Sharing a life with someone means accepting their influence on your life and bearing witness to each other's lives. Their influence on the mental, emotional, and physical world is a joy and struggle that comes from working together, sometimes apart, to create a life both people feel proud of having lived.
I like sharing my life with the ones I choose to be committed to everyday, my spouse, my son, my daughter. Usually, I welcome the way my family alters the otherwise quiet sounds of a home. I have the experience of both being a single parent for long stretches and also being alone for weeks at a time because of the path that my love and I have chosen. The extremes in daily life experiences have given me a thankfulness for solitude when it comes and for the controlled jolly chaos that children bring. I have had the visceral impact of being without either for too long.
Today, the house is filled with the noise of Saturday morning child's play. The movement of little plastic lego pieces, the chatter of imaginary My Little Pony conversations, the sound of the oven turing on and off as the afternoon's casserole bakes. But the symphony of sound and sight that completes our home is missing a whole section. I am missing the physical influence and impact that sharing my life with one other person brings.
I am missing the sound of my husband cleaning up the large steel pan after a breakfast of poached eggs that only he can make. The sound of the pan clinking against the aluminum sink side is not ringing. It rarely rings out unless he is here. Making poached eggs is not one of my talents.
I miss the smell of granola cooking. The smell of caramelizing sugar and vanilla that has come to mean reassurance. The smell has been ingrained in my limbic system and instantly brings comfort.
I miss the lightest leap of my heart when his key turns the lock. The sound confirming that he is home after dodging the insane drivers on the Garden State Parkway.
Clinking of pans, turning of locks, wafting smells. I cherish the ways that special people impact my intimate physical daily routines because I live much of my life in my mind. I don't create things. I deal with ideas, impacts on the inner person, unseeable structures and organization with the hopes that I am creating something of meaning. Love, care, and commitment are also those ethereal elements that make up a relationship. But, the physical experience of living life together with the sights, smells, sounds of daily life have come to embody quiet, concrete happiness to me.
Although, much of world is moving towards the ethereal: the iCloud of information, the bytes of data that store our lives on Facebook, texting instead of hearing a voice on the other end, e-cards, a service vs. manufacturing economy, and the list goes on. I increasingly value the physical confirmations of the "realness" of my daily relationships. I value the singular way that loved ones disturb the atoms around them and leave a sensory impact on my mind.
As the hurried days of my life moves quickly from morning routines, commute, job, dinner, bedtime routines, and the much awaited six hours of sleep, there is not much time to share with the ones I love the ways that I cherish their movements in my daily life. Some people may be better than I at this, but my days seem to slip by without the moments of reflection and connection that my inner self needs. And, I am guessing, those around us need it as well. I am guessing that when the last moments of my life come, I will descend into my limbic system and my brain will help me to recall the sensory patterns that made up my life with my closest family. My hope is that those around me will know how much I cherished their daily influence on my life. In the words of James Taylor, "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it, there ain't nothing to it. Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill. But since we're on our way down we might as well enjoy the ride."
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