Standing next to you at a Bruce Springsteen concert. Your fist in the air, a subtle shimmy in your hips.
Listening to "Big Shot" by Billy Joel on one of our many road trips across country. I'm feeling irascible and would rather listen to Madonna. You grab my hand and pump it wildly to the song. This cheers me up considerably.
The purr of your sewing machine.
Video game dance parties with Mary and Leah. With chips, salsa and margaritas.
You make me and my sisters matching dresses for holidays. We wear them with itchy tights and patent leather shoes.
The bittersweet letters and cards you write with clipped out comics and funny ads from Floridian newspapers.
When you say the word "beautiful" and "love" and "disgusting" and "hate" your body moves with these words as though they are part of you. You mean them. Especially when these words are paired with flowers, a clean closet, cat hair and dog slobber.
The roll of your eyes when anything remotely intellectual is discussed.
A smile that hides teeth. A head that nods with empathy. Eyes that cry with ease.
The vegetarian casseroles you cook from Martha Stewart magazines.
You sing "Pony Boy" to Beckett as the summer sun burns through the front window. She says "again!"
The way you say "I love you." It's meek and punctuated with a question mark that also looks like a semicolon. It's as though you are saying "there's more where that came from, just you wait."
My mom 1966 - the Jersey Shore