Bijou leapt over the bed trying to kiss
Mark as I said: “He is my husband, I get the kiss first”, we chuckled, my
husband kissed me and turned to Bijou, our grand dog, and gave her a kiss. Bijou tried to jump on his lap and he
added: “it’s grandma’s turn, you have to
settle down.” We are a family of
kissers, even our pets are used to being kissed and they demand it. I call my husband Dr. Doolittle, all the
animals in the house demand to be with him and he does make the time to appease
his girls.
At nights, my husband’s routine includes
tucking me in and gently massaging my shoulders and back as we chat about
future vacation plans. An occasional
daily frustration may come into view but we mostly talk about the next
expedition. We talk logistics, we talk
about the scenery we would see and how we would have to come back in two weeks
because my husband decided one day his perfect vacation time span is the rigid
2 weeks and I remember, oh yeah he is Autistic and he needs that time
parameters and I am okay with it. While
we are talking about the next trip, my husband is still busy massaging my
shoulders and my neck, rotating to different areas ever so gently, I turn the
other way and he continues to the other shoulder while adding all the new info
he found and tells me the new locations he is adding to the trip. I do my little protest and ask if we can do
all this in two weeks. The chatter
continues and my husband tells me the filters or the kind of equipment he will
use to take pictures of a particular landmark we will see.
I drift into sleep happily while listening
to my husband as he makes plans. You see
this is the same man who not only never took pictures of our children, he would
throw pictures in the trash if he saw them lying around. Do you know how many times I have gone
through garbage cans retrieving pictures and other valuables? And then one day we were on the Mediterranean
in Turkey and he decided to get a nice digital camera. Before the trip I begged him to choose a good
camera for the trip because my 35mm Olympus had just died and I never looked
into any other cameras and had no idea what to buy. He chose a Canon and we paid close to $700
for it, which was around $200 in the States.
But my husband took those pictures; he was just very overwhelmed with
the scenery. We have traveled in Turkey
before but this time he saw things, through his heart.
Fast forward to 2005 when we decided to go
to Alaska soon after we found out that my husband might be Autistic and of
course this time my husband took the time and bought a couple of cameras for
the trip and we had a fantastic time in Alaska.
You see, Alaska is home for us now, that’s the place neither of us
belonged to before and we saw it together the first time. We both fell in love with Alaska with all
her beauty and the giant sky. Each time
we returned my husband became even a better photographer and now he is the
master. I really mean it; my husband is
a phenomenal photographer. This man, my
husband, my Viking, sat down for six months and studied photography, I think
people go to school for four years and still not get it right. Then he sat down and studied
post-production. And of course he got
the latest and the best programs and the equipment. One day he declared he was going to buy the
Eos D5 for me because I deserved it for being such a great wife and of course
it was the camera he wantedJ. This Viking of mine kept studying, I created
a nice hummingbird & a butterfly garden for him so he could take pictures
of them as he sat on the porch smoking his cigarettes and spy on the forest
behind our house as an occasional fox wandered out. My husband got a couple of Macs, one of them
is mine but they both sit on his desks, got photo printers and he studied and
studied and calibrated everything together so that the colors are the same
everywhere.
So when my husband is telling me the
pictures he wants to take at Bay of Fundy this summer, I know he already
studied possible lighting scenarios. I
am sure he read on the internet what the other photographers have done in that
region and the kind of pictures they took and I know he already planned his
will be better. And you know what? My husband’s pictures will be better; he is a
genius that way with photos, he is simply amazing.
How did I get so lucky? How did I get so lucky to have a husband so
wonderful? Everything he does, I know a
great deal of thought go into it. He is
a laid back sweet man with a quirky humor that I don’t always get and he says,
“don’t worry love, I don’t get my jokes sometimes either”. I do get it though, I get that he loves me, I
get that he cares deeply for our children and everything we are related to. I get that he is an amazing man who is so
good at so many things because he will take the time to study and learn how
best to do it. And, he is my Autistic Viking,
I hope you get that,J.
