Why I Love the Man I Love

And how it has nothing to do with age. 

• He taught me to love dogs;
• Every day, he teaches me (and this is often a struggle) to be more patient;
• He eats my sour-cream-almond apple pie;
• He asks for more apple pie;
• He always makes the small world larger;
• Watching a bird, a star, or a spider web, he can also make the large world small;
• He sometimes uses spices named “elk rub” or “venison rub” on eggs;
• He looks terrific in a suit;
• He knows what’s happening in Kashmir;
• He loves to dance;
• When I ask for the 80^th time, he turns the TV on mute to explain ­­– for the 80^th time –what an onsides kick is;
• He likes duckpin bowling;
• He always knows where he’s going;
• He wears a silver Hopi bracelet;
• When he shot his first deer, he wanted not only to gut it, but to skin and butcher it himself, to know where the meat came from;
• He did not want trophy photos of the dead deer but let his father take them anyway because dad was proud of son.
• His sense of wonder has not diminished;
• He lets me put my cold hands on his warm, bare skin;
• He knows that angels can dance on the head of a pin, or to a Van Morrison song, or in a good single-malt, or in a well-turned phrase.