The Better Half of the Omelette
(written years ago, before Raffi + Desi, but one that stays with me)
We are back from Utah. We looked at peaks and mountains and climbed trails and edged around narrow cliffs. We rented an RV. We went with our friends, Lucy and Edie’s oldest friends, Nakamae and Nabrakissa and their mom, Jessica. Three adults, four kids, four dogs packed into an RV, careening through mountains, and valleys, it was marvelous and dirty, the air was cool and clean, the mountains, well, they were so beautiful and jagged and awe-some as to make you feel like a tiny, impossibly stupid little specks, a heap of infallible chromosomes and muscle.
I mean, are you strong enough to be the water that can carve out a rock canyon? No. No you are not. You are a speck. We all are.
We got home and unpacked the camper, and I made a quick dinner for you and the kids. Mac and cheese for all the girls, something easy to thaw from our freezer. Chris, the guy who is working on our house was in the backyard. He is tiling the bathroom of our casita, and I wish I had told him, and you to make a window, in the wall because a bathroom without a little The guy who is working on our house, Chris, was here working late, so I fed him too, a scallion omelet with cream cheese, and a heaping side of bacon. So simple.
I made a six egg omelette in my big copper crepe pan and split it down the middle. And I gave the slightly bigger, more attractive half to David, and the slightly less large, but still perfectly pleasant half to Chris.
And this made me think…
I hadn’t always given the nicer half to my husband. When we first started dating, I would say to him, “I’m going to give you the less attractive bits, and the guests the nicer slices.” He and I wanted to make it look good for the guests. He had my back. We were becoming a team.
But now, nine years into our marriage, we are not becoming. We are solid. I realized last night, looking at those two plates of egg, that I always give David the best-looking piece. Or the largest. Or the most full of something delectable. Because after all of it, he deserves that little kindness.
He probably will never notice, and I don’t plan on pointing it out to him. I’m pretty sure he provides a hundred little kindnesses to me everyday, ones that he never thinks to tell me about, or remind me that they are there. I know they are there, because I feel their weight all the time.
They are so small, these kindnesses are nearly invisible—specks in the vastness of our marriage. But they add up. They are little reminders of our connection. THEY ARE OUR CONNECTION. That we value you each other in more subtle ways than flowers, and gifts, and big, holiday demonstrations.
There is nothing like watching 4 kids and 4 dogs crammed into the bunk of an RV, the kids screaming with laughter, the dogs flopping around joyfully, potato chip crumbs and discarded shoes all over the floor, and your laughing girlfriend, and your husband at the wheel, to know that you are surrounded by people who have your back. Or to see a sky so huge and stuffed with stars that you realize how meaningless it all is except for these wonderful people.
And just because of that, when you can give it, your people, the ones that are there everyday, deserve the better half of the omelette.
