Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely
means that I don't know
You would almost expect to find Jacob walking around singing those lyrics, wouldn't you? Yes, I would too. He is, nonstop.
Loch pointed out in a phone call that I never write about what I'm doing.
I don't get how you can write three pages of how you feel without once pointing out a single action. Oh, aside from him kissing you. Christ, Bridge.
Loch is gently kidding me. But it might be true anyway because I rarely talk about how I'm spending my time. Maybe it's a omission in error, maybe it's on purpose. I have no idea. But since it's not a mommy blog, or a family blog, or even a therapy blog, it seems to be a tiny bit of everything, leaning very heavily on the aspect of a very personal place for me in which I can say and do say..anything. Everything. I sit down and something winds up here. I wish I could plan it a little better but it plans me.
And I don't care who reads it and I'm no longer so concerned about what you think of it. If I want to explore the incredible news that I feel better for eighteen weeks in a row then oh boy, will you ever be bored.
If it all turns to porn, well, aren't you lucky.
(Of course it will, don't be silly.)
Christian said Jacob's entry from seven years back made him sound like a gentleman stalker. If so, then he was the most unproductive stalker ever born, because never once did he stand outside my window in the pouring rain looking at my house, like the guy in that Maroon 5 song. That guy was a stalker.
I have a laundry list of similar things for him, romantic gestures he hasn't made (yet), like rowing a boat for me or having my name tattoed on his chest. It's a fun joke between us. I've also never picked him up at work wearing only a trench coat with nothing underneath, something he teases me about. Usually because when I used to walk down to meet him I would either have the kids with me or wind up taking off a coat for an hour to answer phones, do some filing or water plants. Or the fact that I don't own a trench coat. Or the fact that his office is a church but hey, we've already christened it so did it matter if I started in a dress anyway?
He laughed and said it didn't, and besides, had he stood outside our house in the rain as some sort of sentry yearning for my heart, Cole would have come out and started swinging.
No, instead Jacob was always warmly welcomed in, so maybe he did do that, starting out. It was a brief stand then, and he is off the hook.
And please, every man I know inhales a woman as she comes within a certain closeness. Men do that. Women don't do it until they are holding a man. It's a fundamental difference, but it's there.
Did you want me to write that we play Mystery Tea in the evenings now? I have fifty teabags I can't identify. I must have been seriously loopy the day I took them all out of their boxes and put them into a large square tin so that I would have everything together, being a serial organizer. Only the earl grey had tags, the rest are a motley bunch. So each night after dinner I make us each a cup of tea and then Jacob will take a sip and contemplate it for a few moments and then exclaim something silly like,
Oh! This would be green.
Or,
This is the spicy chai, I do believe.
In an Irish-Newfie accent.
And so I laugh and the next night follows suit with cinnamon or Chinese black. We have rhythms and routines and lover's rituals and near sexual satisfaction now and no, I didn't write about sex with cracked ribs because it was a given that we became experts at Bridget-injured sex almost a year ago and so we picked up familiar patterns and it's a little frustrating but I'm going to save that for another day. It needs a separate post. The progress, not some detailed paragraph on how we manage, no worries.
Of course...this is Bridget's journal so I shy away from nothing. No apologies for that, you know me better than that by now.
In the evenings over the winter we would put the kids to bed and then pop in a movie and snuggle together and sometimes I would watch a movie alone if Jacob had work to do. Or we'd retire to the den to just talk, or sometimes hit the floor of the living room because he builds nice, perfect fires to lounge around and we'd talk some more. For some reason we can talk forever. We always could. There's been few examples of times where we had to search for things to say but being together has unleashed a verbal waterfall. Or perhaps we're making up for lost time, for all the things we couldn't say.
Now that the warmer weather has come we find ourselves sitting on the front steps so we can watch people stroll by with their dogs and their strollers (which is very very hard because I would be eight months..no, I'm not going there. Not now) and we speak for a few moments always and it's so nice to feel a warm breeze and watch the sky turn to fire and then lavender and then darkest blue.
And Jake is an incredibly hands-on dad. He asks the kids for help and input on so much. He lets them put bows in his beard. He gets down on his belly full-length on Ruth's floor with from the knees down hanging out into the hall and tries to put outfits on her Barbie dolls and then holds ballroom dancing sessions for them. For the record he does not know how to ballroom dance, so we are perfect for each other, because I have no use for that. I'll take my darkened-house midnight waltzes any old time. He and Henry spend hours building model planes and perfecting their jokes to tell the girls (Ruth and I). And they sneak through the kitchen stealing cookies or apples every chance they get. They call it snack-recon. It's a riot.
I'm usually a tornado, twisting through the house in the usual balancing act of meals, cleaning, laundry, budget, chores, disaster declarations, though now I have full-time help with everything. He was a capable bachelor, and so he never moved in expecting me to do anything, though I go and do it anyway because he didn't have time to do laundry or make a meal if he was in all-day meetings or double-booked counselling. Or certification testing. Or dedication rehearsals. Or the myriad of other stuff. When he opens the drawer in our bureau and finds a stack of clean hemp t-shirts he thanks me like I'm doing him a favor.
I simply remind him it's easy to do laundry while I write. I can do just about anything and write at the same time.
I want to take care of Jacob. Which is harder than I expected, because he is capable with a capital C and that is no match for me. He says I do, but it's about more than shirts. He says I fill his heart and his soul and he sleeps at night and he does, he doesn't thrash all over the place anymore in his sleep, did you know that? No, because I didn't tell you but I fail to see sometimes how just being here is taking care of him. He insists.
And then he repeats it until I let it go.
And he has been my biggest fan. When I met Jacob I wasn't so much a writer, I was a white-collar banker smashing my head repeatedly on a glass ceiling that would never break. I was sexually harassed and overburdened and unpaid and when Ruth was born I realized I could never go back and so I started writing and Jacob was my first critic/editor. Yes, he is thanked in the acknowledgements, always. He wants to read everything I write, even if it's nothing special. He takes it seriously and personally. Sometimes it creates arguments, sometimes it gives him a new appreciation for who I am. Nothing impresses him more than this journal, maybe because it's about us, or maybe he enjoys seeing himself through my eyes. He won't confirm or deny. But I have no trepidation over taking anything I've written to him, good or bad, for first pickings, because he's been there since word one.
I like that, word one.
And today I have a headache, so will be diving into the mystery tea just as soon as this pot of coffee is gone.
Oh, and I have the shakes. Which is fun, a side-effect of the DTs from the medication leaving my body. I feel whole. I feel real. I feel pretty fucking good today. Even with the slight flutter.
I can't wait to tell Claus when I see him later this morning. He will be pleased.
I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
She will be loved. Oh yes, you bet she will.
