morning

Scorn

She thought of no wilder delicacy than the starling eggs she fed him for
breakfast,
and if he sat and ate like a farmhand and she hated him sometimes,
she knew it didn't matter: that whatever in the din of the argument
was harshly spoken, something else was done, soothed and patted away
When they were young the towering fierceness
of their differences had frightened her even as she longed for physical
release.
Out of their mouths such curses; their hands huge, pointing, stabbing
the air.
How had they not been wounded? And wounded they'd convalesced in
the same rooms
and bed. When at last they knew everything without confiding--fears,
stinks,
boiling hearts--they gave up themselves a little so that they might both
love and scorn
each other, and they ate from each other's hands.

--Carol Frost

I woke up grouchy this morning. During the night, Ted (our adolescent kitten), had AGAIN played the gravity game with my glass of water. Boyfriend was sleeping away next to me, but was sweet enough to lock Ted out of the room and ignore my stomping around. Later, I woke up in a hot sweat: my hair stuck to the back of my neck, clammy on my sternum, the air was brutal when I escaped the covers. Then boyfriend was in our one bathroom this morning; I knocked several times and asked if he was using the bathroom or in the bath (to determine length of holding time). His reply each time was, "Yes." Now that I think about it that was an appropriate response for either question. He was doing one or the other. But the truth was he couldn't hear me, and I was gearing up for a good huff making a big to-do about putting on my clothes and shoes to go outside. (If you have a backyard and one bathroom, you've done it too!) Small things. And I let him leave for work without a kiss and an "I love you."

But, I think that our poem is talking what happens in love/marriage/cohabitation to two people after much time. That what you choose to get past might just be what holds you together. Navigating another person is hard, and the towering differences are what you love and then what you don't. She thought there no more exotic delicacy than serving her husband starling eggs for breakfast. I'm sure they looked lovely on the plate arranged neatly side-by-side accompanied by thick, crusty, buttered bread. And her husband probably thought, These damn eggs are sure small. My boyfriend would put melted Velveeta on my perfectly steamed, blanched, and sea-salted broccoli if it were available. Philistine. I bet the starling eggs were yummy.

My grandparents had a rule in their marriage that they would never go to sleep angry. Now, I know this included more than one all-nighter of sitting in the living room bickering or with arms crossed in stony silence. However, this would certainly separate the small things from the big things I would think. Just what are you willing to fight all night for? Starling eggs, really? Hard to know sometimes what the small from the big is, and harder still to keep the small from becoming big. It's the in-it-together that's the important thing. Everyone sleeps or no one sleeps. Kind of like the Borg.

Ah, and this is it: wounded they'd convalesced in the same and bed...at last they knew everything without confiding--fears, stinks, boiling hearts--they gave up themselves a little so that they might both love and scorn each other, and they ate from each other's hands. Belonging with someone else is a push and pull, and you do give yourself up a little, well, not so much give up as relax your grip on yourself. You hurt each other and watch each other heal without dilution. There's no sympathetic response; you are in it. The duality of the one who hurts you being the one that can ease you is uncomfortable. Something always "soothed and patted away." I don't know quite how to pinpoint it, but there's a relinquishing there.

I dislike the usage of "scorn." I'm not sure it's accurate. Sorry, Ms. Frost, I think it's more the implied choice of resignation than scorn. And of course I texted boyfriend my love, and that which he returned. Big things.