There is a point in a long term relationship where love is less defined by ardor and more by how well one knows and tolerates their significant other's faults. This is frequently played out standing over dishwashers, muttering sarcastic comments about how the other is not using efficient space and immediately bending to rearrange them once the space is surrendered—or, in my case, by complaining loudly and pointedly whenever my partner folds a bath towel before it has dried, giving it a scent not unlike a ferret-breeding hoarder: musty. He counters by reminding me of the frenetic sprawl of suitcases and toiletries dominating my living room, or the Homealonesian death trap known as my back yard via my most unwise facebook marketplace purchase, a planterbox (no longer; its bones are all out) held together by hope and tetanus.
As the case may be, neither of us have murdered the other, but continue to wage a cold war across two apartments, folding and unfolding. There is a wonderful solution known as a towel rack that might achieve a perfect compromise (neatness and olfactory pleasantness), but to do this would deprive us of the stimulation of harassing one another for sport. No, if I were to make an effort to change one thing about my partner, it would be to get him into birdwatching. Not to help him practice being in the moment, nor to soothe his anxiety, but simply to begin to educate him as to basic bird physiology. The man refers to the parking lot grackles as crows, and I can see him burying his disagreement with a "you might be right" when I exasperatedly point out each and every detail that makes the Great-tailed Grackle not a crow. Or, in Florida, when he misidentified the Lesser Tern as a juvenile seagull and I, in a moment of baffled dismay, considered catching one just to show him the very, very obvious differences. He is entirely capable of learning either thing, given he is able to differentiate between the ducks that have taken over a complex's pool. "That's a different female," he remarks over a sunbathing couple, and when I ask him how he knows, he cites the size, as though I were capable of mentally comparing bird length. No, if I make a birder of him, I will create a monster: we will spend our time arguing as to whether we are hearing a chickadee or whippoorwill; we may possibly be more obnoxious with one another, given we both have a particular kind of stubbornness that means we must be Right and Correct, and exasperate my poor metamour (his wife) even further than we normally do. But at least he will understand the difference between a grackle and a crow, and I will not go through several stages of despair as I recognize I still love him and want him more than anyone despite his avian blindness.
gummygunk
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
pixelskylines
stormborns
