Recent writing

Then, inexplicably, a man pushing a stroller approaches. Long hair, a Dylan t-shirt, a walk seemingly free of gravity or gravitas or worry. Just one foot in front of the other, moving.

 

It is your husband.

 

They nod at each other but don’t shake hands. There is a look that passes between them. You can’t read it or perhaps don’t want to. You imagine there is almost a complicity there: you get this side of her, I get the rest. Except the argument comes over who gets which.

 

It’s an opportunity to look at the similarities, the contrasts. There are more of the latter than the former. Adam is loose, shoulders relaxed; Mac holds himself as if preparing for action. Your husband moves easily in the world – he decides long ago that he doesn’t give a fuck about what people think. Mac cares, probably too much. You relate strongly to one. The other is your husband.

 

But is that true?

 

Saying it just seems so easy: well, I relate more strongly to someone who’s not my spouse. He’s the person. He’s the connection. Easy enough when that person doesn’t see you with bad breath in the morning, sweating and shaking on the delivery table. Easy enough when you can put on your image, pull down the invisible hooded cloak of who you want to be rather than the revealing garb of what you are.