Any place with you

Recently my folks have offered us a little acre of very rocky, hilly land near lake Sinclair in Georgia. It has started me thinking about building a future with my wonderful wife. We have been building our lives together for ten years, but at this stage, we are spending a lot of time working to get ahead, maintain our health and build a home that we can open to our family's in the future.

The lake lot makes me think more about what we would do if the sky was the limit for us. Satu is a cave dweller, and I like to have all the lights on all the time, so I have been thinking of building a home into the side of that rocky, dense hillside.

In my mind, Satu's would be a cave, blasted under the biggest rock in the hillside. She would have nice little square shrubs leading up to a hidden, thick wooden door. Maybe a stone fireplace in the center of the cave  and a hidden little spot in back where the rounded brick wall would open up to the sky. I imagine a natural waterfall trickling constantly down a cut out in that brick wall surrounded by plants. You could look up from your underground garden to see the clear night sky over the lake.

I imagine a rustic, gourmet kitchen in her little cave where cheeses and fresh fruit will feel right at home. The walls of the cave will be insulated hay bale and carved into round, elegant curves. I imagine an open, flattened rock staircase leading up to my airy rooms.

My rooms would have giant windows and be open to the view of the trees and the sky. For me, I imagine dark wood floors, and breezes flowing across. There are more windows than walls. I don't have a kitchen, I have the garden instead. The topside has an open courtyard in the middle where we grow our own herbs and have a walkway surrounded by flowers. on cool nights, we can sleep there, surrounded by nature and stars, yet still protected by the walls of our home.

Between the cave and the glass house is a hideaway room that is just ours. Not fancy, but a cozy bedroom where we can get away. Right now, my favorite time of day is bedtime. I love just sitting next to my wife as she reads. I like having coffee together in our bed and having the quiet time together. Sometimes she will reach over the dog and pat me on the leg or the hand. I feel very settled there with her.

Though I have been enjoying this daydream lately, the main reason I like it is because I like to think of a future where I could make Satu feel happy and fulfilled. I'd love a little hideaway that we felt totally relaxed in. I imagine her in her studio figuring out the next project and smelling the Georgia red clay after a storm. I will be happy anywhere we end up as long as she is with me.

Hi baby. Hi hi hi. Hi honey.

Sometimes when I am at work, I just look at my phone and wish for a text from Satu. Most of our phone contact is really just about letting each other know that we are thinking about being together. There is no moment in my day when I would not prefer to be with my lovely wife, not a single second that wouldn't be better in her company.

Right now she is sitting next to me while I am typing and she is touching up her well staged pictures of tobacco pipes. We spent most of the day working outside together getting sawdust in our noses and dirt on our hands, and whenever we hadn't talked in a little while, one of us would pipe up and say "hi baby. " It is kind of our bird call.

Sometimes I imagine what alien observers would think of us. We must touch each other more often than most couples. She is always smoothing out my shirt or patting me on the leg. I am usually looking for an opportunity to walk into a hug. I think aliens would assume that we are one thing that can split itself. I often feel like she and I are really just one thing with two different laughs, two different singing voices and four hands that are always trying to settle somewhere on the body.

This weekend, Satu has put out all of our orange things and readied the house for fall. There are tiny pumpkins and colorful leaves everywhere. I really love having a house that belongs to both of us together that we chose and care for. It seems like the perfect place for our odd little family. It is usually filled with the smell of nice candles and small enough that I can hear my wife call her bird call from any room.

As the weather gets cooler, I feel even more lucky to have this warm home and beautiful wife to come home to. These days we linger in bed to have our morning coffee and she tucks her cold hands into my body. I know this is just a trick for warmth that she has learned from the cat, but never mind that. As she tucks little head against my shoulder, I'll wrap my arms around her and whisper "hey baby, hi sweet girl, hi honey. I love you."

You Are My Sunshine

My lady often does really sweet things for me. She is understated about it, but I know that she is always looking for ways to make me want to come home, be comfortable and connect. She lights candles toward the end of the evening so the house is cozy. She turns the warmer on for my side of the bed when it's cold and she makes sure there are enough treats around to keep me from going to bed hungry.

Yesterday when I came home she had re-organized our picture display so it is all on my side of the bed so I can look at the too big smiles and happy moments that we have shared just being together.

I am a very in the moment person. Satu always knows that I love her because I do, every waking moment and I am easy to read. She is my person. Always. I would rather talk to her than anyone on the planet. Yep, if it came down to it, I would pick a good conversation with my wife over a round table discussion with Mary Roach, Angelina Jolie and Barack Obama.

I always know Satu loves me, but I get prone to insecurity or feeling lost, so she keeps reminding me in little ways like the way she makes little happy noises when I put my hand on her, or spending most of her day planning a delicious salmon dinner like she did on Monday.

I can't wait to come home from work tonight and kiss her hot sleeping forehead and hear her make her little happy grunt in response. That tiny, drowsy noise from her chest is the same as saying I love you in a million ways.

Wood or cotton?

Apparently there are anniversary gift materials that the fairy godmother of wedding anniversaries has chosen arbitrarily after a few drinks in her magic wedding chapel. I thought this year's material was wood and I got my lovely wife an antique pipe rack that some old gentleman had hand carved and then lovingly stored in a musty cave for years. When Satu unwrapped it, you could smell the earth and age on it.

Satu got me cotton boxers and an inspiring t-shirt since she knew that this year's material was actually cotton (thank you fairy godmother.)

She also gave me this cool wooden card.

Then I spray painted the grass with hearts.

I know that other people do chocolates and flowers and such, but I often come home to fresh flowers when it is just a regular Tuesday. Satu and I love each other every single day and don't really need to have an occasion to stay connected. 

She waits up for me when I am late at work so she can kiss me before we go to sleep. I bring her things and take away things so that she knows that I love her. 

It is the perfect match. I often imagine when we are walking how we will be when we are older. When all we have to do is entertain each other and seek happiness. That is what makes me puff my chest out when we walk together. I am as happy now as I ever could be. 

Because these blog posts really... really matter.

So, apparently no spoken word can equal the words written in this blog. There is no amount of talking, hugging, or general good boy/girlfriend behavior that makes my wife as happy as knowing that I spent a few minutes collecting some thoughts about her and committing them to laptop.

Here are some random thoughts about Satu that I haven't had time to appropriately gather and put in context, but generally make me feel happy to have married such a wonderful woman:

My wife is a connoisseur of disaster stories. She is currently sitting next to me reading about sinking ships and the people who survived the sinking Estoria.

She knows how to keep the cat distracted while she cuts out the dreadlocks that appear along her sides.

Satu looks good in any light and any color, but always asks me if she looks okay. Me, the woman who often puts her shirt on inside out and doesn't notice until half way through the work day.

She will wake up in the middle of the night because I am worried about the hawk that seems drunk in our driveway. Not only will she wake up, but she will sit quietly and observe until we decide to throw pieces of lunch meat at it (in case it might just be weak from hunger.)

She feeds the wild animals with animal crackers.

She has the most wonderful laugh in the world. I love to make her giggle. It instantly brings me so much happiness.

She knows the difference between southern accents and can impersonate a redneck or a texas bad ass and not make them seem the same.

If someone on TV is drinking, she will also need a drink. If someone British is drinking, she will need it in a fancy glass with one ice cube.

She is always off balance but never breaks anything. It is like she touches the whole world with a light stroke of the fingertip. She can be running at you full speed only to turn slow motion and careful when she is inches from you.

She thinks that by remaining vigilant at all times, she can keep her weird family from small and large disasters like bug bites, sunburns, airplane crashes and tornadoes. In fact, she does have a tornado plan and an active shooter plan and an Ebola plan at all times.

She wakes me up by getting on top of me and encouraging the dog to lay on my face too.

She saves ants, spiders and all other multi-legged creatures that find their way into our house.

She can almost always look at a thing and know what it is made of.

I think that may be part of why she chose me. I am almost 100% mush and love. She knew what I wan made of and still chose me. She continues to save me from the world every day, even after a decade.

Changing gears

So the little company that I work for was not as good to my wife as it has been to me. She has been pretty miserable there, in part because she is an artist and shouldn't be punching a clock in an engine shop for a living. She should be making things and building things and maybe going entire weeks without seeing more numbers than the ones on her watch.

I am so excited for her to get started with her new life. I can't imagine what it is like to have something that you have always felt called to do. I just like to work and have some wins. I feel at home playing a part in a large operation, but Satu needs to use her hands and her body. She is a visual person and and needs to bring those curious, strange, surprising visions to life in the world. When you have a mind like that, you are never going to be satisfied taking marching orders from tiny minded men.

I wonder what she will name her studio?

Unlike many artists, Satu doesn't mold herself into a dreary, black clad tortured soul in order to find meaning in the world. She doesn't do pictures of fruit or abstract sculptures of dancing figures for quick sale. She is as likely to love a truck stop cedar box with horses painted on it as she is to see the beauty in a perfect circle. She finds meaning in happy moments as well as the bittersweet. She can find two things that belong together, even when they seem unlikely at first glance.

I know without a doubt that this is the first step toward happiness for her. Yes, we have to survive, but we also have to live, and she has been pushing aside her true self for too long. It is time to get in the studio and get busy. The world has been without her vision for too long.

Container store date

Most people get excited about going out to see a movie or eat at a fancy restaurant. My lady gets excited about organizing things. Really. All things have a home in our home, it's just they are often not there because I don't know where their homes are or that I am even carrying them around. So when the container store opened a branch here in Cleveland, I got a few VERY excited text messages from her. I knew that taking her to look at things to put things in might get me a few extra kisses, so I was all for it.

Satu and I have two entirely different cleaning methods. She organizes things and I throw things away. I feel as though my way keeps areas cleaner longer, but eventually we need the thing I threw away and will tear up the house trying to find it. Satu's method allows things to slowly migrate around to the various places where I use them and then leave them as soon as I start on something else.

I think that the place is pretty calming for Satu in the same way that a well stocked wall of bookshelves can be. She seemed totally at home among the stacks of expensive bookshelves and tight fitting lids of all sorts. It is part of what inspired me to spend today building a bookshelf for her comic books. I thought about what a shame it is that they should have to go in boxes while books without pictures get to be out among the things that we live with. They deserve better, and if I measure right this time, they can be well organized and easy to flip through.

After our great adventure, we came home and watched our favorite cheesy show and ordered take out. For some people, our lives may seem kind of boring, but they aren't. No matter where I go with Satu, I have fun. We don't have to go find entertainment all the time. I find her endlessly entertaining. And I did score a few extra kisses, so entertaining and exciting.

The only thing I care about collecting is little moments like that with my beautiful wife. I wish there was a way to box up those sweet kisses and have them over and over again.