Strong One
We all have different strengths, don’t we? Yes. Yes, we do. But I am not sure about the comparison of muscle strength between my precious wife and me. This occurred to me yesterday after I got our lawn tractor stuck and needed to go get Cyndie to help.
Despite the more than three inches of rain that had fallen the previous 24-hours to thankfully soak our parched land, I was attempting to mow before things began to adequately dry. I was literally cutting between the trailing scattered showers.
Mow the front yard until rain started falling, park the mower in the garage.
Mow by the barn until it started raining again, park the mower back in the garage.
When I tried traversing the recently re-landscaped dip where Cyndie and I had rolled up the sod to dig out accumulated dirt, the tractor became hopelessly wedged in the muddy turf. I was stuck.
I was also in a hurry because a few drops were starting to fall again. I hiked around behind the barn, past the empty chicken coop, around the back pasture to the labyrinth where Cyndie was rearranging sunken stones and pulling weeds. She happily obliged my request for assistance.
Then, the woman who asks me to use my superior strength to open jars for her in the kitchen proceeds to pick up the back end of the tractor and move it over so my push from the front can roll it around the rocks bordering her perennial garden.
In my whiny sad voice, “Honey, can you come lift the tractor out of the mud for me so I can keep mowing in the rain?”
I know who the strong one is around here.
I’m pretty sure she lets me open jars just to prevent my ego from starving to death.
.
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Relative Something 
Funny, although we men don’t really believe it, do we? I like your analogy with opening jars. So unless I am around to prove my manliness, Victoria just gets our a heavy knife or some such thing and taps round the top of jar and hey-presto, with an effortless turn, pop- it opens it. ‘Brains over brawn’ makes perfect sense to the fair sex unless we are present and need to live on our inflated egos. Hats off to the ‘fair’ sex! That said, how come they let us make such a mess of the world! Somehow, they are very much invested in what appears as stupidity. Indeed, men are nature’s craziness, to look where no one looks; to do the other thing in the quest to discover the impossible that may possibly make the future possible. It is ‘our’ craziness that can sometimes discover the potential that would, otherwise, remain hidden. But life needs a healthy balance between the two, which is why I love you both for the result you’d convey: a dynamic beauty brought to each moment – brother and sisterly love to the world can lead to an unappreciated dimension of life. And that is just what we need!
Ian Rowcliffe
May 22, 2021 at 8:03 am
our = out
Ian Rowcliffe
May 22, 2021 at 8:03 am
Don’t know whether I expressed that well enough but I was searching to say what I feel is unsaid… but must come to make the difference that will make the future if it is to be…
Ian Rowcliffe
May 22, 2021 at 8:08 am
Oh, Ian, thank you for taking the time to write. I feel the searching and appreciate your sentiment. You are such a kindred spirit.
I was asked yesterday if I would return to visit Nepal someday and my continued perspective is that if I were to travel afar again (not a certainty anymore) it would have to be to Portugal in order to be with you again before anywhere else.
johnwhays
May 23, 2021 at 10:16 am