are all “Wha? They were doing so well!”

The other adults don’t understand the power of suggestion. The mere sight of their mother suggests to children that they probably need something, what could it be?

And for me, after trips when my Superstar Husband is gone, the mere sight of him suggests to me that I’M SO TIRED I WORK SO HARD NO ONE KNOWS NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.

Unfortunately.

But, I know well enough by now to know that this meltdown is inevitable. All I can hope is that my Superstar Husband will be patient enough to shake his head sympathetically and click his tongue in disbelief (while I’m regurgitating small grievances at him) and it will be quickly over and then we can hug and kiss and dance around like fools. Because? I actually just really oh really miss him.

She said, I want you to get some clothes on before you go outside, Leafy.

She called and she asked, Did I leave my mobile phone there yesterday? I can’t seem to find it.

She said, That’s alright. I’m sure it will turn up.

She ran into the house and she said, Guess what, Chin! It was stuck behind the seat of the car.

She said, I need some pomegranates, some oranges, some bananas and some spinach.

She said, I know you can finish your work, Kid A. I’ve seen you do it before. Just focus and keep trying.

She said, Leave it on my desktop for me, Cate, and I’ll try to proofread it for you.

She said, No climbing on the windows, Leafy.

She said to herself, On 56 different occasions yesterday, I was so homesick that I could have cried. Today is better. Today home is here. It’s the business of moving, this back and forth dance.

She said, Sure, you can take this sheet into your fort. Just try not to drag it through the dirt.

She said, Don’t go over to the neighbors’ house again without telling me. Otherwise you’ll have to stay in the house tomorrow.

She said, Goodbye my love. Have fun in Amsterdam. I’ll miss you. I love you. If you see anything nice, get me one!

She said, Only a few days now until UNCLE MATTY gets here, kids!

She said to Renee, Sure, you can borrow the scooter. Oh- actually- where are the keys?

She said, Chinua took the keys but he’s going to send them back with the taxi driver.

She said, Should we turn on some music, Leafy? Do you want to dance?

She said, Sure she can walk to the veggie stall with you, Renee.

She said, The cat liked you, YaYa? Really? Did he follow you home?

She said, Will you get me a dozen eggs and two packets of milk, Kid A? Here’s 100 Rupees. You should get 29 back.

She said, He laughed for the first time, today.

She said, Oh beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful baby.

She said, PLEASE GO TO SLEEP.

She said, Can I call you back?

She said, Dinner’s going to be a little late, kids. I have to help Solo get to sleep.

She said, What day is her birthday again? Is there anywhere here that we can buy a cake?

She said, Yes, you’re singing. Oh yes you are. Oh yes you ARE. Oh you are a GOOD singer, singie wingie singer yesyouare.

She said, There’s lots of soup if you want any.

She said, This question might be a little pointed, but do you feel like walking to the store to get yourself a lime soda? Because if you do, I wouldn’t mind having one too.

She said, No, I’m not mad at you. But I want you to know that you cannot take anything of ours and decide to throw it away, okay? That’s a rule. No throwing stuff out.

She said to her Russian neighbors, Can I borrow your bottle opener? My son threw mine off into a trash pile.

She said, That man bathing at the well is completely stark naked, Renee.

She said (about twenty times) Get back in your bed, Leafy.

At night, just before she went to sleep, she said, Oh thank You thank You thank You. Thank You for all of them and for peace and for grace like the sea.

It was my Superstar Husband’s birthday yesterday.

We didn’t plan a whole lot.  I was rather at a loss.  My hands feel rather full, lately.

But I made him an omelette for breakfast, with some yogurt and chai on the side.  He liked it.

He’s 35 and I can’t imagine ever not having him beside me.

We decided to be spontaneous.  Let’s just drive!  So we got into our little little van and drove to a beach north of here.

Right away I spotted the purple flowers.

My flower loving heart has been in a state of bliss lately.  All the flowers and their cousins have come out to see the post-monsoon sun.

We laid out our bedsheet and sat down quickly so it wouldn’t blow away.  The kids ran and played in the sand and the surf, and Chinua and I sang together.  He had his traveler guitar, one that a good friend gave to him right before we left.

The beach was not too crowded.  But a group of men came by at one point and stood, looking at us.  We sat and kept singing.  We talked a little and then they went on their way.

I used my body to shelter Solo from the wind.

The kids played tic tac toe in the sand.

When we were hungry we packed up and drove off to find some food.  We ate on a little plastic table set out on the beach in the village we will be moving to soon.  I was excited to see how many kids there were.  We talked about the year… it has been a momentous one for both of us.

Chinua juggled for a while on the beach, and the people at the table next to us broke into applause at a particularly good trick.  The kids ran panting and laughing in a circle around him while he juggled.

On our way, in the dark, back to our van, we found a shop where the birthday man picked out some clothes.  The shopkeeper joked with him and chased the kids through the racks of clothing.  The clothes were beautiful and very easy on our budget.

Chinua told me, as we kept walking in the dark, that this was one of his favorite birthdays ever.

I know that it was one of my favorite days ever.   What a happy birthday.

Sometimes a husband may need to take a quick trip to Bombay, a mere 12 hours drive away, for reasons which will no longer be mentioned here, because further mention would be simply draining, but in pig latin would be something like the ipping-shay oblem-pray.

Sometimes a husband and wife may argue over who gets to have the wireless internet device thingy that usually they share. The discussion may or may not turn to questions of who is more deserving of outside connection and entertainment in the interim that the husband will be in Bombay. Then the husband and wife will probably think a little about what roaming in Bombay alone for a few days will be like and the decision to send the internet device thingy with the husband will be unanimous.

And the wife will be in the house with the childrens for a couple of days, not posting, not knowing that perhaps people are fearing for her safety and the safety of her unborn babe because of giant blue creatures that roam the wide, wide seas, stinging innocent people.

But what concerned people should know is that while innocent people were being stung, other people were safe at home, no doubt eating cookies and rereading books. Or moaning about the state of their hips. Or fighting with Jaya about who gets to make tea.

And then, when the people, the innocent ones, the stung ones, got home, the unstung Mama person was able to offer comfort and assistance after all the tears had already been cried, when everyone was tired and talking peacefully about the strange story of the blue sea creature.

So there are some answers. Here’s a question. Should I tell you about the lice? You probably don’t really need to know about the dangers of sleeper buses and the lice, do you? I’m sure that at some point in your life you’ve done a little nit-picking yourself. You’ve gone over things with a fine-tooth comb. Or not, if you’re us and a fine-tooth comb wouldn’t get through your hair in a million trillion years. You probably don’t need to hear about the lice. So I won’t tell you.

Don’t think it’s all strange animals around here, though. Okay, a lot of it is strange animals around here. But there are also the incredible vistas. The green greenness which is astounding. The fruit! The simple pleasure of finding pretty things in the market. Scooter rides every day. Flowers in the night air. Preparing for a new wee one. Making friends. And food! Good food.

Tomorrow I’ll post my first Indian cookery post at Fly Fishes Fly. Happy days.

I didn’t sleep too well last night, worrying about a friend. This morning I found out he was safe, which was a huge relief. I’m sure you’ve felt something like this before. I can’t tell my brain to stop it at night, when it’s moving so swiftly, and even when I managed to drop off into sleep land, my brain was going. In Technicolor. So it could have been a rough day.
But then my friend Jessie called and asked me if she could drop by with lunch. Since I’m still somewhat deaf (or just a bad listener) from my “someone sitting on my head” illness, I didn’t hear the “with lunch” part, so I was pleasantly surprised when she brought treats. We had a sort of picnic inside. And the kids didn’t fight! It was awesome.

During the afternoon, I worked on visa applications, and somewhere along the way, our UPS guy showed up. Can I just say that I love our UPS guy? He is seriously one of the nicest people- he acts as happy about packages as we are. “Looks exciting, it’s Bed Bath and Beyond!” he’ll say. Or, today, he said, “Must be something good, I need a signature!” And he’s bubbling over while he says these things. Maybe it’s the cool uniform, or the rockin’ truck with no doors that makes him so happy.
But the package was a good one. There were two, really.

The first one contained a book. Chinua and I have been buying a few books for our personal library in India. Some things I know will be available, like Penguin Classics and bestsellers that travelers have traded in. But some books… no. So as soon as I heard that one of my favorite people in the world, (I have so many favorite people, it appears!) Timothy Keller, had written a book called The Reason For God, I knew I had to have it. I’ve said before that I feel like some of his sermons saved my life. Now, this book. Well, I can’t wait to read it. And it seems that lots of other people are reading it too, since it made it to #7 on the NYT Bestsellers List.

The second box contained my combined Christmas and Birthday present , a very necessary journalistic tool, that second camera we’ve been needing so badly, a camera.

I feel as though I need to justify every single thing I ever buy. It’s one of my many issues.

But really, we needed a second camera. And I wanted one that was smaller than our giant. Something I could lug around with or without kids. Right now I feel like I have to choose one or the other, and as much as I’d like to choose the camera, the kids kind of come with the whole “mom” package. And they’re photogenic. This camera also has video abilities. (I’m not sure how to say that properly. Video skillz?) The ability to capture some of our life in India will be priceless, I think.

We got the Canon Powershot G9.

It’s supposed to have the best video out of any of the point and shoot range, with great features and good quality photos. I’ve never owned a non-SLR camera- even before digital, I always had a little manual SLR, so this was a leap, some would say in the wrong direction. But it’s small. I love that it has a hot shoe, so we can put our external flash on it, which is twice the size of the camera itself.

We used it to take a belly shot. Here I am today, at 19 weeks. Let’s all say 19 weeks! 19 weeks? Why is time zooming so?

We note that the camera is a little fuzzy at low lighting conditions. Then we use the camera to take a photo of my Superstar Cutie Husband.

Pretty good. Although it doesn’t do him justice. But then, what does?

And then, I confess, I made a video. A video that will take away three minutes of your life. And fill those minutes with cuteness. A video that is unashamedly mommish. A video of my kids, singing.

Kids singing from Rachel Ford on Vimeo.