Music

My long-suffering husband enjoys my company, and my being completely fullfilled in life, motherhood, and farmwifery has led to growing joy in our relationship. I am happier now than I was a few years ago, and my children and husband have been glad to see me on this side of a long sulk. I couldn't love them more, and I feel appreciated like never before.

One dangerous side-effect of joyfulness, at least to the innocent bystander, however—the predisposition to bursting into song.

I've always liked to sing, and still carry fond memories from middle- and high school choir classes. Nonsense songs of love and thanks to my mule, sung while I ride, silly songs of fun and adventure for my children, sung while we play, and beautiful songs of soaring majesty for the hell of it, sung in the privacy of my car, are symptoms of my joy. It is not a bad thing, but . . . But. There are only so many times a man can listen to his wife sing, "If I Only Had a Brain" before he goes a little batty. There is only so much patience that a man can muster for hearing "Mahna Mahna" for the five-hundredth time.

Mat, bless him, has never said he'd rather I didn't sing. He's never accused me of embarrassing him in public, and he's never claimed I've anything but a lovely voice. He has, on occasion, said things like, "it must be hard, having that song in your head all the time." Things like, "still singing this one? At least it's a good song." When I sing "Bohemian Rhapsody"while washing dishes, with my girly attempts at falsetto and all, he holds his tongue. When he does comment, it's usually kind: "It's nice to hear you singing."