It’s Saturday. I bring hot coffee to his side of the bed, singing “the best part of waking up… .” I watch him as he wakes. The furrowed brow and wild hair. The sleepiness in his eyes. For a moment, I see the boy in him. There is an innocence in sleep.

He moves slowly until he’s propped up against the wall. He gratefully takes the cup from my hands. He’s beautiful. I run away and in a moment I am back, taking his photograph. I must capture that beauty.

He hasn’t said a word in the two minutes since he woke, but I’ve said so many already. He’s still processing the return to waking life and I’m fluttering about him, as I do. Singing, chatter-ing, photographing.

For some, it might be too much.

Too much energy.

Too much intensity.

Too much.

For him, it’s just me.

And he accepts me and loves me, as I totally am. He lets me do what I need to do. He lets me be me. He doesn’t try to turn my volume down, for he’s an intelligent man, and he knows that to turn down a woman’s volume is to dim her light, to quiet her song, to fade her true colors.

And then what is left to love?

But this man, this man, he sets me free.