Tenderness. Reverence. Devotion. Stillness.
I want to follow my pen with my heart. Lose my busy mind and go down there. Go way down into that sweet place where there is truth. Sensory truth-to see, hear, smell, taste, touch. This busy mind flits and flutters, plays games. Can't settle down to something so profound as the image of this husband's devotion. I don't know about being devoted to a spouse. I married three good men but I was too young and needy, self-centered and flighty-a willow-the-wisp-to settle down into something so deep as devotion and reverence for a mate. Too many expectations, too many needs. I thought love and marriage were like in the movies-movies of the 1950's, no less. All romance, sex, glamour.

I wanted to be a mom. That was a yearning I couldn't ignore. And devotion to babies and kids, and now grandkids-that all makes sense to me. I felt devotion to my mom when I took care of her during her cancer. When I could tie her shoes with tenderness. When she laughed through pain and indignity. When she was trying, at the end, to hold on and not die yet.