The Kick Inside

December 14th, 2002: A bright sunny day, we marry and are sealed in Manti, Utah. For dinner: A catered meal made by the wacky Millenium lady, in the "Moonlight and Roses" room. For dessert: pretty terrible homemade sorbet. Andy washes his down the sink. The Millenium lady asks when she comes to get the dishes, "Didn't like the sorbet?" Spooky. How did she know? We fear a camera in our rented bedroom. Manti is a kooky place.

December 14th, 2003: We are working on our mutual rough spots with a 50-grit sander. Expectations and disappointments ebb and flow. Andy is away on business. It is not a memorable day. But then, when he returns, I find an awkwardly handcrafted card he made at a friend's house in Baltimore, with an attempt at a flower made of ribbon on the outside, on the floor in front of the door as I walk in. A tiny note that assures me he loves me and is committed to this, but even more, we are friends and he is so glad for being friends. A tiny note, but I carry it in my bag with me for a year before it is retired to a journal.

December 14th, 2004: We are driving home from Window Rock, capital of the Navajo Rez, where we've been living for the past month. It is the most bold and daring landscape in the world. It is the most beautiful, austere drive in the world. Long hours in the car together--we both love them. We stop for the night in Kanosh, and eat dinner at the only non-fastfood place open. I guess the lifestory of our server, the details predictable in his voice, his hair, his clothes, where he works. He doesn't seem as pleased by this as I am with myself at my cleverness. We bargain and splurge for a hotel room with a jacuzzi and fireplace and laugh to ourselves remembering moonlight and roses.

December 15th, 2005: Andy gets up to go to work at 4:00 a.m. so he can be done early enough for us to do something fun this afternoon and evening. Fiasco at the "spa," where I've been with a gift certificate and a couple coupons ALL afternoon. He meets me there, and I'm in unstoppable tears as soon as I'm out the door. We're both confused. We drive home in our separate cars, then take a lovely nap. Then drive an hour to Idaho Falls to eat Thai food and watch the new Pride and Prejudice. I wish for Tums, and wonder where my taste for strong flavours went. We find the movie theatre with barely enough time to be seated before the actual show begins, then decide, in the end we'd rather be home snuggled up and going to bed on time, than here watching this movie and getting home late. So we drive back home. In bed, I suddenly feel a commotion in the hard ball where Scout lives. I flatten my hand on her and not only feel her moving unmistakably from the inside out, but from the outside in! And I swear I even see a poke swing across my belly like a shooting star.

But actually, I know this chronology can't be right because last year we had just come home from Ethiopia, not the Rez. Just the same, this is what I remember.