time for dinner

Yes, no, yes, no, yes...no. So windy! An out of state student asked today – is it always this windy in Wisconsin? I have to say, I don’t ever remember it being windy more than a day or two out of the year. I suppose wind wouldn’t have registered in the past, in my quick bike ride between work and the condo.

Yes, no, yes, no, Rosie or car. Car. Rosie. Rosie. Okay, Rosie. But I know we’re winding down, Rosie and I. There’s no logic behind it, but on cold weather days, I feel more vulnerable zipping by on a motor scooter.

Logic, luck – funny things, they are. I remember the last time I went downhill skiing (some four years ago). I was surprised to see that the slopes had skiers with helmets. Of course! Makes sense! That’s a hellish speed we take on during a downhill run. Why didn’t we wear helmets before, when I was a young and frequent skier? (For the same reason we didn’t wear helmets as kids when we biked. It wasn’t the custom.) Luck: the two times I fell on my head in my life were two times when I was fully protected.

But skiing never left me feeling vulnerable. Neither did biking. It’s the mixing of speed and other cars that gives me pause. Still, when Rosie and I scoot down the country roads, I am truly happy. Free of traffic, I notice everything around me and it is such a pretty world out there!

Though in fact, today’s post isn’t intended to be about the Rosie ride. Forget about Rosie just for now. Today’s the day when Ed turns 61 and, perhaps more significantly (as he really does not celebrate his birthday) – it’s the day that marks our time together – six years ago we met. Reluctantly on his part and on my part as well. Go ahead, my daughter tells me. Go out with him. He could be nice. Should I? the guy who writes to tell me I am so different from him that we have nothing in common? Really?

...The guy who, on our first trip to France together (just two months after meeting), tells me one evening – you go and eat dinner. I’m not hungry.

But, but, this is France! How could you not eat dinner in France?!

I ate a lot of bread at the bakery this morning.

But, but we’re staying at a restaurant with rooms! We're here to eat!

You eat. I’ll sit and watch.

I can’t go through that! No one sits at the table refusing to eat!

I’m not hungry.

We almost parted then. He started looking at train schedules to England, to visit a friend. But he didn’t leave and I stopped fussing. Or at least, I let days pass before I fuss.

This morning, as we eat cereal together at breakfast time...





...I ask him this – how is it that our meals have become more erratic? That you've taken to stuffing things at the café and passing on home cooked meals later in the evening?
You like going to the café. You drink coffee, I eat.
And then you sleep...



 

...But I miss the days when you didn’t eat through the day and were hungry for dinner.

We’ll go to dinner tonight.

We do go to dinner tonight. At Sardine, we eat oysters because we both love raw oysters. Besides, they’re 50% off if you show up before 6.





And we’ll come home, past fields of gold except they’re not so gold now, just dark shadows against an amazing sky.... with the silo from the farmette at the horizon, reminding us of home...






...and once home,  one or both of us will surely fall asleep before the library rented movie is over – his favorite or my favorite, rarely do the two overlap. And tomorrow he’ll eat during the day and doze off at the café with a newspaper over his chest (as he did today) and I’ll remind him that the house needs to be painted and so it continues – the story of Ed and me, inexplicably a good story, without a visible ending.