Wife.

It means nothing but what we make of it.

(the following pictures = the wife in her many states.)

"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."  -Rainer Maria Rilke

(love her)

(New York ready)

The other day, W took time out of his crazy work schedule to tell me (via email), that something I had said the night before had impressed him.  He did the kind of thing that one usually does when courting another...not after knowing them for 10 years.  It reminded me that we both do that sort of thing more often than I think; and that I admire that about our relationship. When I read his words, it gave me butterflies (the free, colorful kind, not the dark, trapped kind) in my stomach.  I pointed out that we must be doing something right if we can still make the other feel:  chills from a new hand accidentally brushing our own, tingling lips the way a first kiss awakens us, (in a instant) loneliness transforming entirely into familial warmth---after all these years we're still learning about each other as if we're anxiously awaiting only our 3rd conversation---so much that lives inside the beautiful shell of a person, undiscovered, who sits in front of you, only waiting to be discovered by you...and you by them.

(morning and glasses.)

(meet: great grandma betsy)

newness.  When we decided to get married, this is one thing that I knew I couldn't live without and I knew we had found in each other.  passion.  for life, in each other, and in all things we do (together or apart)...recognizing this in the other person and constantly supporting it, ferociously. wholeness. We would not be together, would not have truly uninhibitedly seen the other if we were not first whole within our own selves.  I find solace in this idea.  I find strength in my own independence, through my husband---crazy, I know.  ambition. to push yourself and your partner farther than you ever thought you could go.  music and art. inspire each other.  do these things together.  a lot.  support. faith and loyalty in all things we do.  love. strong, deep, the never-stopping-always-searching-for-more kind of love.  truth and honesty. who are you without these two things?  You owe them to the other and you owe them to yourself...for all time.  we must always seek out the deepest of truths and then we are honoring our purest and most beautiful selves.

(business and crispness)

(wife.  wiiiiiiiife?  wife. WIFE.  wife!!  wife.)

I really like the German poet, Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet and highly recommend reading it if you have even a glimpse of a human heart.  It's a quick read and it moves me every time. I am a wife. I like being one. it is an honor. ***Song of the Moment: Stillness is the Move, by the Dirty Projectors***