River Dreaming

It is still too early in to Hubs's new work routine for me to have too awful many clues what to expect from it. My clearest expectations are a repeat of his year of contract work back in the 90's. With no co-workers to insert the idea of going home after a long day in the office, his idea of time off came to mean taking a shower before he returned to work naked. He earned more money as a contractor than he ever had as an employee, but our home came to feel like the Pentagon: Stick Up Ass Required for Admittance. With all due respect, Sir, can we add a "Clothing Required" clause? It was downright prohibitive to the High School students who had been using the house for a hangout. There goes the adolescant social life.

Hubs has grown allot since then. So have our combined partner communication skills. His executive work-a-holic stripes are still evident in everything he says and does, but his increased awareness and balancing of those intensities are looking hopeful. 

My alone time here at the farm has definitly shifted dynamics. It still carries the detachment I used to feel when I watched him disappear into the corporate void every morning, but my willingness to wait for his busy schedule to open up is greatly diminished. My faith in coordinating with that busy schedule is even less. I don't care to do the research, but I do believe the man stores his consistency in the corporate halls. The corporation paid handsomely for it, after all. Coordinating domestic needs with corporate busy folk on anything more complex than an impulse dinner and a movie is challenging, at best. Even a planned dinner and movie is likely to be rescheduled at corporate convenience.

Can I trust the paradigm of calling the in-law investment property, "My home?" My wanderer senses are stillnae too clear on this "Home" concept Townies use so often, but here at the in-law investment property, I havenae even been allowing myself to use the figure of speech since I first started surveying the property in 2013. I have been allowing myself to use personal possessive pronouns for the property since Hubs started working here, but each time he leaves for the Urban Homestead, I find myself preparing for flight to the River Region. I still see enough of my poet inside that executive skin to want him in my life, but. . . Let the dream motivate. Let reality dictate. I still half expect him to get back to Business as Usual in the Urban Homestead with expectations that I will resume my position on his Someday Shelf. Your not-working-hobbies are even funner now that you have five grown-ups to clean up after, Dear. 

Eat my shorts, Babycakes.

I have missed my river dreams since the River Region base camp fell into Breach of Contract a bit less than a year ago. My river dreams have been a great comfort to me since Mark Twain and company introduced me to the Mississippi River Valley during my childhood in the 60's. I remain a believer in the benefits of a good escape fantasies for balancing the stresses of a daily grind. As I wait to see if my poet will pull up the driveway in the next week or three or if yet another corporate shuffle is in the making, I wonder if I am shifting into flight mode or experiencing the return of my beloved river dreams. Is there even a difference?

Sorting. . .

For now, the red glow of the Southern Great Plains sunrise is fading from the stratus clouds. The paint job in the box room is half done. Again, my carpentry mentor's bluesy tenor voice floats through my head. "Don't make it more work than it has to be. Let the brush handle the flow. Add an ounce of gentle guidance while the gravity works. Let the brush handle the flow."