Rowing our boat

There is a stirring in the universe that whispers new work is on the way, that my rustling of the bushes this week might yet bear fruit. One possible project has moved to the next stage, with the editor putting me in touch with the agent, whom I am to talk to on Monday before connecting with her client on Wednesday. Nothing is sure of course. Her client needs to feel chemistry with me, needs to decide that I will be the one to delve into her story, all the difficult places, and write her book. And then there are a host of other considerations after that, but at least things are moving forward.

Also, I had lunch with an old friend today, and we drank wine in the middle of the afternoon, and talked about our lives now, and laughed a lot. Her son and mine went to middle school together, and who knew that I would develop such a cadre of lifelong friends from among the parents of my children's middle school cohorts.

Last night, my husband came home with bags of groceries and set about cooking dinner, a quinoa jambalaya with shrimp and vegetables, “I’m trying something,” he said. At one point I looked over at him, chopping and slicing, it was just the two of us in the house, and the moment suddenly seemed full of unspoken intimacy. I think he was unaware of it, but I thought, my God, what a journey we embark on when we decide to marry a person, and have children with them, and then come together again after those children are grown, just the two of you, the way you started out.

I thought how lucky we were to have found each other, to have a partner in the boat on this great big sea, with whom the talk flows and the silences rest easy. Watching him cook for us both, the feeling of being accompanied washed over me. I felt grateful, and I marveled at how brave and hopeful we were all those years ago when we climbed into the boat together, our promises like a flare in the dark, a spark of something that caught and bloomed into this glimmering light that encircles us now with such secret tenderness and love.