More About Derek

A few days ago, Sally Goraemon said something that I've been thinking about ever since.

I fought so much with my husband before...now that they've taken him, I regret it every second. Cherish the time you have with Derek!

. . . Remember the wonderful beginnings -- don't forget them! It's what we need in these hard times. Memory is all that sustains me in through these wretched days.

I think maybe I'm giving you guys the wrong impression of Derek, because I tend to only tell you the worst parts. Of course he makes me crazy sometime, and of course our marriage, like any, is a lot of work. But oh, there's so much good stuff, too.

So here are some of the things that I love about him, not in any particular order:

1. He saved me and our baby from the evil robot monkeys.

2. He has a really great ass.

3. He loves me so much that he turned his back on the community he grew up with in order to be with me. It would have been easier for him to stay - but he chose me, and he's chosen me again every day since then.

4. He snorts when he laughs really hard, and that just makes him laugh more.

5. He reads me poetry. Right now we're working our way through Jane Hirschfield:

For What Binds Us

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down --
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest --

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

Thanks, Sally.