Coop_ A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting - Michael Perry [41]
I’m glad I had a friend like Eric Jakobs. He taught me a nice lesson in humility. He was a better draw’er than me. Period. He taught me what it’s like to realize you aren’t the best at something, and no amount of positive thinking or self-esteem building will change that fact, and you better figure out a way to live in light of that fact because other instances are pending.
A woman recommended by our midwife has come to the house to give us birthing instructions. It is a cold day, but the sun is shining warmly through the window and spotlighting the carpet of the living room floor, where we are pretending to have a baby. The instructor has been very thorough, and it is neat to receive instruction right here in our home. At one point she puts Anneliese on all fours in a stance intended to relieve lower back pain during labor. Then she rotates me around back in a massage position, and Anneliese and I get the giggles because, without putting too fine a point on it, the maneuvering reminds us of how we wound up in this situation in the first place. When the instructor leaves, I fear she may be upset with us over our lack of seriousness, but what she may not realize is that this hour on the carpet has been the best date Anneliese and I have had for months. It has been too long since we had a conspiratorial giggle. Last month I bought a card with a line drawing of a beautiful lady in a red backless gown. Today I took colored pencils and put a round red belly on the lady, then two valentine hearts—one hovering above the lady’s chest and one tinier one above the curve of her belly.
When we married, I was a bachelor of some thirty-nine years. Anneliese was a single mom raising a three-year-old while teaching Spanish at the university. We met in a public library when I was seated at a table selling books. I carry an abiding image of Amy’s pale blue eyes looking up at me and her mother’s matching pair just above. For our first official date we met in a coffee shop, talked forever, and then took a long walk that is currently approaching its fifth year. While I took some ribbing about the evaporation of my singletude and gave up my New Auburn address, it is Anneliese who is bearing the brunt of change: leaving her teaching position, carrying the baby, homeschooling Amy, and tending our new place the many days I am away or sequestered in the office. I love my wife for her willingness to take these leaps, her strengths where I am weak, the way when she smiles it is utterly without reserve, and yes, her clear blue eyes, as startling this morning as when I saw them in the library that first day.
She has been caught off guard by the difficulty of this pregnancy. When she was carrying Amy she spent a month hiking in Central America—at one point climbing a volcano. She experienced none of the persistent weariness, or the spates of contractions that come and go. Her belly is big now, and she walks with her shoulders back to counter the weight. I watch her sometimes when she doesn’t know, and just like when I sit down to write her a card, the close study precipitates a sense of pleasant wonder that I have a wife and this is her. Last night we went out to eat with friends, and it was good to see Anneliese laughing in conversation. While we were waiting for the food to arrive, Anneliese and I held hands beneath the table, and at one point she gave my wedding ring a little wiggle just like when we were first married and couldn’t quite believe it. When we left the restaurant we held hands again and she leaned her head against my shoulder as we walked to the car and I opened the door for her like any good boy on a first date would.
The big farmhouse in Chippewa County is mostly empty now. Mom and Dad still provide respite care for profoundly disabled children, and they have full-time responsibility