Lazy eye. How do they know it's lazy? Maybe it has an artistic temperament. Or maybe it's bored by lab coats. It shows up for work each time the lids raise, so I don't think it should be called lazy. How about just unmotivated?

Angry wound. I think it should be called a morally outraged wound. Your knee wasn't the one who decided to try biking up steps. It deserves to be angry. Getting all red is appropriate and justified. And putting a stinging liquid on it won't make it any less angry. The anger just becomes more passive aggressive, I believe.

Bum leg. Who uses the word "bum" anymore? It should be deadbeat. How's your deadbeat leg feeling today? Not working for you? Get a desk job.

Nervous stomach. Why aren't they all always nervous? They have no control over what you send their way. Is that lazy eye going to bother to read an expiration date or nutritional information? Stomachs just seem to enjoy being upset. Instead of taking Tums maybe we should be building its confidence. I do that by giving mine Cheetos as recognition for its bravery and wisdom.

Hostile uterus. Who wants to hear that their uterus is hostile? It makes you wonder if there is an insurgent mob just waiting to strap on a bomb and go after each sperm that enters. Or maybe your uterus has been mined with IEDs. How are you supposed to get into a romantic mood knowing your uterus is arming up each time you get horizontal?

Tortuous colon. I just discovered that I have one of these and that's why I wrote this post. I had to be given more drugs during my colonoscopy because they discovered that my colon was tortuous. I imagine that the doctor and nurses took a collective deep breath, changed into scrubs with bright colors, put on headbands, guzzled some Mountain Dew, and went to work on my eXtreme colonoscopy, braving the black diamond turns and twists. That's right. If you're going to be shoving something up my rectum, you better be prepared. It's unapologetically tortuous in there.

I did not know that a colon could be treacherous until I read about it on my discharge papers. So once again science confuses me. I guess because body parts belong to humans, we can talk about them as if they were each an individual human. I just hope I don't have a diva ankle or backstabbing palm.

This reintegration was hard on me. I hate admitting that, but it was. I spent the year in a very familiar routine. I Skyped with HabMoo in the morning while eating breakfast. I either walked in the morning or went to the gym. I usually ate lunch alone and fit my consulting work in wherever it was convenient. My free time was occupied by whatever I was moved to do at the moment I found myself without a task. I had to make sure to see other people a couple times a week.

I was not used to having someone around ALL THE TIME. He was in the kitchen when I was getting my breakfast. He was stopping in to tell me something while I was working. He was asking me questions. He was not saving up his stories for the morning. And our wedding vows have a clause which states that I must listen to him for at least 20 solid minutes every day. I was used to that being in the morning.

He was very good about getting right back into the swing of taking on his household responsibilities. He was also very understanding and accommodating when I’d tell him he needed to leave the house for 4 hours at a time. Thank god he has a huge ego and doesn’t entertain the idea that I might not love him because I wanted him to go away. He understands the introvert need. After all, he’d just spent months having to be one himself with 50 of his closest friends and enemies always in arms reach.

Communication and positive assumptions have been so important for us. Shortly after HabMoo returned to Kuwait after his leave we were talking about how hard is was to be apart again. I told him that while I had no opportunity or plans to cheat on him, that week I completely understood how cheating could happen. He responded by telling me that he’d noticed that the women he worked with and who he had been seeing only as fellow soldiers were now registering as women in his mind. Being away from the physical contact you get from a lover can be challenging. You don’t really want a new lover, you just want something more than what you have.

What else can I complain about? Oh yeah, not knowing what day he was actually coming home. I understand the how he can’t tell me what he doesn’t know, but I HATE NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAN. I like being in control as much as possible. This is one reason why I’ve never been able to drink or do drugs. The experience is sort of fun, but what if I need to suddenly recite the “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech from Julius Caesar or perform CPR or multiply by 12?

Reintegration training was offered last Sunday and we went. The Yellow Ribbon does a very good job with their trainings. I’m a little tired of the suicide prevention one and I never want to sit through another explanation of TriCare, but the ones on resilience and other psychological tools are always helpful reminders. We attended a training on “icebergs” or what I call “core beliefs” and shared some of ours with each other. That was fun and gave us a little more understanding of each other. It did nothing for any lingering frustration I might have about HabMoo being around all the time, but after these 30+ days I’ve finally gotten over that on my own. (Plus he’s back to work during the days. Yes!)

Now I’m getting used to having someone helpfully remind me where I left my keys, help me with groceries, play board games and watch Mystery Science Theater movies with. I think I really love it. And I really love seeing him walk around in his shorts.

Confused rare bird
(My sister has a confused rooster who tries to mate with cats but has never caught it on video.)

Transforming owl

I love owls, but on the ground and burrowing?

Why does my husband never dance with me like this?

Aren’t you glad our native birds don’t imitate car alarms?

Yes we are all ducks

A certain type of chicken

Still not a cat video but getting closer

Obligatory cat video (with bird)

A few daffodils are up and they always remind me of my mother. She loved all the daffydowndillies and jonquils. Neither of us ever really learned if all daffodils are jonquils or if it’s the other way around. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the joyous color of butter shining above the crusty brown crumbs of winter. I have well over 100 daffodil bulbs in my yard and each one was planted with just a little bit of Daddy’s ashes. So now these flowers remind me of him, as well. And of Mom and Dad together playing cards or telling each other their dreams from the night before.

The first flower I was ever allowed to pick was the grape hyacinth. I never found them as attractive as other spring flowers, but being allowed to pick a bouquet is a big deal when you’re only four years old. My Meme let me do that. And the flowers lasted, unlike my bouquets of dandelions.

Dandelions count as flowers in my book or blog post. Finding my first bloom meant that I could go outside barefoot. I even liked their sticky, nasty-tasting sap. I didn’t know of any other plant that could leave you with a yellow chin and brown fingers after picking and smelling it. And what fun their seed heads are when you’re a kid watching them fly away from the force of your breath. I love seeing a roadside reflecting the sunshine with all those yellow heads. I do pull up every one I find in my garden, however. I mean I’m not crazy.

Pansies remind my of Meme. I do not know why. I think there’s some story about her planting some along a garage at the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse does not refer to an actual school building. It’s what my family calls the house they lived in before I came along and which was removed in order to build the new high school (built before I was born, but still referred to as new.) Something happened during the planting–or maybe it was painting–and the something was memorable for my mother. All I remember is she told me a story that involved a garage, pansies and my grandmother. She enjoyed the story and I liked seeing that. Also pansies have fat little faces, just like my Meme.

The irises I plant to remind me of my father. I remember going to a farm when I was young specifically to select and buy a few new rhizomes. We bought one called Babbling Brook, which is blue with ruffled edges along the falls. It went into one of the three rows of iris we had inside the circle of our driveway. There were also ones that smelled like root beer. In high school I wrote a poem in praise of the Celestial Snow iris Daddy planted the year before. He planted and fertilized the plants, but it was always Mom who weeded them. So they also remind me of her.

Louie and Lulu Leisure were not relatives but they lived down the street. They had a huge bleeding heart somewhere near their house and so I think of Louie when mine are in bloom. I marvel at how he was able to yell at me and the neighbor kids when we ran through his backyard, “Don’t drown in the pond.” I believed there was a pond behind his barn or outbuilding or garage. I have a much stronger memory of the fictitious pond than I do of his outbuilding. And Lulu once had a dark purple iris in a vase sitting on a table covered with a white tablecloth. I think she or Mom picked off a faded bloom and it oozed a deep purple liquid which stained her cloth. So sometimes iris also remind me of Lulu. Which is good because, really, I don’t remember either of their faces.

Mayapples remind me of my sister, but not because she cultivated them. I simply recall her advice that morrells were often found near them. That is a very important bit of information to have.

At some point I was told about a May Day tradition of giving bouquets anonymously.  So one year I took a construction paper basket I’d made, filled it with violets, and headed down the street in my raincoat and galoshes. I stopped at the end of the street at the house of a lady who let me play with kittens in her yard once or something delightful like that. I didn’t know her name, but I wanted to give her my flowers. So I hung the flowers on her doorknob, rang her doorbell and ran and hide in full sight behind some structure in her yard. She came to the door, yelled at me, then found the flowers and tried to coax me out of hiding. Eventually she gave up and I went home confused. But I still loved violets and planned on having my wedding bouquet made out of nothing else but violets. That didn’t happen, but I still think it would be very attractive. Especially with the freckled variety I grow now.

One last, lowly, flowering plant: white clover. It’s not much of a flower, but it also makes me think of my sister. She taught me how to make them into a chain. And we had a perfect patch of clover near the barn when we were young. You could be sure of finding a four-leaf clover in that patch. And Beverly once found one with five (5!) leaves. I wanted it badly. She didn’t give it to me, but I was very impressed nevertheless. Clover should be respected and planted more often. When I seeded my lawn many years ago, I used half clover seed so I’d have a soft mat to walk across in my bare feet. It grows low to the ground and means you don’t have to mow as often. And you get bees visiting which are always good luck even if you’re stupid enough to step on one like I do most years.

I hope there will be those who remember me when they see a checkered lily, dried globe thistle, thyme in bloom, or smell cinnamon basil. Or any plant, really. Just try not to think of me when you’re trying to dig for the hidden roots and rhizomes of the creeping bellflower.

When HabMoo returned to Kuwait and had been there a couple of days, we had a really interesting conversation. it wasn’t about how much we missed each other; it was about how we understood how couples could so easily cheat on each other during a deployment. Not that either of us was truly tempted, but the loss of the person you love feels a little like a breakup. It feels like you’re trying to move on even if what you’re really trying to do is hang on. To make the pain less, we could see how you’d turn to someone else. It might make things easier for a while.

I’ve written about pining for my husband earlier during the deployment. These last weeks before he returns are not about pining. They are about reminding myself that he’s still my husband and not some guy I wish was my husband. It’s about aching for the sound of his breath in the middle of the night. It’s about wishing I could listen to him talk to me about whatever is on his mind as he’s flossing his teeth. It’s lamenting the fact that he’s not here to make me healing spaghetti when I’m sick. It’s feeling shackled to Skype each morning, even when it fails us.

The last months are the hardest. I don’t have any prior posts from this time. I think it’s because the feelings are too raw and I hate to expose all that. Plus I don’t want him to feel guilty or worried. We are just living with decisions we made. It’s sort of like a natural disaster that we knew was coming and prepared for. We built in the tornado belt because we loved it there. Round about now, it’s hard to see the beauty, is all.

I’d like to say that I want him focused on his job and not me because his job is important and critical to success. But the war is over, they’ve worked w/o a few basic work tools for several days, and no one seems involved in any activities that actually matter to the US or even to them or other soldiers. I don’t understand why he’s still there except that there was a plan and no one wants to work too hard to change the plan or the dates. If I felt like we were making a sacrifice that mattered, I think this waiting would be easier. I could label my pain as patriotic or heroic or something. Instead it just seems like a waste.

Have you ever taken the 5 Love Languages assessment? We both rank very highly for the language of touch. I wish it was words of affirmation instead. I think we’re both pretty good at that. We let each other know that the other is loved. We laugh and tease during our Skype calls when we aren’t cursing Internet connectivity. But we both need to be touched. I need a hug. I need a peck on the neck while I wash dishes. Not to mention that husband/wife touchy stuff. No amount of Skype or phone calls, no sonnets, no letters, no gifts make up for the casual unconscious touch of his hand on my leg while we watch a movie.

While I don’t have prior posts to review and see how this frustration and sadness has happened before, I do have a few posts from when he’s been home. And they barely even mention him. When he gets back he’ll be such a constant, such a fixture, that I won’t have to write about his presence. It will just be assumed. That’s what I really want. I want to be so quenched by his local existence, his perfect attendance, that I’m excited about having a weekend alone while he’s at drill. That is such a great feeling.