Wherein I Attempt to Break the Sound Barrier... (Update)

For Christmas I opened a silver sharpie. C cheered as if it were an X-box. I looked at it, set it down, and grabbed the next present for him to open. We were almost finished when he pulled out a huge package from behind the couch. It looked like a painting. We have gifted fine art in the past, but I could not think of a specific piece I had requested all year. I unwrapped the paper to find one of my photographs blown up larger than life and framed beautifully. I just stared. I didn't know what to say.

"Do you like it?" C asked, eager to know if his offering was acceptable. He had framed one of my poems when we were engaged, but it was a small frame and a poem that had never crawled out from under the rock beneath which I kept it hid. It was so near and dear to my heart, that it was difficult to let it go. It's one thing to put a photo on a blog, and quite another to hang it as art in your home.

My mom has always hailed my ability to efficiently manage and organize, so every time my mother needed something organized, I was the person for the job. My meticulous nature also meant that I was the person least likely to damage her stemware or other precious items. One day while tidying the basement storage room, I came across some watercolors she had painted. I esteemed them rather highly, and knowing that she was such a perfectionist that she would never allow it, I stashed the painting in my room and later secreted it out of the home and into a framing shop. They framed it, matted it, and enclosed the back with paper.

Her reaction to this gift was not unlike mine with the huge photo of the winter cattails in the morning mist. She did not think it ready for display, but wanted to get it just right. That painting hung reluctantly in her entry for years, but it became the motivating factor for her to return to school and later become the owner of her own children's art school and portrait studio.

C knew the story of my mother's motivation, and was eager to help me take that next step as well. I have been so incredibly fearless, and yet I freeze up on this issue of sharing things with others that I get invested in. I just need to move past the fear and dare boldly, even if that means rewriting a lifetime.

Oh, and as for the silver sharpie, it was to write a note on a blown up version of the 11 year anniversary of our Admiralty Point lighthouse first kiss, also beautifully framed. How did I get so lucky to marry such a thoughtful guy?