ESP
October 10, 2009
There is a certain wonderful shorthand long-marrieds acquire. It’s not about finishing one another’s sentences in haste but coming to the rescue of those evanescent fragments.
Me: “You know who we never heard from?”
Him: “Who?”
Me: “Uh. Uhm.. you know, the…. urologist.”
Him: “Yeah, I thought of them this week. You’re right.”
In that brief exchange what was really being recalled was the fact that we invited to our Sukkah party a neighborhood couple. We never heard from them and they didn’t show up. Disappointing, as we’ve wanted to get to know them better, and they knew many of the others who had been invited.
The paths of our conversations are so well worn that we can go down them barefoot, blindfolded even and still know our way. Admittedly this has a dangerous side, too. Knowing one another’s stories so well can get tiresome. I once said that we could probably have an argument without saying a word but just reading each other’s faces. He laughed, recognizing the truth in it.
But it’s not a bad trade-off — listening to his stories for what sometimes feels like one time too many, in exchange for the comfort of being so close that our very minds are sometimes one.
