You're so nice and you're so smart...

And an awful lot older than me, even by my standards. I can't quite work out whether I want to hold you because I like you like that or because you try so very hard for everyone and sometimes your back aches, and you want so much to give and to keep things nice and to keep your house perfect and accueillant but without realising that these are sometimes opposites.

You don't notice my haircut, and you are pernickety and worry too much. Though I find that endearing. It's nice to have someone worry about me in ways I'm not used to having people worry about me. I want to hold your hand and kiss the place on your head where you had the tumour taken out. I want to curl around you and hold you tight and stroke your hair and tell you, 'tu es intelligente, tu es gentille, tu es importante'. I don't think you get told that enough, and you should be because you are all of those things. I would also tell you, 'tu es courageuse'. It hurts me when you're hurt, when your son doesn't come to see you for very long, when your daughter leaves early when you've prepared dinner- and you say, 'ah, but this is the way, and it's nice they have their own lives, and one must accept it'. It seems so unfair to me that someone as good as you should have to accept something so painful, and I think it's the reason for your perfect crockery and your neat-as-a-pin household- though you don't mind if I break things, you're careful, careful, careful. Maybe because people aren't always careful with you; so I want to be. I want to be on your side, I want to be kind to you and nice to you and je ne veux pas me moquer de toi, parce que tu m'es importante. Because you are kind to me, you worry about me and you try to teach me. I can see you being inadvertently hurt where no hurt's intended; when I teach French to the Houseguest, for example.

I like having our own language that we both speak. I like having a code with you, and I like having access into your head that he doesn't have, because he doesn't see this other side of your personality, this nuanced, educated side; he just sees someone who hates America and is pedantic, and kind, who wants to feed him. You're those things, but you're also clever and modest and interesting and you come out with the wisest things... I wonder if you tell me because you think I don't understand yet, quite? Or maybe you think I understand all too well. What was it you said today? 'Don't be worried about acting and breaking something; it happens frequently that people don't act and don't ruin anything, but then they never act. You acted with best intentions'. About me feeling foolish after greeting someone. 'Sometimes, the thing that is a person's downfall is also their greatest charm'. Oddly, it's not when you're teaching that you come out with these brilliant gnomic turns of phrase, but when we're sitting in the kitchen and I'm fretting and you're comforting me. Or just when you're thinking about life.

I wish, if MM isn't doing it already, that I could make someone you want love you. You deserve that.
If not, I wish I could make your children spend more time with you. You're fun and interesting and not tiresome at all. You deserve that, too.
And if not, I want to hold you and tell you you're brilliant. You deserve, at the least, that. You don't wear your wedding ring. Tonight I washed up, because you were in a rush; you'd cooked everything, and you came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, 'pour que tu fais la vaisselle'. So sweetly done, and it made me smile. We don't usually do the kiss. I don't mind doing it with you, though. Or B. I'm getting used to it.

You deserve a lot. And all I can do is attempt to keep my space tidy, not make too much noise, write notes to you, observe when you might want to be left alone and learn poetry; half of these things please me anyway.