There is a lightness in the air

In this whole turmoil of life, Conrad has my back. He is my number one fan. Encouraging. Serving. Generous with his time and gifts. He makes me feel safe and loved and seen and delightful. 

At the beginning of winter I have been all kind of tired and irritated, but this whole year conrad was never inconvenient or bothersome or irritating. 

I say this because by the second year of marriage I got burdened by married life, Conrad’s differences and life as it was. Though I was in California, and we were establishing a life, the routine was draining the life out of me, the stressful job, the financial worries, the expectations, having someone with me all the time… 

Then, when we moved to romania, the first half a year was depressing and tiring. I had lost my professional identity, and I didn’t enjoy my singular / not diverse / full time company. Anyone who has lived through a year of pandemic, being around your spouse all the time, can bring to the surface all the small inconveniences and discrepancies of perspective. To put it bluntly: our spouse annoys us. Our kids annoy us more than usual because there is no break from each other’s company. 

So to my delight, this year my spouse didn’t get on my nerve. On occasions I longed for complete solitude but for the most part, I enjoy his company. It took 7 years of practice. Fine-tuning. It is a delight to laugh at his jokes or sarcasm. It is comforting to be quiet together. 

Tonight we were on a weekly class. With respectable people. We were talking about serous stuff. And conrad played with the zoom preferences and put a very discreet mustache and beard and big eyebrows on my face. The light was dim and you could only see it when I came closer to the screen. So, as I was reading something I saw it. He didn’t turn off the silly thing. So we burst into laughter. We were both readers for the class and we were laughing like school kids. Giggling silly. Oh my! I’ve gone through all the emotions in this class. I laugh, I cry, I empathize I worry I share and I listen. But this was not just laughing. Was giggling uncontrollably though we did everything in our power to stop. Our friends had grace and put up with our craziness. We recovered and hopefully they will take it as our poem.

Irreverence 

My goofy husband strikes again

Very few people see 
this beautiful side of him.

I try to stifle a laughter 
To no avail. 

At least we were not studying lament 
we were immersing into praise.

Can wholehearted laughter 
be a kind of praise? 

So irreverent…

But Jesus said to be like Childen.
So here we are
Giggling in church.

Brushed by the Holy Spirit
It tickles and it’s so funny. 

Giggling in church.
So irreverent 
So childlike 

And yet…

a way our heart praises God today.