6:00pm. I look up and scan the
room. I return to my reading.
There is a kind of twisted logic to the concept of openness in
relationships. Yes, there are the well worn issues of deception
regarding the existence of, say, multiple lovers. But withholding
information occurs on a more subtle level at a certain stage of
intimacy. In an ideal world, the walls of modesty and “showing
one’s best side” crumble. Ideal Partner A says to Ideal
Partner B: “I love you as you are, flawed and vulnerable,
even in the white cotton underwear humdrum of the everyday. In an
ideal world, this openness does not extend to “your hairball’s
clogged the drain again” and “wow, that was a hell of
a poo. Wanna see?”
So in the third year of our relationship, N. and I have decided
to engage in damage control. To each his own interpretation…
It’s Friday and I’m home alone. The clock clicks to
6:30pm. I turn the page.
7:00pm. My leg starts jiggling.
7:25pm. “Oh fuck it!” I leap off the couch, my heart
racing. The book bounces off the pile of unironed clothes as I give
in to the inevitable.
N. works away from Paris during the week and returns home to the
apartment only on weekends. While he’s away, the place disintegrates
into a disaster zone: bachelor(ette)s pad meets the confused artist
studio. Days of unwashed dishes sit in the sink. A heap of dirty
laundry lurks behind the bathroom door. I sweep through the house
picking up pairs of worn socks and crumpled Kleenex, cursing “shit
shit shit.” I used to prepare for his return a whole day in
advance, making not only the house presentable but myself as well.
(Legs shaved—check. Clean socks—check.) Now halfway
though the madness of cleaning, I rack my brain…did I remember
to shower today?
Because combined with the laziness of a bachelor, I also use the
week alone to cultivate my freer spirit leanings. Not interested
in business suits and white sneakers for the 9-5 life, I prefer
to roll out of bed and start working in my pajamas. Few people realize
that by the afternoon, unless I’m called to leave my “office,”
I stay in this uniform. My hair remains uncombed, my face grubby.
Meanwhile, N. has proven very tolerant of my doubling the apartment
as a design studio. He doesn’t comment on the pencil sharpener
sitting beside the toilet paper as long as I stop leaving it on
the edge of the bathtub where it leaves small but resistant rust
stains. Nor was he bothered back when I started up a collection
of twigs and pine cones for future “nature assemblages.”
He was so calm when our apartment was hit with that sudden invasion
of flying insects (hatched from eggs hidden in one of the said pinecones).
Come to think of it, I never did confess to being the source of
that incident.
He does occasionally heave a sigh while picking white threads off
his dark clothing, thread bits that waylay from the trail between
the sewing machine and ironing table. He’s also taken on the
habit of wearing socks indoors to keep his feet clean and protected
from the sewing needles that fall to the floor. N. used to pick
them up and shake them in my face, “you have to be careful
with these!” Rather than live in fear, I prefer to adapt and
go barefoot myself. During chaotic sewing frenzies when containers
of straight pins launch themselves upside down in the air, padding
around the house flatfooted enables me to find needles more efficiently:
by stepping on top of them, rather than letting them find me. During
less motivated moments, I might push a pin or two with my toes into
the space between the floor’s hardwood boards. Compromises…
As long as I keep up the well behaved facade, he won’t suspect
what goes on behind his back. I’m not sure if his tolerance
extends to my using the drinking glasses for water coloring or my
snipping spare buttons off his shirts and boxers for my summer collection
on the theme of “found objects.”
Back on the front of maintaining a front, there is a more subtle
level of tidying up. Bumbly the Teddy Bear (first Valentines Day
present) comes out from his hiding place. (He falls under the bed
on Mondays where he lies in cover until N. returns home.)
N. doesn’t have a sense of the effort made on his benefit.
Though I may complain about having spent the afternoon cleaning,
he returns every Friday finding only the familiar cozy clutter.
When he tells me, “you have nothing worth hiding!” I
can only laugh at his naiveté. In other areas though, we
are agreeing that sharing and openness should not be taken to extremes.
After a heated discussion over definitions and assignment of blame,
we prepare to re-embark on a more civilized life together.
“No more overt nose picking.”
“Start closing the bathroom door when you’re in the
loo.”
“And no more announcements about bowel movements.”
“Stop burping during meals”
“Yeah, and no more bragging about it.”
“Right. Even if there’s sometimes that certain complexity…”
“It’s a deal.”
Once upon a time, I decided that it would be lovely for N. to return
home after a long week to the smell of cooking wafting through the
building. “Whose lucky home is that coming from?” he’d
wonder. Then nose a-wiggling, he would walk into our apartment to
find me wearing something pretty, stirring a pot of something hearty.
That would have been some kind of manifestation of the beauty of
couple-hood. To know that you’re returning home to the one
who celebrates your existence, to rejoin with the one who shares
your burnt meals, if not all the digestive details.
8:00pm. The door opens and N. gingerly pokes his head in. I pause,
one hand on the broom, other keeping the wet towel perched over
my freshly washed hair. “Oh shit. You’re back already.”
I become a rattling automatic record. “I’m-sorry-I-meant-to-get-this-done-before-you-got-back-I’ll-start-dinner-soon-oh-god-you-must-be-hungry—”
He tosses his suitcase into a corner. “Can’t talk.
Gotta go to…oh god, my bladder’s gonna burst.”
He runs for the bathroom. I pause for a moment, listening to the
sound of Niagara Falls through the opened door. Setting the broom
aside, I pull my book out of my bathrobe pocket to sneak in just
one more page of reading.
Ah, the many facades of romance…
|
