Slow Learner

"You make me better than I am." 

-Fred Savage to Winnie on The Wonder Years

On the way home from an early Valentine's dinner last night, I was telling Sam about Janie Mae Crawford and her sweet talking, sweet loving man Tea Cake. These are the two main characters in Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which I just finished reading with my eleventh graders—just in time for Valentine's Day (you're welcome boys!). I was telling Sam about the moment in the book when Janie realizes that Tea Cake is the real thing and she experiences, as Hurston describes it, a "self-crushing love." We were talking about Quinn and I was saying that for the first time in my life, I think I really understand what true love is; I have never experienced a "self-crushing" anything until now…I have always been more Emersonian in my self-centeredness!

Sam grinned patiently as I explained that I would do anything for Quinn and that while I have loved him truly for a long time (ten years this summer), I wouldn't say I was ever willing to do any self-crushing for him. He's used to my honesty by now.

One time, years ago, someone asked me about Sam; this was before Sam and I got married and this person wondered if I had met my "soul mate." My response was quick and unplanned: "I don't think my soul has a mate; I'm too independent. But I do think I've met my match." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I thought, "Hmm, that was interesting." I had never really thought about myself or my relationship in that way before; I had always hoped for a soul mate, so I was surprised by this matter-of-fact response.

My parents had set a high bar for me: they were best friends, high school sweethearts who were still madly in love when my mother died twenty-three years into their marriage. I experienced serious teenage disgust when I would find them dancing in the living room in the middle of the day, or making out in the garage when I opened the door to take out the garbage.

But even though I was grossed out on the surface, those moments got filed away in my expectations for later years. Through the years I had many nice boyfriends. In fact, I never had a bad one; they were all, every one of them, sweet and thoughtful and attentive and affectionate. And, one after another, I passed them up in order to "keep with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Then I met Sam. We were in a ten-day Wilderness First Responder class in New Hampshire. He lived and taught in Virginia at the time, and I taught for a traveling school based in Vermont. I lived out of a storage unit, a backpack and my truck. I was sitting in the front row on the first day when we went around the room and introduced ourselves. I heard this sexy voice from somewhere behind me, "I'm Sam," he said, and he mentioned that he was a high school history teacher. I had to turn around. When I swiveled back toward the front of the room, a fellow teacher from my school, who was taking the class as well, caught the look on my face. "Wow," I whispered with a wide-eyed smile and he laughed at me.

Later that morning, the instructors said some of us had to move our cars; we were parked in the wrong place. I headed out to move my pickup, which was loaded with my kayaking and climbing gear. I saw Sam out of the corner of my eye; I watched to see what he was driving. He was headed to another pickup, which was loaded with his kayaking and climbing gear. I knew then that love at first sight was real, and I also knew that I would someday marry him.

Our first kayaking date on the Lehigh River in PA, September 2001

What I didn't know at the time was that before I could marry him, I would have to experience a number of reality checks that were neither romantic nor even pleasant, and that I would learn for certain that Sam was not perfect, and, even more shocking, neither was I. It was in those moments that I had some internal shift regarding soul mates. Meeting my match, someone who could still be himself even in the admittedly overbearing presence of my self, well, maybe that was more important to me than finding a perfect mate. This was a man worth holding onto.

And so I have held on—sometimes for dear life, and other times with only two fingers at an arm's length. It doesn't matter to me how we hold on, just that we do. The peaks now are higher and the valleys less deep, and our patterns make sense enough that we know how to avoid some of the Clash of the Titans brawls we used to have. In fact, we've come to have fun telling some of our fight stories, though we usually find that no one else finds them quite as funny as we do. We are very different, but we are very much alike in our stubbornness and our will to win. Like I said, I've met my match.

So last night, as I was explaining that for the first time in my life, I love someone in a self-crushing way, I expected him to share my feelings about our daughter…our daughter, it is still a stunning concept to me!

To my surprise, Sam's response was, "sometimes." Only sometimes does he have for her that overwhelming I would do absolutely anything for you and you are the most important aspect of every minute of my day kind of feeling. I chose not to dwell too long on my disappointed surprise, believing then and even now that this will change for him over time. I know my connection to Quinn is perhaps more biological than it is for him. I have always had Mother Lion tendencies with the people I love, but now I am really a mother and my inner lion is fierce. Hopefully he'll catch up someday.

When we got home, I went straight to bed, exhausted. Quinn has been waking up more rather than less for the past six weeks and I think I am starting to suffer from prolonged sleep deprivation. I've started to dread going to bed at night, because I know I will be up and down and more tired the next day. The same is true for Sam. And so by four o'clock this morning, when I got back into bed, again, and Sam dared to breathe audibly, I threw an unabashed fit. "Can't you even try?" I yelled. He threw back the sheets and stormed off snapping back, "I'm not doing anything!" I couldn't believe he was going to leave me alone upstairs because that meant no more taking turns dealing with Quinn; I would be the only one who could hear her and therefore I would be the only one getting up. Happy friggin' Valentine's Day to you too, I thought.

Quinn and I made it to 7 a.m., at which time I fed her and changed her one last time and then deposited her on her mat next to the couch where Sam was sleeping. I walked back upstairs to bed listening to her chirp, relieved that she was no longer my problem.

By 8:30 I woke up and the house was quiet. Guilt washed over me. I had been mean, and I had not been a team player. I got up and got dressed, prepared to go downstairs and apologize, again, for behavior that I am embarrassed to admit has become a bit routine. The house was empty, the coffee was still hot, and the truck was gone from the driveway.

Twenty minutes later, they came home. Sam came in through the basement, something we do when we are trying not to wake the sleeping baby…I was the sleeping baby. When he came up the stairs, with the car seat in tow, and saw me sitting by the woodstove, his face lit up. "Good morning!" he said with his bright smile, and I burst into tears. I couldn't believe he wasn't mad at me. He came over to give me a kiss, laughed off my meanness and said, "It's just a nighttime thing! I love you."

That was one of those moments I hung on for dear life. I felt run down, my back sore despite the massage Sam sent me for yesterday, mascara smudged under my eyes from last night's dinner date he planned, my hair desperately needing a cut. "You're beautiful," he said. I laughed and cried all at once. Sometimes Sam's imagination drives me crazy. I'm a reality-based thinker; I tend to stop myself at what's possible right now. Sam spends a portion of every day concocting elaborate plans that often strike me as wildly impractical if not impossible. But this morning, when he managed to still love me, and convince himself that I was beautiful, well, I felt profoundly grateful for his imagination. And I realized he has probably known a lot more about love, for a lot longer than I have. Hopefully I'll catch up someday.

Raising Day, July 2007