Sam and I are walking again. Six miles a day or close to it. The world’s problems could be solved if couples would walk six miles together with no distractions other than a random skunk that causes the couple to create a new route or the farmer in the dell who does the farmer wave while driving the farmer truck down the early morning street of Small Town USA.

Sam and I are walking again. It’s a good thing, a long time coming. We’ve both allowed life to become a barricade, and in so doing, we’ve gained a barricade around our middles.

Saturday morning, life’s problems had been solved, but we were still a couple of miles down the street. I saw a blackbird on a wire up above, and I immediately thought, “4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie…”

It drove me nuts. 

“How’s that nursery rhyme go?”

And for the next 20 minutes, we quizzed each other on Mother Goosers. I would start one, Sam would finish it, sort of. In Sam’s way, anyway.

“…stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum…”

“Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water…”

“…the cow jumped over the moon,
the little dog laughed to see such sport…”

I am grateful for a husband who plays along and doesn’t ignore.

I am grateful for sore legs, sore feet, sore bottom, and satisfaction.

I am grateful for time to walk, for safety while walking, for cooler mornings and evenings to walk, and for a husband who fills in when I am absent of motivation.

He is Jack Sprat, and I am the wife, for sure.

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie!

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing;
Was not that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting-house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And snapped off her nose.