town council

it is hard not to want to run - either for the hills or for town council...when the belligerence of bureaucratic red tape leaves a little whip mark on your face. i eat chocolate and talk way too fast on the phone. i google legos, ramble through e-bay, craigslist, turn to email, chew. one house is too big, one lot too small. an ego excavated, another bent into tiny pieces of busy-ness that annoy. we tolerate with shrewd boredom the spinster and her allegations. i find half a pretzel and some string cheese at the bottom of my purse.....and announce it...at just the wrong time.
remember when we were just so in love with being in love that every act was a sort of celebration of the grace of being able to do it? i burned the pans with every artichoke, you ate my salmon lasagna even though by its very nature, it was inedible. i blushed when you looked at me. now, it is not the being in love with being in love but the loving the lover that's so irresistible. your warm hand across the small of my back in the middle of the night - the coffee in bed that always has too much cream but is the best i have ever had because you brought it to me. the way you wrestle with the boys every freaking night right before bed - winding them back up after i have just calmed them down with warm dinners and baths and books. how you cannot help but make me laugh when i am mad. all of this i come home to while i imagine the town criers are alone. these are the reasons for the incessant comments and calls to order, the fussing. if everyone could just see in the other the way he loves that one special person specially - with a roundness or a forgiveness or a soft heart, the war would be over. you know the one.