Some days ago, well actually weeks ago now, when it was still the Easter break is when it happened. It was a friday and we woke up to no children in the house as Grandma had taken them in for two nights, three days. We woke early wanting to make the most of the day and headed out just us two with Wiley blasting in the car on our drive to Leamington. Leamington, a town of old that we've frequented before sans children. We have also visited often with the children but we have a few favourite places to go when it's just us. Coffee, cake, slow walks and ambling, window shopping without the rush rush whispers and then shouts of busy wild things yelling for the days itinerary. Time to glance and then look at paintings, time to have conversations with people in commercial galleries and hear stories of paintings of chickens made as gifts for loved ones. Time. Just time. Time to find old record shops and search through vinyl, time to sift through 7 inch records digging for birthday treasure for a friend. Enough seconds and minutes to gather some of the memories of time spent like this from our early relationship days. Moments long enough to take me back to newlywed days spent drifting along the streets and side roads of our beloved Oxford, fingers and eyes locked and fixed on the journey, us, he and I, her and him, you and me. Opportunity to reflect a little on it all. This journey of ours. These little creatures that we created that continue to grow and unfurl and take over our household. I say this in the best kind of way, the kind of roots bursting out of the pot kind of way, brilliant healthy seedlings sprouting and ready to root in a greater, wider world. You feel precious of course, about these seedlings that you have nurtured tirelessly but you don't want to stunt their growth, they have to exposed to the elements, it's vital in order for them to reach their potential. Yet the growing pains are there, the dull aches, the heart break, the joy of seeing them winning, of us winning, the pain of seeing their struggles and losses and of our struggles and losses, but mostly the breath, the exuberant life giving breath of life being lived. That is the picture that I took on this day that we spent together. It is stored and logged as one of those nothing much happening, easy like a sunday morning when it's not a sunday morning kind of days. One of those, one day I'm gonna take you to eat Syrian food at that place nearby that we just never end up going to kinda days. We'll quote films, talk art and travel and when we grow old type of talk and it will feel so good kind of days, the ones that roll from morning to noon to night so effortlessly, so pleasurably that you keep checking your watch to see how much time has passed because you don't want it to end. You. Me. Me and you. Just us, all day long and round the clock. These are the days of our lives they say, well, I believe them. Let me not forget. In the day-to-day, of busyness and tiredness and budgets and letters and childcare planning and work and homework and guitar practice and ironing and not dusting, not ever remembering to dust and washing and hair washes and cooking and shopping and brushing of almost adolescent teeth and phonically and messages and birthdays and parties and weekend walks and adventures and all of it. In all of it, let me remember, just us and this day and days like this. The ones that roll from morning, to noon to night so effortlessly. Easy, easy like a sunday morning. Just us. Me. You. Me and you.
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| The Look by Siyuan Ren |
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| Art by Siyuan Ren |
