Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Tom, who labored all day in an unheated building while the storm blew and drenched, came home completely exhausted. Then he had to make dinner so I could go to my poetry group meeting. I felt terrible about that, though he never complained. Throughout the session, I could hear him setting the table, chopping vegetables, stirring. I was distracted and disturbed and wishing hard that I was doing those tasks instead of listening to his weary steps.

This is where art cannot save me, or anyone. Clearly, it would have been better to make dinner so that Tom could rest instead of dithering about a poem draft I already knew had problems. True, I did get to listen to other people's good, meaningful work. I did get to experience their personal griefs. I did get to spend time with human beings I like. All that is valuable. But it's not more valuable than making a hot meal for a quiet man who has gotten out of bed before dawn to heave and haul, in wretched chill and damp, all the long day.

So I'm feeling glum this morning--in need of atoning for this error, to him, and to myself. The fact that he doesn't ask or expect me to atone--or even think of my selfishness as an error--is just fuel to my sputtering fire. The other day, I was trying to describe my family role to a friend, and I think it ended up sounding as if I were trapped in some kind of authoritarian housewife vortex. But that's not it at all. I have a peaceful love affair with a man who works too hard. I try to do what I can to ease his home life. I cook and clean and wash. Poems are no way to erase the fearful tiredness in his eyes.

4 comments:

nancy said...

Yes.
My hiker husband was going to be the old skinny wise trekker in his retirement. Instead, due to spinal stenosis, he trips and stumbles just walking across the room. Love trumps art, but also fills it. We married at 17 and thought we knew what love was. We only had the tiniest clue.

Ruth said...

"Love trumps art, but also fills it. " That is a beautiful. I'm wondering if acceptance knits them together more seamlessly than anyone can imagine or express.

Maureen said...

I think of you and Tom as a model, of two who have each other's back - something so uncommon these days. How you write about your family is refreshing and truthful, and opens a space for believing in what matters.

Do you know that Jack Gilbert poem 'Horses at Midnight without a Moon'? 'Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. / Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. / But there's music in us. . . .' That is the two of you.

Dawn Potter said...

Thanks for the Gilbert poem. That means a lot. Tom and I have figured out how to pull in harness. I'm grateful for that, but it's still an uphill climb.