I was curious about this plant which was growing out of a clump of hosta.  Technically a weed – something I didn’t put there and which isn’t included in the scheme of things.  But I was curious and let it grow enough to produce delicate white flowers.  The texture of the petals is like a brushed cotton, the kind my favourite summer shirts are made of.

Landscapes are comforting when they have that same soft, nubby texture.  Rolling fields punctuated by hills and carved into high relief by gullies.  In early Spring the edges are fuzzy with new growth and by Summer the haze of greens add to the sensations of an oft-wrapped shawl or a worn quilt.

These days, I do best in relationships that have this lazy,  undulating flow, textured with comfort and soothing encounters.  There are few expectations other than an agreement to be gentle with each other.  We say things like “thank you for understanding” and “that’s such a relief to hear” or “let me see what I can do.”  Life’s too long for anything else.

Frank was cleaning out the last two boxes of our vegetable garden while I worked on being fixated by the weeds coming up from the “weed-killer” landscape covers.  In a moment of rest, I saw him sitting in the earth of the 4 x 4 box looking for all intent like a child in a sandbox.  “You make a beautiful child,” I said – knowing full well his life had not included the luxury of sandboxes.  We laughed.

It’s never too late to change the landscape of our lives.

It’s a brave man who walks his wife into Tiffany’s in NYC and walks out without buying her anything.

Well, he didn’t actually get all the way out.  He got as far as the elevator and asked the deadly words, “So, what would you like to do now?”

I am a long time practitioner of Buddhism yet short-lived on the practice of ahimsa.  Fortunately, he was saved by my never-ending optimism that he can be trained in limbic telepathy.  The limbic system is made up of organs in our brain that is sometimes referred to collectively as the “emotional brain.”  It’s actually not so much a “system” as a complex network of interconnections among structures that deal with threat assessment and responses, memory and learning, and keeping the rationally-driven frontal lobe off line.  It is also apparently sensitive to being shut down in Tiffany’s.  In NYC.  At the ring counter.  Not that I’m bitter or anything.

After I pushed the elevator call button into the elevator shaft, I think he caught on because I found myself ushered back to the ring counter.  It’s cute ring.  Thin, unassuming.  Squarish yet round.  I’m not much of a diamond girl so these itty-bitty chips are quire acceptable.

We dance with this particular expectation in our relationship.  I suspect, all relationships do.  Why can’t s/he just know?  All the cues are there.  All the anticipation.  So when there is a huge disconnect between what I anticipate was going to happen and what does happen, it’s a shock.  I watched this happen a few times recently; observed it closely.  There is a subtle assumption that I’d missed in previous experiences: “You’d think someone who knows me so well would…”  There it was!  Just as no good deed goes unpunished, all good marital sensitivity gets held against you.  A wacky “if—>then” sequence that can get quite deadly in the trenches of neediness, craving, and insecurity about the relationship.

It is a cute ring.  The edges have just enough sharpness to remind me that my expectations can make things messy.  They also remind me to ask: what do you believe should be happening now?