Hear ye! Oh hear ye!

I have a husband with lips lush and thick, that pucker, really pucker when he comes in close for a kiss. Which he does, earnestly, every time I enter or leave the house. And he is a man who does the dishes wearing purple rubber gloves, and folds the laundry before I get home, and finds a way to use the frozen liver in the freezer that his aunt gave us when she moved to Florida. Pâté, my friends, pâté on toasted sour dough bread topped with jalapeño jam.

I have a daughter with eyes of piercing blue, who won’t take no shit from nobody, not even her mom. Who told me today as I was cleaning her poop out of her panties that I am angry a lot. How do you know? I asked. Because you look mad. You don’t say things in nice voice. And you fight with daddy. What do we fight about? I asked. You fight about work, who gets to go to work. Come here. I told her. Please. And I looked her in the eye. You are right, my dear. I don’t say things nicely a lot of the time. And I’m sorry. I’m not angry. I’m not mad. I’m just not as patient as I should be.

All this to say, I’m grateful for my daughter, and boy do I have a lot to learn about how to love her well. I’m grateful for tomorrow when I’ll be with her again, and can try again, with a quietness, a gentleness, to guide her not control her.

And my Leo, how he bumbles and sings, his voice lilting with joy. “Sure!” he exclaims when David asks him if he wants to stomp through the snow to check on the chickens. He’s a flitter, a flutter, a jumpy wild little thing, with slobber slurring his words and watering his shirt. I talk harshly to him too, I know. But there is tomorrow, there is tomorrow. And tomorrow will be the day I will be more present. I won’t try to get anything else done. I’m already grateful for tomorrow.

Hear ye! Oh hear ye!

I have this little yellow house with a living room just the right size. With kitchen cabinets that I painted in two-tones, a deep gray and a bright pastel turquoise. The walls are yellow too, painted by Joy and Craig who came one weekend, unbeknownst to me, with brushes and old clothes and set to work moving the big pantry shelf and taking all the things off the walls. They turned a red kitchen yellow with their love.

Gratitude, my friends, gratitude.

— Laura Lasuertmer for The Poplar Grove Muse