An Ode To The Sweetheart

This is the story of my other half. The Sweetheart. I will try to make this short; he'd say that my writings were too long and winding, and who reads that far, anyway? Ahh, but most journeys are one ever-lasting labyrinth, I'd counter..so here is my short and not-so-short post....

Because, by all accounts, I am almost certifiably a tree-hugger, this stark picture online caught my attention, the other day:

It is, indeed, a tree grown round a bike. A friend eventually pointed out that this tree was found on an Island in Washington State, and the story goes that a boy left the bike against the tree in 1914 to go to war, and never returned. The tree then grew around it.

This led to another friend to volunteer more pictures, from Iowa, where a farmer, because of war, left his plow against a tree and it, too, grew around the plow. Those pics are HERE.

While I can't be sure if these stories are literally or just figuratively war stories (did they both really leave for war?), there is no doubt these images are startling. And deeply meaningful, at least for a lost poet like myself. That each plant, for all intensive purposes, decided--with audacity-- to grow around, and despite, its foreign companion, and make it a part of itself, is but one interpretation. That the trees have taken these items into their souls is another....these are the sorts of stories that have powered a good bit of my life, but it leaves others scratching their heads....

You might laugh, knowing that there are still people who hold onto their dreams just a bit more than reality, and this has driven the Sweetheart mad, a time or two. How does any man hold onto to such an untamed bramble such as myself? While I don't eschew reality altogether (I am possibly the most responsible, pay-the -bills, schedule-to-within-an-inch-of- my-life type person I know), it is not what gets me out of bed in the morning. And to the naysayer of Dreamers I simply say, "reality" is an ever changing, unguaranteed thing as well. We are all vulnerable to its changing tides. If your foundation is within, there is no place you cannot go.

However, I won't fib: my foundation is a bit ramshod at the moment. Somewhere back on the trail I lost the little dreams of stability. A farm , planting seeds, the ideas of chickens and EGGS. Quilts, hammocks, pies on Sundays. A fun wedding. And even with these picture perfect ideas, I wouldn't have minded the hard work. I revel in it. I feel useful then. I suppose these things are frivolous, but I'm so far into my blinders with these goals that I sometimes don't see the forest for the trees.

So I suppose instead of mourning, I simply moved along...all jangled-like.Which I do often, this moving forward thing. And when you're the Sweetheart to a person like me--all vim and vinegar-- it's a tough beating to go side saddle.  So this note, really, is an  open letter, an Ode To Sweetheart and the men like him.

It's funny, because every time I talk about my adventures, and speak of the man who has made it possible, people stare at me WIDE eyed. Who  IS this SUPERMAN who lets you be yourself? Conversely, I've heard stories of other lucky lasses and their Superhero men. Oh, they seem to be rare, indeed. A man of good humor that deals with my antique obsession, my performance penchant, and every little insecurity, worry, dancing in the halls and singing out of tune... do these people really exist? And fool's heart: he thinks I'm pretty! He's stood out in the snow (because I love it. He does not), for the trifling idea to make me happy.  I think it is hard for him, at times, to know the extent of my hard fought dreams and crazy adventures (and perhaps subsequent letdowns), this reluctant mountain-man to my crazy pioneer/mountain woman.

In many ways, we are opposites. But like a man-made thing of metal encompassed by a giant thing of nature, perhaps these opposites will encompass each other, healing and growing together. 
And that, my friends, is my best short-and-not-so-short post...