Felice ShapiroIt dawned on me that my husband and I have been on parallel tracks for the past few weeks and we needed some “us” time. It’s not that I’m complaining, it happens, it’s just that we kept trying to catch up at the end of each day and it never quite worked.
We seemed to be on auto repeat, “Didn’t you put that on the calendar, adding….I’m sure I told you that.”
“No you didn’t tell me,” he was starting to get exasperated. “You think you tell me but we haven’t sat down together once this week.”
“That’s ridiculous, of course we have, plus I sent you a bunch of stuff on the Outlook Calendar invite.”
“Really, I never got any of them. I’ve been swamped at work.”
We were drifting into the garden of prickly tension and neither of us like it there much.
We were both guilty on so many counts. Constantly lulled into believing that because we get up at the same time in the morning, and head to bed at the same time, we are “together.” The weeks inevitably slip away somewhat unconsciously until the tension of disconnectedness starts to work it’s nasty claws into our patience and then we get a little snappy. But that’s the signal and we know, it’s time to reset.
It’s incredible how quickly we can get out of sync and after almost 10 years of marriage, how quickly we can find our way back to each other…but it’s not automatic. We have to acknowledge that we are not dancing to the same beat
We both know we have to set aside “us” time to find our together rhythm..
We hadn’t figure out our weekend beyond our Saturday “spring” golf plans which were nixed because it was way too cold.
The day threatened to dissolve into an unmemorable lazy all day lounge full of parallel play and TV, sports and errands if we didn’t take charge of it.
After a long walk with the girlfriends, I came home and made a pitch.
“How about just you and me have a date?”
That definitely got his attention and he smiled.
“Hmmmm, I mean, let’s go the the city. (New York City). We live about 40 minutes from the city and I was hankering to go to the AIPAD Photography show at Pier 94.
“How about we do that and then catch a movie after, we can go see Chappaquiddick,” he said.
We both smiled, we had a plan, together, and it would be an adventure. We decided not to decide which movie theater we would go to, we had no idea where we would have dinner or how the day would play out… we just headed out side by side ready to let our plan unfold.
And, it worked, it was wonderful.
We lingered in front of photographs, talking about what we liked and didn’t like. We heard stories from curators about some of the pieces and we were truly turned on by what we saw.
“Would you ever want this in our house?” We loved to play this game and sometimes in turns into purchase but today we had no intention of bringing anything home. We were just playing.
Transported by the photographs and the buzz of the art scene we relaxed and found our way back to each other. Maybe it was this photograph of Paul Newman by Leo Fuchs that put me in a great mood,
Or this alluring photo by Lucien Clergue that Bill loved.
Or a photo essay by Andre Cunha about a German couple who moved to Brazil and raised 4 kids and were subsisting on agriculture and living off the grid. This photo was particularly transporting and we spoke for awhile with the gallery owner.
Saturated from the art, Bill checked his phone, found a nearby movie theatre and grabbed 2 tickets on-line to the film. As we made our way up-town to the theatre we grabbed a quick meal at a bar and headed into the film which we loved. We were in our own little bubble, content and connected.
As we drove home we talked about the film and our day. We both agreed this was our favorite kind of date, spontaneous and easy, a night dedicated to us and something we needed more of.