Just don't look

My lady has a weird need to look at grotesque and disturbing things. Just healing from a chest cold, Satu had to look at pictures of lungs online. I'm not sure what phrase she had to type in to figure out where the snot is before you cough it out. I definitely don't want to know. She also has to investigate all plane crashes and follow the investigations as they unfold.
Satu is the kind of person who feels like you have to look disaster straight in the eye until it backs down. She is also a multi-tasker, so while she is looking at lungs and plane crashes, she is also researching life jackets and self diagnosing her knee pain. "I think it's my patella," she just said to me. We are listening to an audiobook that she is following, but I am missing because I can't think these blog thoughts and hear about palladium.
Maybe Satu's mind has different rooms, while mine is just a gigantic ballroom for random thoughts.

Satu has graciously shared her cold with me. She made soup tonight and has been giving me plenty of soothing attention. Since I am not nauseous, I feel okay about hosting these new germs until my body moves them on. I don't feel good, but I am not dying or scarred. I'll probably be fine as long as I don't have to see anymore slimy lungs.

I am glad that Satu is such a head into the wind kind of person, it means that she can shelter my tender heart by knowing stuff so that I don't have to. I think I always believe the best about the world. And though Satu is hopeful and optimistic, she knows better than to believe foolishly like I do. She locks doors behind me, hands me my purse in public spaces and always has an appropriate weapon and an escape plan just in case. This frees me up to see all of the puppies and kittens an butterflies that are beyond all of the unpleasant things that I have to overlook to see them. Satu's got that, I'll be over there feeding pound cake to a raccoon.

The difference between when I am sick and when Satu is sick

Right now, Satu has a terrible summer cold. She is dizzy and wheezy and feels like crap. She will still go to work tomorrow. She still puts on clothes (something I don't even do sometimes when I am well) and she will still do lots of the things she normally does, just with a stiff upper lip and coughing the whole time. When Satu is sick, it makes her seem kind of depressed and occasionally angry at her body. When I am sick, I get scarred and insufferable.
Satu has vacuumed the house, studied her book about sailing and learned to tie a bunch of knots using her feet. This weekend I was not sick, and mostly I just dug around in the yard listening to audio books on because I didn't want to sit down and read. It takes away from my candy crush addiction which I think I may need to see someone about.
A moment ago, my sick wife put down the textbook that she was studying and pulled a splinter out of my hand and got a band aid on me. Even when I am supposed to be taking care of her, she takes better care of me than I do her. Don't get me wrong, I give it my best shot, I make soup and tea and hover around with my eyebrows all knotted up, but ultimately, the soup is not homemade and the tea cups usually have honey dripping down the outside somewhere. When Satu is sick, it makes me worry, which kind of makes me act like an asshole. I get frustrated and short tempered and worried so I dither and implode.
When I am sick, I assume that I am close to death. I am afraid that feeling mildly unwell means that worse things are on the way and that I am surely showing the first signs of a disease that will melt me from the inside out. If I feel the slightest bit nauseous, I imagine that it will only be a short time before I am reduced to a struggling desperate soul clinging to life from my puddle of bile and moaning like a creature in a haunted house. When I look over at Satu calmly reading her book, I wonder why she can be so calm. Does she have no fear at all. Then I realize that it is because she is always calm. Even when she worries, she stays in complete control. I have never seen her pace. I have never seen Satu do anything timidly. Even when she was afraid to get on an airplane during a storm, she just suffered quietly (while I offered the opposite of reassurance) and had what I imagine was a tidy, brief nervous poo. Then she gathered her bag, stuck out her chin and got on the plane.  I think that was for her the same situation that I face when I am ill, yet she sucked it up and got on with things.
Is it any wonder that I find Satu so calming, grounding and comforting? I don't know how I can do this same thing for her. I may be a very caring and attentive person, but on the inside, I am always just one firing neuron away from downright hysteria. Satu is always one firing neuron away from having an idea.
I know that she will feel better soon because she is hungry and her coughing is getting better, but I do have to keep reminding myself that if she isn't worried, I shouldn't be.

The one who gets it

Satu is the only person in the world I can count on to know me with out the need for explanation. Today when I had to have one of my more and more frequent stressful moments of conscience implosion, Satu didn't make me feel dumb, she made me feel safe.
Usually I feel a little uncertain about my reality. I worry that my fears skew things and I don't know if I am a good person or a bad person. Satu always takes me seriously, even when I don't deserve it. She holds me when all she wants to do is be her own island. She makes time for me when she would prefer to be feeding her funny little brain the raw materials of her creativity.
I think it is amazing that we can be so different, but she can bring me back to myself so easily, just with the sound of her voice. I find her breathing and her presence and all of the ways that she just goes about being her so calming.
Right now, Satu is typing on her computer and explaining to me that the noise I hear is two neighborhood cats fighting and not a child being murdered. She is so calm and sure. I feel lucky to be here with her in our quiet home, listening to the terrifying neighborhood sounds while she looks up Japanese mushroom hats online or whatever random thing she is looking at. This is the best home in the world.

Call and response

Sometimes when Satu and I are mucking about the house on a Sunday or if the stars align perfectly and we have a day off together, Satu will call to me from the other room. Not really a call, more like a little chirp from a song bird. "Hi baby" she will chirp. "Hi girlfrang" I will call back. This seems like it would be enough to establish that we see each other and are acknowledging our love for each other, but once started, this could go on for quite a while.
I now understand why birds do this for hours. On the one hand, it is compulsive and distracting, but on the other it is like having a really long hug without getting overly hot and having to be stuck in one place for an hour. We even do the call and response on the phone. It totally has the same effect.

"Hi baby" (I don't have anything to say, but you are the most important thing in my life and I love you)

"Hi honey" (I miss you even though I am standing next to you because I love you so much that I can never get enough of you."

Now, when I am at work or I am away from home, often I will hear her voice chirping to me and it makes me feel connected. When I think of her, I hear it, when I am sleeping, I hear it and when I am just living my life, I feel like those simple words are always there like the noise of my own personal forest where I am most at home.

YAAAAAY! School is over!

Forever! Now where did I put my brain? I feel like it has been years since I was able to live without the crushing sense of impending, never ending obligations. I don't think I could have done one more paper, one more discussion forum or spent one more Sunday morning in bed reading case studies while Satu and I should be doing something together.

Now, as I emerge from this 4 year long academic boot camp, a little fatter and paler, the first thing I want is a date night with my wonderful wife. School has always been hard for me, not because I am dumb, but because I am extremely averse to letting other people decide whether I am dumb or not. As hard as school was for me though, it was just as hard for my wife. All of the late nights spent giving me reassuring pats while I am a panic stricken, wide eyed paranoid ass hole. All of those things we could have done together if I hadn't been writing papers about things that happened in the business world a decade ago.

Satu deserves better, and now I can help make it better for her. We can finally go back to being two people in a relationship, rather than one person waiting for half of a person to have time to buck up and help out.

This weekend I was writing four papers the moment I woke up. Satu came in and put the dog on the bed with me, but I didn't even know she had been in the room. Later after a pee break, I came into the bedroom amazed to find our geriatric lab had somehow gotten up on the bed.

"She's been there for hours!" Satu exclaimed. I wish I could say that this is an isolated incident, but it's not. I never know were my keys are, if I paid the light bill, how to turn things on or off, or where we keep the things that I use everyday. I have rediscovered the lotion several times a week for two years.

The thing I am most looking forward to now is rediscovering my wife. I want to wake up on a Sunday with her and not have a plan already made. I want to help with the house and go out to eat without slipping into a brain numbing ocd episode about how someone might have poisoned the food.

Most of all, I want to go back to being the kind of wife that is there for Satu as much as she is here for me. I can finally feel and appreciate the warmth of spring, which this time is not just a two week reprieve before starting back to class. This time, it is the start of a wonderful summer.

Things in our lives

Satu is a person who knows about things. She has an eye for detail and cares about all of the objects that she interacts with. When we started dating, the only things I had that I felt were related to my character were the books that I haphazardly collected and dispatched as I went through my life. I was populating my world with new things, bedspreads, couch, bar and such and I liked living with those things, but I probably would have liked any of a number of furnishings.

I like Satu's things, because they are part of the mystery of her mind and personality. For example, her things include rare bits from all over the world, yet she loves a little cedar box with horses painted against a dramatic sky seemingly as much as she likes the 15th century wooden Buddha with the snorkel on his head. Maybe not the same way, but with equal passion.

This week I have discovered that Satu has many, many stickers. She keeps them somewhere secret and seems to have one for any occasion. It is not a collection or anything, she is just a person who has stickers. The right ones at the right time. She also has the right dice for any game, the right color pen for any creation and the right other obscure thing that I don't yet know that I need.

Satu is not stingy with things, in fact, it seems like things in this home were probably out there in the world waiting to become a part of the family, and Satu knows where they belong. She put a fine leather wallet in my hand and when I liked it, she gave it to me immediately. She gave my mother a book that I am sure turned out to be one of her most prized possessions. It was as if she had known that she would come across the perfect home for it some time in her life and she knew when to let it go.

Because one of the things that we both like is lists, here is a list of things that I like and things that Satu likes and things that we both seem to like.

Things I like:

Wood that smells like wood in any capacity. I like wood to be brown and though I appreciate things that are smooth, when I think about wood as a material, I like it to be a little rough and rugged.

Anything soft and fleecy, especially if it is not a yucky color

Mechanical things like rulers and pulleys and articulating lights. I like complicated mechanical things that have lots of interacting parts especially if you can watch all the bits move.

Candles.  The small, controlled fire is really calming for me. I like candles that smell good and that cast shadows.

My dresser, because Satu got it for me and because I like the pretty blue color and the pattern of all the little shell pieces making up a smooth surface.

Things that Satu likes:

Anything clever, where a classic design is re-imagined yet somehow becomes simpler and better.

Things that are more thoughtful than they seem, like the silverware she chose with a really simple design and good weight.

Tools and other objects with good opening and closing action. I am not sure, but I imagine that nothing would irritate Satu like a trash can where the lid almost, but doesn't quite line up with the can. Fortunately, because she chose ours, we have a trash can that closes smoothly and quietly with a satisfying, understated click.

Earthy or animal like things like leather wrapping and cow skulls and smooth rocks.

Her father's old washer and dryer because they are his and because they are well made and reliable.

Things that we both like

Maps. They are so full of possibility and detail. In a map, the world looks perfect and knowable.

Bugs, frogs, lizards and all furry creatures. One of the things I like most about Satu is how curious she is about the world and how she is perfectly willing to live in it with other animals. Our interactions with animals are always worth sharing with each other because we both appreciate those chance encounters with other souls.

Brand new, sharp crayons and colored pencils.

Small secret things like the little metal pill with the hidden message in it that she gave me or the faceted hearts that make up her necklace that you may not know are hearts if you don't pay attention.


Satu does not carelessly select things that share her life, and that knowledge makes me feel really special and unique. She could have her choice of many women, yet she chose to make a life with me. I am so happy to have a home with her full of secret hiding places for stickers and marbles and cardboard battleships. I feel as if she selected me and always knew just where my heart belongs.

What it's like coming home to Satu

Satu is so small that she sinks down into the bed and gets lost in the wrinkles and shadows of the comforter. Every night I get the pleasure of discovering her like a buried treasure. If she is asleep, I can locate her from the waves of heat coming off of her body. Usually, in the winter, there will also be an animal or two curled up next to her for warmth. 

If I wake her like I have done tonight, she is fussy. She will stumble to the bathroom following the weight of her head as if it is a wrecking ball pulling the rest of her body behind it, bumping into walls and changing course. Though she may fuss a bit, she is surprisingly good-natured about being awakened and we often have our best laughs in the middle of the night. Smoove Jams!

Sometimes it feels like I have spent all day translating the foreign language of other people to finally come home and hear someone speak in my native tongue. I love the way she calls me baby or honey or any of the other little names that I have to her. 

When I come home and have to stay up for a bit, I like to come in and kiss her on her cheek or forehead while she sleeps. I like it so much that I often make a few trips in the bedroom to do it a couple of times. It is kind of thrilling like kissing a small wild animal while it sleeps. She usually makes some noises. She may think she is talking, I am not sure. It sounds like she is talking with her mouth closed. 

When I finally get to snuggle in with her, I like the feel of her heat and the soft rhythm of her breathing. I love the smell of her and just the relief that I feel being next to her and feeling safe. There is no doubt to me that I fit best in the world, where ever Satu is.