For the past five years, I’ve lived with an artist. I am her to tell you, it is a different kind of life, it is a dance that never ends. Sometimes it means finding odd rocks and flowers on the windowsill, it can mean seeing your wife shovel manure in her wedding dress, or dress in stylish gypsy form in five lawyers of scarves, skirts and thrift-shop blouses. When you wake up at 3 a.m. and your wife is gone, it usually means she is out in the pasture in her nightshirt and French boots, dancing in the moonlight or communing with donkeys or scribbling the words to a poem or fiber hanging piece.

This morning, I was taking a photo of the meadow and I looked up to see Maria waving a scarf around and dancing. Lenore and Red were astonished, they both sat down to stare at her and wonder what she was doing. What, I shouted, are you doing? Why, she said, surprised by the question, I’m dancing with my shadow.

Oh, I said, of course.

I have to say I love living with an artist, it suits me, no two days are ever the same, no two walks are ever the same. My artist has a wide emotional range. She might be crying one second, glaring the next, erupting, then chanting at the stars or taking photos of a stone. Artists are not consistent. They are not like other people, it is a different kind of life, I am lucky to experience it, it suits me, right to the soul. Maria says I am an artist, but I don’t think so, not really. Writers are different too.