Mine, Hers, Ours -- Whose?

While listening to Camille read her latest Lincoln Street blog, while feeling guilty for not writing more, I fell into a little reflection on the language of ownership. I will expand.

I admit to this: Camille is the brains behind the large number of the activities we do together (trips, weekend projects, going on hikes). The gardening is no different. I'm certain that we both extract the same closer-to-earth, further-from-the-grocery-store goodness from gardening, but the fact remains that Camille is the reason that we end up in the dirt.

Now, Camille is quick to point out that we are equal partners in hard labor--and we are. We both do early morning waterings, we both pick the suckers off the tomatoes, and we both suffer through early evening mosquito bites. We are a united gardening front. It's Team Bernstein or bust.

We are also a united front with housewarming gifts we buy people, and with birthday greetings, and with thank you notes sent. It's an us thing. But...

But every once and a while, she slips. She'll say, as she did last night, my garlic, or some similar and pointed variation of ownership. It's her homemade jam or fudge brownies.

Now, Camille will most often catch herself and correct herself in the same breath, circling back to the subject and using a crowd-pleaser of a collective pronoun, but that my is always lurking.

The thing is, I'm okay with that. It isn't because I have to be, or because I want to be. That big old bottom line is that without Camille, there wouldn't be any our garlic.