He doesn't know I notice, but I do.

Last night, he crept into bed hours after my light went out. I was half awake at the sound of his clothing slip to the floor, his feet slide under the covers. My lavender sleep pillow had slipped, and he gently nudged it back across my eyes. Why did something like that seem so kind, so tender? His motivation probably had more to do with his not wanting to wake up with it under the small of his back (again), but it felt different. A little gesture, while I was sleeping.

This, I think, is what it comes down to when you've been with someone for nearly-eight-and-a-half years (just a few weeks until that gem of a milestone; I feel like I'm in elementary school, where each half year counted, as opposed to now when every moment away from the year before, or the decade before needs to be ignored): we settle into something that is comfortable, we don't mind that pajamas are on before the nine o'clock news, and the sweetest thing we can do for each other is cook a warm meal, ready when the other gets home.

And this is January in Minnesota, which means a great deal of hibernation. Many flexible pillows, downy blankets, mugs of steaming chai, and thick books. It means it hurts to breathe through your nose and your hair freezes at kinky angles, stuck straight out like wonky icicles, and you remember why most normal people own a blow drier.

I am lucky, this year--a five minute commute, no drama program to plaster my eyes shut at night, and a methodical way of grading-while-students-are-small-group-discussioning.

I've been reading Kate's blog, Sweet Salty, enjoying all of her older posts, her first born, her life in Canada, the gorgeousness of her prose in the face of something horrifyingly difficult, and I came upon this post. And I thought to myself about the purpose of blogging--why not just keep a journal on the computer? I can still record the day, still keep it quick, still post pictures. Why do this so publicly?

In the first few days of Blog 365, I'm probably not so wise to be questioning why I keep a blog. I'm supposed to feel spurred on, excited.

I just feel a bit flat and dull.

I think that's what happens when I stumble upon good blogs with good writing (and good photography). They make me want to write myself (to create art myself), but I always feel so indescribably boring (and incapable) up against them. And then one of the good writers questions keeping the comments on--the monastic feel of simply writing, knowing there is someone reading, but they don't need that validation.

(Why do I need that validation?)

This is one thing I'll always admire about my husband: he is humble. I have never worn humble well, even if I'm a fairly mediocre being and ought to have adapted by now. But he's so immensely good at what he does--his drunken colleagues tell me so at holiday parties--and it was his musical talent that made me trip over my Doc Martens and look at this boy, think, wonderingly, "Lucky the girl who gets him."