Half of me walks out the door of our New York apartment, orders a $6.45 iced oat milk latte from Joe’s Coffee, observes the notice that Le Petit Rooster on Columbus Avenue has closed, listens to a few minutes of an audiobook about the rise of Uber, leaps out of the way of an errant cyclist racing through a red light at 85th Street.
The other half of me is annotating what I am doing for you, dotting my unremarkable errand with your imagined marginalia —
That you don’t care for Joe’s coffee,
That even after three years of living in this exorbitantly-priced city of nightmares and dreams, you cannot oblige a $6.45 latte,
That we sat at Le Petit Rooster with my parents one pre-pandemic Saturday evening and you dashed off to the Gristedes across the street to buy my mother Advil when she complained of her aching shoulder,
That you will have an opinion about the author’s agenda in writing the Uber book,
That nothing grinds your gears more than the cyclists of Manhattan.
I will recount to you these fibrous nothings of my sojourn outside, accurately anticipating your replies, over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with our children next to us at the lunch table (knowing that you will only eat a PBJ once a week and then only if we have potato chips — plain, preferably Utz — and dill pickles on hand). I will whisper them to you in the narrow galley kitchen of our home after our son — whose nursery is right off the butler’s pantry and therefore unfortunately proximal to where you are cooking spaghetti with guanciale for dinner — has gone to sleep. I will text them to you while waiting at the stoplight, on my way to the UPS store to return those lampshades that did not fit. I will tuck them in among the heavier things that freight our emotional and intellectual lives at the moment.
These wafer-thin observations are the delicate webwork of ten years of marriage, of knowing you so well that when I am apart from you for even ten minutes grabbing coffee, at least half of that time, I am collecting the bric a brac of our eternal conversation, knowing what will interest and anger and sadden and delight you.
Put differently: I am only half living when we are apart. The other half is suspended in anticipatory conversation, waiting for the moment when I can fill you in.
I did not know this about marriage when I cried through our “I dos” ten years ago today. I could not have imagined, then, the way we now lay ourselves bare to one another, soul to soul, no space between us.
Happy ten years of marriage to my absolute beloved, my other half.
Cheers to 1000 more years together here and in the worlds beyond.
Post-Scripts.
+And I love our love story, too.
+Great gifts for men and a great men’s sale worth shopping.
+If you have access to the Nordstrom Anniversary sale already, these Ferragamo loafers are the most elegant shoes for a gentleman and they rarely go on sale.
+Many of the beautiful pieces of fine jewelry here would make a lovely gift to commemorate an anniversary.
+These sweet ballet flats are darling for a little girl. Such a pretty color, too!
+Dying over this $70 one-piece.
+OK, I need this $35 thermal nightgown for winter.
+Should have included this in my nursery roundup yesterday, but I absolutely love this chandelier for a nursery! And this one would be fun for a scandi-style one. (Imagine with other black/white pieces.)
+Love this leopard dress for fall.
+Precious dolls for a little one:
MINIKANE (YOU CAN FIND A DOLL THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE YOUR CHILD IN TERMS OF SKIN COLOR, EYE COLOR, ETHNICITY)
COROLLE (MINI’S FIRST BABY DOLL WAS THIS BRAND)
MERRILEE LIDDIARD (HEIRLOOM-QUALITY — WOW!)
+My sister recently mentioned that she uses bees wrap instead of saran wrap — brilliant and reduces single-use plastic! I specifically like the idea of storing hunks of cheese in these, as saran never works well anyway if you unwrap it more than once.
+This dress is here for the party.
+Just the prettiest bralette — although you all know that I am in a committed bra relationship with Natori.
+Now is a really good time to stock up on shortalls/bubbles for your boy for next summer. I absolutely love this one by Florence Eiseman, this one from Dondolo, and this one from Proper Peony, all 50% off with code SPLASH50.
+I love a scalloped detail part I, part II, and part III.
+I also love a pearl detail.
+This dress is now further reduced…!