Chasing August.

I think Jacob made a big mistake.

He left me here while he went to return the borrowed airstream (I know! For all the OMG you've got an airstream emails, we don't but now I wish we did), a two hour drive, and he took PJ with him, and I have to ferry the kids back and forth to school so I couldn't tag along, but being the Forward Thinker that he is, rather than leave me alone he gave me the coveted job of picking up August at the airport, his friend who lives in America (I was CORRECTED by August when I said the U.S. but he won't tell me why). Which is hilarious, because August is from Newfoundland.

August is a very slightly insane, freewheeling, psychotic sometime-rockstar vegan psychopath.

He is what Jacob would be, unchecked. He told me he and Jacob met in jail. Which is true, except he'll never be the one to admit he was on the inside and Jacob was passing through when he was offered a job there a dozen years ago.

August is safe, the arrest was for refusing to move during a protest and he's sworn to me that he grew up in the time he's been absent from Jacob's life.

So far together we've had nine cups of green tea and spent an hour walking the dog and shopped the organic grocery store not once, but twice. The kids have been and gone again and Jacob called twice to ask me how I was. PJ called once to ask August how I was and he lied and said I turned rabid so he tied me to a post in the backyard. So far we're getting along like gangbusters.

August's plan is to spend two weeks here helping Jacob finish some of the bigger house projects and get caught up on their friendship and then he's headed North for the summer. He's fun and cute and incredibly kind. He's already written a list of things we can do to improve our quality of life, he's convinced we'll all be on a raw diet by the time he leaves. He figures it will help me especially. When I told him what kind of year we've had I got a fifteen minute hug. I'm keeping him, I swear.

The only down side I can see is that he says Right On every seventeen and a half seconds, which I'm sure is going to get annoying by the end of today but for now it's cool.

The Dreamcatchers.

Or, how I spent my weekend.

    What the hell have I meant
    If this is how the day ends, I regret
    Close your eyes and dream now
    The world so far your heart sounds alone
    and I connect
    In all the ways I've dreamed you
    I choose a song to reach you
    But why it's sad again, only now I see it.

    And when you're acting so proud like
    Like you never had your doubts
    You never said once like you were throwing it away
    And then you're hanging round
    Shining like the sun
    Shocked everyone how it's making my day
    And you, you can try so hard
    With everything that's going wrong
    I know you're strong and you're here for the change
    You're never far away
    You're making my day
    Or you're throwing it away
This weekend's surprise group getaway featured four vintage airstreams, nine adults, five children and one single soundtrack and I didn't even pick it. Jacob can sing and play all of All My Real Friends by High Holy Days, an awesome Canadian band hardly anyone seems to know about. He brought his guitar and sang for everyone just about constantly, when he wasn't throwing people into the lake or sitting and reflecting on the end of the dock with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face. I brought my violin but I hardly touched it, preferring instead to sit with my feet dangling in the water while I taught all the children how to weave crowns of wildflowers.

Every time I looked at him he'd smile and keep playing. Whenever I started to get up to do something, someone would give me a hug and tell me they'd get it. I didn't have a single nightmare for two nights. I didn't have a shower either and wow, did that ever feel good to come home to this morning.

I lived in a blue bikini that is ready for the garbage. I never wore a watch. My freckles came out and I shed my anxiety like an old pair of jeans. I stood on the bare feet of my husband while he hung out over the water precariously, my hands around his neck holding on for dear life and then he grinned and shook me off and I fell in. Repeatedly, because it was fun.

I passed my belay test. I didn't shake like a leaf once I realized I was higher than I am tall. I found a new level of trust in hanging off a rope attached to Jacob and one little bolt somewhere higher up. I tried not to think about it, instead focusing on the knowledge that he would never let me die. The kids scaled their mini-mountains like little blonde spiders, enthusiastic to a fault.

It was awesome. Best way to spend Father's Day I ever could have planned but didn't. The kids had made presents for Jacob at school and we gave him roses for the backyard, because the trees didn't make it but we will so we're being more ambitious.

Yesterday morning Jacob and Sam led an impromptu Sunday service in the woods that brought over a nearby group of university kids happy to share in the love and a round of spirituality acknowledged in the woods. They jumped in with their own prayers and talked so openly. It only makes Jake more excited for the fall.

And this morning I had booked an abbreviated session with Claus that I burst into, breathless, with wet hair because my God, it's Monday and life is trying to start the week without me and I threw the kids in the shower and then jumped in after and then drove them to school and booked straight downtown and the first thing out of my mouth was,

I'm done, Claus. I'm leaving you.

I knew the time would come.

Am I fixed?

Not in the least, Mrs. Reilly. But you know where I'll be if you change your mind.

I do. And thank you, Claus, for everything.

I expect to see you again, Bridget.

Not if I can help it.

Just keep my number and go and be well, young lady.

I will. And I love you, man.

Yes, well, you would have loved me more if you had done your homework.

I know. Sometimes people are unconventional.

Yes, and you're a shining example.

Bye Claus.

Goodbye, Bridget, and good luck.
I kissed his cheek and flew back out, where Jacob was waiting with his hand out to take mine and head for breakfast. Now we're home and I have to get the laundry going and then I'm headed outside to help Jacob clean out the truck and the motorhome, which look as if someone turned them inside out and dragged them through a muddy river bed. It's going to take the rest of the day. It was worth it.

Hell and high water.

There is an Allman Brothers revival going on in my dining room this morning, as Jacob plays and shows Henry a few tricks over the remnants of bacon and toast, juice and coffee.

Last night he asked if I would climb with him again if I'm going to live without the constant rollercoaster of antidepressants and mood stabilizers and sleeping pills. I had great plans at one point to conquer my new, ridiculous fear of heights and had started a climbing course for beginners but had to drop out when my reaction times slowed as the medications took over and I kept making pathetic jokes about the gingerbread at the very peak of this house. He didn't want me halfway up any walls then.

Now there is a need. Distractions via living life. Getting back on the horse since we'll soon be out from under a crushing schedule of therapies and talk. And I don't care who disapproves and I don't care who is disappointed and I don't care who might know better. What matters is Ruth and Henry and Jacob and Bridget. Let's not forget Bridget.

I'm going climbing now. A family climb. Our first 'real' family climb ever. I'm scared to death.

Life. lessons.

Open your mind, princess.

Sometime in the last forty-eight hours I learned to use the sky for solace, for reflection, and for comfort. My ocean is going to be jealous, raging lover that she is. But she isn't here, and the sky is and when the clouds come rolling across the endless expanse of blue somehow I feel very small, one of billions and my problems are blips on a radar that doesn't recognize me because it is too busy wrapping the planet in weather and beauty. The inky blue darkness that nestles the moon in a quiet embrace agrees.

And there you have it.

It's a soft grief in writing that. I'm supposed to be the saltwater princess. The girl who could bathe her wounds away, implied or actual, healing her scars in the icy grey water and being swallowed alive, deafened and rendered blind under the waves.

The clouds, the air, none of it affords the same surround.

But it is better than nothing.

I've gone from nothing to everything.

Easy rider.

Jacob is home, with sunburned muscles from riding with a t-shirt on and no jacket. His cords are worn, frayed at the bottom and almost-holes in the back corner pockets. His hair is tousled, his eyes are wild and he stopped on the way and brought home some salad nicoise for dinner.

He came into the house with his riding boots still on, helmet tucked under one arm, put down the take-out and folded me into his arms tightly. He smelled like sweat and fresh air and dust. He grinned and his dimples came easily, a relaxed and relieved smile, just for me.

This is one time there is no question in my mind, no doubts that we're doing the right thing by leaving it all behind. Fixing it was killing us and so instead we need to let it go.

Not sure what the hell I'm going to write about now.

Hmm. Oh yeah, cake.

Sea change.

    Oil streaked daisies covered the living room wall
    He put water-colored roses in her hair
    He said, "Love, I love you, I want to give you mountains, the sunshine,
    the sunset too.
    I just want to give you everything as beautiful as you are to me."
    'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
    A lovely world.
    So they sat down and made a drawing of their love, an art to live by
    They painted every passion, every home, created every beautiful child.
    in the winter they were weavers of warmth,
    in summer they were carpenters of love.
    They thought blue prints were too sad so they made them yellow
So I sat down to write and for several minutes nothing came and I got up and walked away. I keep coming back. There's your metaphor. Tough post today.

Jacob and Sam are off on a day trip, a motorcycle ride to the lakes. A guy thing, probably so that Jacob can seek some guidance from a close confidant and maybe so that Sam can throttle some sense into Jacob at the same time. It was Sam's suggestion that I get a day off from Jacob without weight, without being provinces and days apart, just barely out of arms reach, but enough. For a day. I gave Sam my promise I would just hang out and work on hobbies and write a bit and eat some more of the pears he brought over. Some time alone because Sam trusts me.

Time alone I've barely had.

Time to think about why I'm completely helpless and dependent when Jacob is around and just about perfectly fine when he's not. To reflect on issues Claus runs in circles with. Pills, no pills, low, pills, no pills, low, pills and what the fuck are you doing, Bridget?

I feel like I'm on the power trip of the century and yet I'm not steering the boat. Every time I try to take control I can't seem to manage it and have to step down and let everyone else take over. I've proven I can't be trusted with my own wellness plan. I'm fed supplements and directed to eat like a child. I'm given easy directions to swallow pills and I don't just so I can have control over something. I'm driven to appointments and parked in chairs and asked to spill my guts to strangers and told when to go to bed and when to run and mostly I want to cry.

And why am I not trusted? Because I act like a child. Shhh, don't upset the princess. She'll break into pieces and then what will you have? Jacob lets me get away with it, for it simply reinforces his image of strength and power. Something he clings to when he feels helpless and lost. In the very same way I cling to my fragility as a way to maintain innocence from any real sort of responsibility.

There I said it. I can own it. I can eat those words and admit it because I want him to still be here when I wake up tomorrow for the rest of my life.

Every time we make huge progress in our selves and in our relationship we go through an adjustment period where things seem to fall apart briefly while we incorporate the new and good and find places for those things in amongst the dark and the baggage that's piled up to our ears and we usually wind up throwing out something we no longer need, some type of issue that just up and dies. It's good, but it's so hard. A brief suffocation. This time we were ready for it and that's the best progress ever in the history of the world.

It's very hard to gloss and here I am trying to peel my skin off while standing behind a curtain for modesty. I don't have other words to somehow keep counseling private and yet deal with it.

Jacob again threw a surprise iron on the fire that I thought was long gone and then he had the nerve to yell at me in that office that I should be the last one to be surprised and that was when I walked out yesterday.

His obsession with me.

It's worse, not better. I still can't wrap my brain around it, but I've always known about it, if that makes sense. He always was obsessed with me, and I used that, and I wrapped him around my finger so tightly and yet he still went off and did his own thing and he seemed to have such a good handle on it and then when we got together and got married I figured it was impossible to be obsessed with your own wife.

And I was wrong.

So very wrong.

He is positively weakened by it, by me. He has changed his life in extreme measures to be with me and even then he changed careers to look after me and to help me get better while he got worse, quietly. He's worried about the slippery slope all the way downhill tumbley-fall he's going to take when the day comes that he acts on the urges he has to control me.

Control me like Cole did.

Maybe there is something in the water here.

No, there's something in the Bridget and it ruins people.

I can't think about it, it's too overwhelming. He can't not think about it, it's all-consuming. I asked him if I was his God of the moment because I was angry and he swore at me. Sometimes I think he hates me for what I have done to him. He'll tell me out loud that he doesn't, without even hearing my question first and it's frustrating. I have power over him I've never known exactly how to work, and he has a weakness for me that somehow gives him strength.

And we've got an army of professionals, well-meaning friends and oblivious family who all think they know what will work for us and we're about to ditch all of them. Because we did better when we had less help. No one can agree and this is impossible.

Oddly, the less help I have always had, the fewer places to hide, the better I fared. Because I feed off the attention, and because life is easier without the reminder that I brought down the giant with a smile and he'll never be the same.

I'm eating crow today, for breakfast, lunch, dinner and possibly a bedtime snack. It's an all-day buffet and I'm stuffed but I'll keep eating it until he sees that I love him for him and I don't want all this other bullshit. I just want us to be left alone. He wants us to be left alone too but at the same time he's afraid of himself.

I don't think he has anything to worry about. He's proven himself a million times over and I trust him with my life, understandably because he's caught it in his hands already, like a reflex, like a precious gift that he's been given and I can't picture him ever doing different and so we talked at length over the past few days about deeper things, if you can believe we can get deeper than anyone has previously dug. We needed lights and miner's helmets. But we agreed on one thing.

A leap of faith, taken together.

By the end of the month everything will be gone, my precious Claus, the marriage counselling we've quit three times already, the perpetual prescriptions I ignore, the directions and exercises and advice and afterthoughts, the meddling, the experiments and the constant beat-down we've put ourselves through in the name of happily ever after, when happily ever after went and started without us. We've given it almost a year and so it's time to get moving.

All of it. Gone.

So we can just be.

Just be us. Jacob and Bridget. Pure and simple. Iron & Wine.

Dumb and Dumber. (Okay, I couldn't resist).

Hood ornament.

Ha, I just realized that title could give you the idea that I'm going to start talking about body mods again, I'm not. Believe it or don't, some things are sort of private. Last night Loch made a crack on the phone about wondering if I was merely Jacob's very own hood ornament because I always seem to be stuck to the front of him and he asked if nothing was sacred anymore.

You would think that would be a question Jacob would have regarding me writing about our sex life but in all honesty everything is sacred and some things are private while some are not and when I share things it's because I'm still marveling that sex can be like this in the first place. That it can be good, and hardcore and crazy and awesome and have everything I do want and I no longer have to withstand the parts I don't want. I apologize if I made anyone (Loch) uncomfortable but my entire adult life up until last year was spent not understanding that not everyone conducts their grown-up sex lives like Cole and I did, so forgive me if I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to getting used to this.

If you wanted today's barometer, I think you might be surprised to find we're all home today with a fridge full of juice and fruit and we're saddled with tornado colds and heat headaches and the kids are draped all over the living room in varying degrees of shorts and undershirts with juice and ice and a stack of DVDs to keep their brains from melting while I stick my whole face into a homemade English muffin that my new neighbor sent over upon hearing through our neighborhood grapevine that she lives next door to the minister and his wife, who isn't nearly as pulled together as she seems.

She came over and sheepishly offered to take the wine back (awkward), which was still sitting by the back door and in exchange she gave me a huge basket of fresh crumpety muffins and I'm just about in heaven here because last night she popped back over with real butter, because you know, sometimes there's a butter emergency.

We're going to be great friends.

Pair the muffins and butter with this homemade apple jelly and I've been reduced this morning to licking my lips, my fingers, the plate and even the keyboard here where a dollop may or may not have landed. Jacob looked at me a little while ago and told me he thinks his crushing out on me is over now and he laughed so hard. You would think he wouldn't tease but he loves to see me enjoy food like this.

I would say this muffin is better than cake, but then I'd be such a whore and a cheat, since I love cake beyond words.

Instead I'll say it's better than sex.

Serves him right.

No worries, nothing is better than sex with Jacob.

Mondays are special, it seems.

Unapologetically and probably unwelcome, a round of underwater porn.

Because I feel like sharing. Ha.

It was a different kind of hunger that woke Jacob after midnight last night. I was asleep in the guest room because our bed was full of dirt from his clothes and even though he was there I just couldn't. You wouldn't have believed how long I wrestled with not sleeping there but ultimately decided he had made too much of a mess for me to be comfortable.

He shook me awake gently, crouching on the floor by the bed. His hair was wet, his body stark magnificently naked. I remember mumbling something about being sorry for not sleeping with him but there's dirt everywhere and he laughed softly and said he was sorry for making such a wreck of the room but that he had changed the bed and had a shower and now there's a hot bath ready if I wanted to join him for a midnight soak.

God, it was so hard to wake up. He made it easier by kissing me full on the lips and then I can't resist anything. He slid his arms around me and pulled me to sitting and I rested my head on his shoulder while he whispered how good it would feel to slide into the hot water.

I nodded, so sleepily. It would mmmkay.

He took my hand and led me into the bathroom. There was a single candle lit on the table and a mountain of bubbles in the tub. I stepped in and sat down and he sat down across from me and laughed out loud when I put my head on the edge of the tub and closed my eyes again. He pulled me into his arms again and lifted me right into his lap, so my legs were on either side of his thighs. I put my arms around his neck and my head down on his shoulder and he stirred so powerfully I was instantly awake. I traced droplets down his arms and he smiled and leaned me so far back into the water I closed my eyes, expecting to go under, into the warmth and instead he pushed me out and then pulled me back until he was inside me, under the water, the warmth now accompanied by a heat of a different kind.

He began a slow and steady rhythm against me, holding me just at the surface of the water, his hands supporting my neck and shoulders and his other hand gripping my thigh so hard. He bent his head over and kissed my belly and then got on his knees and pushed me under, until only my head was clear of the surface and he kissed me until I went under with him and suddenly it was a drowning embrace and we were sharing one precious breath as I came so hard my ears popped and his hands tightened around me as he followed.

Because, my God, underwater sex is the very best kind.

He lifted me back out until I was sitting up once again and he held me until the water was cold, pressed to his chest so hard I felt his heart slow until his breathing was quiet. I felt the tension leaving him so slowly it was visceral. I clung to that, I always will.

I climbed off his legs and had to convince him to let me go. He followed me out of the water and he pulled the plug and then I shared my towel with him so that he would wrap us together for a moment. He dried my hair with one corner and then hung the towel up and led me, by the hand, into our bedroom which now looked clean and fresh and so inviting.

We climbed under the crisp sheet together and whatever hunger he had for me that woke him up came back with a vengeance. He wasn't ready for sleep, he hadn't wanted to let go, not yet, not ever. He tried the same position on land, and it was amazingly successful, with me hung out in his hand over the bed, levitating and vibrating all over the place as he tasted every inch of me and made me his so many times I'm sure if you watch carefully I'm walking a little funny today.

I bit him without meaning to, hung over his shoulder with his arm squeezing me so hard I was trying to breathe and I bit him and it was way harder than usual so maybe to retaliate and maybe to protect himself he took my head in his hand and pressed it into his chest hard, because it's too firm to bite into. He's glorious. All I could do was hold on to his neck while he went at me with every ounce of energy he had found in sleep and more. At one point I braced my feet against his arms and he yanked me right down underneath him and smiled at me and I smiled back and it was as if we could read each other's minds. Only instead of lifting me back up he turned me facedown and opted for his whispers while I tried not to make so much noise. He likes the noise, I just don't want the kids to wake up. He pressed his forehead into the dip between my shoulders and made noise anyway. He has no self-control anymore. He doesn't need it anymore.

It was hours before we were finally sated. Even though I don't think we'll ever have enough. Not of each other. It could never happen.

I fell asleep with my head on his Bridget tattoo, our fingers laced together, his breathing calm after a long while, his fingertips tracing my arm, my face. And then within that hour the alarm went off and we were forced to return to reality with an audible crash. Back to earth, back to routine.

Damn.

I need sleep tonight to prevent the inevitable crash of wits and happiness. I need a break from this day because I never wanted to crawl out of that night. I need his arms to keep me safe and his flesh to make me feel alive. I need to keep breathing his air that I had underwater that was dangerously profound for us.

Well, fuck it. I think what I need is a cup of coffee.

And a nap.

And possibly an ice pack.

Sleeping giant.

The fragility seems to be waning in his eyes as this afternoon Jacob taught me how to use most of the power tools in the house on our way to making a new fence, gates and steps. We spent all afternoon in the sun quietly going over the best ways to do certain things, while Ruth and Henry blew bubbles for the dog to eat and visited with friends in the neighborhood as they would come by to see what was happening. The truck and the bike stayed parked, the phone went unanswered and it was fun. So much fun. Especially after a typically busy Sunday morning.

I think this afternoon Jacob worked too hard. He came in and said he was headed for a short nap and I heard his boots hit the floor upstairs and never heard another sound. I cleaned up the tools, got the kids their baths, made a light supper for the three of us and then put the kids to bed, figuring he needed the sleep so they tiptoed in and kissed his cheek.

When I checked him a little while ago, he was still sleeping hard. Flat on his back with his hands flung hither and yon like Henry when he's sacked out. Filthy flannel shirt over filthy white t-shirt. Jeans covered with dirt and grease. Sawdust all over the place.

And the sweetest, most contented sleep-expression I have ever seen.

I doubt he'll be back up tonight. He's going to be one hungry giant tomorrow morning.

Maverick angels.

(It's Saturday and I'm somehow needing cheat notes for conversations that should have been harder but weren't. Idn't dat fullish, b'y as Jake would say, untranslated by me. Yes, isn't that foolish.)

Jacob's look when he came inside and found me holding Gabe as he slept blissfully spoke volumes I've never read before. He came over and looked down at Gabe and then back at me and asked if I was okay.

I nodded.

I've pretty much managed to avoid so much contact with Gabe (and other babies) up until now. I've stayed home on dedication days through the winter and politely declined to attend baptisms and birthdays. I've sent dozens of presents out with other people. Mostly the dedications, because seeing Jacob holding a baby might tear my heart into pieces.

It did. It totally did.

Gabe woke up shortly after Jake returned and when he did I passed him to Jacob to hold while I sorted through the bag for a new diaper and when I turned back to get Gabe the sight of Jacob holding him hurt a hell of a lot more than I thought it would. He knew it did and he quickly put Gabe on the blanket on the floor that I had spread out to change him on.

It was yet another lesson in learning to pretend things don't hurt for the presence of future adults who have nothing to do with your own bullshit. Such is life, maybe I have more tools than I realize. I swallowed that pain like it was just a bitter lemon and it was gone.

Happy dysfunction, as we pretended everything was just ducky for the remainder of our afternoon with Gabe and when his mom picked him up we gave him back with a weird mixture of complete relief and a fleeting hint of agonizing regret. Jacob closed the door and I fell into a chair, worn out.

When suddenly I realized I hadn't been pretending to have fun, I did have fun.

I'm proud of you.

For what? Not trying to slip in my agenda of converting the world to cloth diapers?

Well, maybe that, but mostly for not making Gabe aware that it was hard for you to spend time with him.

It always worked for you.

Oh, Bridge.

I'm sure he knew. Babies sense things.

So do grown men.

Oh, that smarts.

You're beautiful.

So are you, Jacob. (losing it now, of course)

I must be. I got the call this morning. I'm booked in for early September. (Vasectomy! Oog.)

Oh God. Are we ready for this?

Are you kidding? As miraculous as Gabriel was, as any child would be, it's nice when they go home, and it's nice in the evenings when the kids go to bed and I have you all to myself, selfish bastard that I am. I've spent the winter dedicating new lives to God and watching families grow and we're growing in a different way, we're growing roots. We're building our foundation and making our permanence and we don't need a third child to do that. We've got everything we need. I have the most amazing wife and my children, my girl and my boy and we're complete. I got past the want, princess. It was one of those idealistic romanticized fool's errands and it's passed now. It's been gone for a long time.

Not a regret?

I have no regrets. You?

So, so many, Jake.

Let 'em go, baby girl. It's a weight you weren't meant to carry. Let's close that chapter and start a new one.

Now you sound like me.

Yeah, except I don't have your ridiculous Nova Scotia accent.

Hey now, calm your jealousy.

I'm pretending you didn't just say that.