Love Notes, Fried in Butter

Last night, after all the kids had gone to bed, my husband made me the most exquisite fried egg.

He made one for me and one for him, and each was fried in butter in its own little single-egg pan. We sat down together to eat them, and when I put it in my mouth it melted on my tongue . . .so salty and velvety and warm … It was like eating a bit of a sunbeam, and it tasted so luxuriously superior to the fried eggs I make for myself (which require a lot more chewing).

When Scott makes an egg like this I know that he loves me.

Next story.

Scott and I go out every week. Every. Week.  Why? Because dating is cheaper than therapy. And a few weeks ago we invited my friend and her husband to come with us.  We all sat in a booth, and my friend’s husband sat on the inside of the booth, while my friend sat at the edge. Halfway through dinner my friend stopped the waitress and asked, “Excuse me, can you fill up my husband’s Coke? It is over there in the corner of the table, and I don’t think you saw it last time you came around.”

Wow, I thought. If my husband’s Coke went dry I wouldn’t have even noticed (or cared), but this observant wife was making sure her husband was getting his refills.

I bet he adores her.

One more story . . .

Another friend of mine was cutting her husband’s hair. He was preparing for a series of important interviews that will change the course of their lives, and they both wanted him to look his best. As she was snipping away she was telling him about a book that she was reading for book club (The Night Circus, if you must know). She became so engrossed in telling him that suddenly she sheared off a section of hair that was meant to be preserved. I can imagine that the expression on her husband’s face, when he saw himself in the mirror, was that of a volcano on the verge of an eruption (well, a partially deforested volcano). She braced herself for his censure . . . but it never came. Later she told him that she will always remember his restraint in not saying a sharp word, for the words he might have said would have lasted much longer than his unfortunate hair cut.

Is there a greater love than this? Well, yes.

And no.

I have found, in close to twenty years of marriage, that “I love you” doesn’t always come in three words. “I love you” can be manifested through every action of our mundane lives. By caring for the ones we love with generous attention and loving awareness, we are dropping “love notes” all the time. It doesn’t have to be big or showy or expensive. It is as simple as an exquisitely cooked egg, a Coke refill, or a word of deserved criticism that is never uttered. And when love is spoken in this context it becomes living poetry that marks the difference between roommates and soulmates.

What’s the earth

With all its art, verse, music, worth –

Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?

–Robert Browning