Bookworms

     My husband has never been one to read much fiction. Until recently. When he began traveling extensively a dozen years ago, he soon realized that a book lasts much longer than a movie on a 17 hour flight and is a more enjoyable way to pass the time. Then, this year, he began reading before he goes to bed at night and discovered that he sleeps better.

     Of course, jet lag is just a part of the baggage he often brings home with him, and I have learned not to plan anything too demanding for a day or two after his return. He recently returned from Indonesia and we spent most of the following day tucked up in our family room reading, drinking tea, snacking and napping. Perfect. Couldn't be better. Or so I thought. When my drowsy husband finished his novel he got up from his leather easy chair, rummaged through the travel pack he had dumped in the corner the previous night and pulled out another paperback novel.

     "Are you going to start another book now?" I asked, surprised.

     "Yes," he said tentatively with that look he sometimes gets when I ask him if he is going to wear that shirt with those pants.

     But the smile that spread over my face was adoring. "I don't think I have ever loved you more than I do at this moment," I said.

     We read until dinner, watched a movie, went to bed and read some more.

Evenings at Home by Deborah DeWit Marchant - "In the  paintings of Deborah DeWit, as in the paintings of Edward Hopper, it often seems that something tremendous has just happened, and we witness the quiet aftermath, the time when all motion stops as a bolt of strange learning passes deep to the interior life."   ~ Kim Stafford ~