I realized something today that I should have seen earlier. Maria doesn’t want me working with her on this  bedroom painting project. I was making her uncomfortable, I could see it.

I told her I sensed this was so, and tonight, she agreed. She said she does want to work on the bedroom alone.

I could see it in her face.

We are always honest with one another. That is not always easy, but it is always good.

Maria didn’t quite realize it herself until I brought it up, but quickly acknowledged that it was true. She was irritable, distracted by me. I felt clumsy, a bit oafish, not welcome. That is unusual with us.

We had this talk tonight finally surrendered to weariness and the drain of bitter cold and hours of scraping and painting.

This kind of cold transcends winter, it goes into the bones, it is draining in a particular kind of way. It is simply exhausting, especially when you’re shoveling and painting all day.

Those of you experiencing this cold will know what I mean. Even the snuggest of houses feels the chill in this cold and wind, it only leaves us when we get into bed and turn on the electric heated flannel blanket.

Then we can be warm. But we did get the first coat of paint on the bedroom, and I love the way it looks. Maria isn’t certain yet that she loves it, she will come around, and if not, she’ll do it over in a minute.

And I’ve been politely discharged from the project. But I want to tell you this, sometimes you can love just as much by stepping back as you can by staying close.

When we first moved into the farmhouse, Maria wanted us to do all of this work together. But I sensed I was making her anxious today. For one thing, she worried that I was overdoing things, shoveling and painting all day.

I have a tendency to do that. She was also worried about where I was placing the drop cloth, whether I was staying away from the trim, whether there was space for me to work, whether I was leaving drops on the floor, or hurting my back. I was working silently listening to music.

But it was strange. I was feeling her discomfort.

Maria had a particular vision for the room, this is a personal project, more so that a living room.  She didn’t really want someone else in it. I said it felt like she would feel if I intruded while she was making a quilt. She would be uncomfortable and so would I.

We both are people who need head space to do our work.

And Maria’s creativity is a boiling cauldron inside of  her. It is her life, and to love her is to understand and respect that. On her bi-weekly blog of ideas, Brain Pickings, Maria Popova wrote about Mary Oliver’s vision of creativity, it helped me to understand how Maria felt.

“In creative work” wrote Mary Oliver, the poet who died last week, – “creative work of all kinds – those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward. Which is something altogether different from the ordinary.  Such work does not refute the ordinary. Such work does not refute the ordinary. It is, simply, something else. It’s labor requires a different outlook – a different set of priorities.”

Out of my consciousness, our bedroom had become a creative work, not a matter of home improvement like the dining room or living room. A creative work like our Frida Kahlo bathroom which I also had no real role in re-doing.

For a moment, I felt hurt. We have done all the big house projects together, side-by-side. Was she tiring of me? Was I a bumbling bore, just getting in the way? Did she no longer care what I thought? I know this feeling.

But that was old thinking, it was not her, it is not us. Over these years, I trust us more than I have ever trusted anything. Maria would never hurt me.

“Of this there can be no question,” wrote Oliver. “Creative work requires a loyalty as complete as the loyalty of water to the force of water to the force of gravity. A person trudging through the wilderness of creation who does not know this – who does not swallow this – is lost. he who does not crave that roofless place eternity should stay at home…Such a person had better go off and fly an airplane.”

Maria is ever loyal to her work, and I would dread ever asking her to choose between me and her creativity. She would never ask that of me.

But this time, it is different, and I was surprised by it. There are broken parts of me. She was in a bad place tonight, I could see that, but there was more to it than that.

It’s really her work, her art, and she just didn’t really want me there. She kept saying she would finish, I didn’t need to stay. I’m glad I sensed that, and didn’t over stay my welcome. I’m glad she is strong enough to tell me the truth. That is what love is.

It became obvious, so I asked her point blank if she would be more comfortable if I left. I’ve spend much of my life being asked to leave places, or standing outside of them, so it is familiar ground to me. Yet this didn’t feel like that to me, once the echoes of other times faded.

Maria is an artist, and the bedroom is her art right now. Creative people – I am one of them – sometimes need to work alone. I need to be alone when I write on this blog or write my books. I would not want Maria to be with me, to be a part of that.

So I’m bailing out of the bedroom project. I’ll keep taking photos and sharing them, and she is almost done. It is something she needs to do be herself. I love her and accept her, she is not always predictable, cannot always explains just what she is feeling or why.

She doesn’t need to do a lot of explaining. We share a powerful connection to the idea of creativity, and we respect one another’s idea of what it is. And I trust her love for me.

“It is six A.M.,” wrote Oliver, “and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as if it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt…My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howseover it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.”

In stepping away from the bedroom, I am giving the work back to Maria, it is hers. Her loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. There is no shame, and there is no guilt. That is what love means to me.