#83 / 2008 Tour 4 Winter: One Week on the Slabs

ONE WEEK ON THE SLABS

#83


There's a growing community around our little VW as the big rigs keep pulling in. I noticed a lady giving her husband a haircut yesterday. I wonder if she has set the same course I have.

I don't like to see Joe in his scraggly now graying beard. And the more he looks like an old codger the more he acts like an old codger. I like Joe "elegante." But he doesn't enjoy shaving - especially every day - and he will intentionally do a patchy job.

So I have taken it upon myself to shave him myself about twice a week. We have real fun. I get a lot of hot steamy washrags and steam up his wiskers. I use a lot of shaving cream. It's important to make the razor glide easily over the whiskers and get a smooth shave. Sometimes I have to keep going back and forth. I never knew how hard it was for a man to shave. I feel bad about the times I criticized him.

Now this leads me to another thought. When I was little, around six, I had a doll I named Bobby. He had red pajamas and I played with him all day and dreamed about him all night.  In my dreams I would play with his brown curly hair. Now in reality Bobby was all plastic but at night he had soft brown curls. I would fuss over him in so many ways and I can remember the closeness and contentment I experience with that doll in my dreams.

That is the exact feeling of joy and peace I feel these days with Joe. It's a feeling and a dream I have recaptured from my childhood. I don't know what it means but even in my maturity as a struggling single parent I dreamed about him.

In the dream I saw the image of someone I would love.  He had curly brown hair, a few acne scars, and soulful brown eyes. So my soul knew Joe long before I did.

All this would be impossible without him. Joe paid for the van and all the modifications. He bought the tires and the equipment for the trip. We are playing house just like two children in the van and he gives me all the strength and love I need. The man of my dreams.