This morning, I was at the dining room table, checking on some doctor’s appointments, paying some bills, calling Mike, our handyman, going over our $400 heating oil bill for the winter (blessings, wood stoves!).

I was behind schedule, and Zinnia was staring at me piteously, waiting for our morning ball throwing session out in the pasture.

We went outside, and I looked over to see Maria busy sweeping out the stalls where Laurie and Robin are, I saw the joy in her face and waved to her, and she waved back to me.

It was a beautiful thing to see – how much Maria loves taking care of her farm and animals – it always is.

I love to watch Maria in the morning as she heads outside to do the morning chores. She gets up earlier than I do these days, and there are some chores I can no longer do or help with.

This is so very different from my life when I first moved up here.

Then, it was me reveling in my life, in nature, and the animals, doing it mostly alone and loving it all the more for that.

Our routines have changed as our lives have changed. Life turns upside and gets richer at the same time.

I used to do all of the things she does now, and I loved doing them also. Now I’m 73, and our roles have shifted. Our happiness depends on our shifting with them.

Love is neither free nor unconditional. It takes work and honesty, and trust. Pretending nothing has changed is not love; it’s just another kind of ignorance.

I have to be careful on the ice and can lose my balance hauling hay bales around. Maria no longer needs a dog or me to get the animals to behave; she just asks them. And they do (sometimes).

The morning chores are not chores for her but individual acts of love and life.

My ego took a beating when I could no longer do the chores by myself or even be of much help.

I finally figured out that Maria loves going out there in the morning more than anything; she sweeps out the barn and the Pole Barn, adds to the manure pile, greets every one of the animals and talks to them,  checks them and the gardens, and trees and plants out.

She knows how every plant, every garden bed, every living thing on the farm is doing at any given moment.

She sweeps out the lamb stall daily, cleans the chicken roost, chases the barn cats out of the cellar if the sun is out, makes sure Fate gets her runs around the sheep, comes over to show me her videos.

Sometimes, she runs off into the woods to talk to a tree.

I do the dishes,  prepare breakfast, shower and dress, make the phone calls that need to be made, pay the bills, buy the food, buy the books, throw the ball for Zinnia, then go outside and help.

I go outside whenever I can, but I guess I’m the inside man now; she’s the outside woman.

I felt guilty about this, but that was stupid of me.

It is no sacrifice for her to care for the farm; she loves going out there; she loves opening the roost, urging the chickens to come out, telling the barn cats to find some sun, hugging the donkeys, checking everybody’s hooves, raking the garden, cleaning up the prodigious poop of any farm with a lot of animals, hauling out the hay.

I came to understand it was even better for her to do most of it alone; it’s hers to savor, and she doesn’t have to worry about me too. Solitude can be so sweet.

I kept fighting to get up early with her and came to see she loves this part of the day, loves checking the farm, the animals, the barn, the gardens slowly coming to life. This is why she is here and why I came here.

She knows the name of almost every bird who shows up and recognizes their songs; she is studying the nature of trees and learning how different they are, one from another.

Every few minutes, she will stop to take a photo or make one of her sweet videos.

She comes into the house filled with observations about how the sheep live and interact and eat, who is in a bad mood, looks thin, looks fat, and what the birds are doing in the barn.

I love listening to her reports and stories.

I always ask the same question: “How is it out there?” and I get my detailed report.

Out there in the pasture, she soars; she is at home, happy and engaged and safe in the world. All of this is grist for her wondrous creative mill, and somewhere between 9:30 and 10, she disappears into her studio to make art.

I am privileged to be a witness to this and a supporter of it. I have downsized my life a bit to make it more focused and meaningful. I am just as happy with my part of it.

We both make room for the other, and in so doing, affirm each other. I never once went to a gym in my life, I go every day now. Or visit my Amish friend.

Maria’s oxygen is nurturing and caring for things, including me. So I decided to swallow my manly pride and leave her alone. This is something she loves.

The ego of a grown man can be a dangerous and debilitating thing. It’s one thing to live with somebody; it’s quite another to support one another.

I told myself at least a year ago that I’m not going to pout about change or my aging, I’m not going to fight or deny it. I appreciate what we have, I won’t waste a minute of my life in complaint and self-pity.

And sometimes, you love someone by doing nothing but staying back, by giving them space to do what they love to do.

From the farmhouse, I can hear Maria talking to the sheep by name, exchanging emotions with the donkeys, sweeping out the eco-flakes that Robin and Laurie are sleeping on these days while she hums and sings.

I call it the morning song.

When I am done with my own chores, I come out, leaning on our new wooden rail. I get a detailed report – how the gardens are, what kind of mood the grumpy Lulu was in, how Robin is hopping onto hay bales, how Constance the lamb is complaining because she isn’t getting grain now that it’s warm, how a plant is peeking out of the ground.

There is a lot for me to do, and I do it, but watching her is a joy and listening to her is a song.