reversals

I should be working on my job applications, my ACLS letter, my book talk. But alas, I’m thinking about dinner. And it’s before noon! I’m wondering about those two onions, that sack of pinto beans, that can of tomatoes, that bevy of lemons. It’s a very strange feeling, this thinking about making dinner. You see, J is the cook. I’m the dishwasher. He’s the foodie. I’m the rapid eater. In the established order of things, I have two left feet in the kitchen (a convenient reputation when you’re eager for others to cook for you) and he makes magic from canned beans.

But in recent days, all sorts of shifts have been perceptible around here. I’ve been making dinner—red cabbage and lime salad, butternut squash gratin, shrimp tacos (my culinary heart throb), basil ceasar—and J has actually been eating my creations with tremendous relish. It’s gotten me thinking that so much about relationships is about that peculiar mix of well-worn patterns and new flexibility. Last summer, as I gradually lost my mind with too much work, J cooked carefully considered dinners that greeted me when I warily came in from the office. Now I find myself doing the same for him. Instead of feeling like an unpleasant push and pull, it feels wonderfully natural to find these rhythms together.

Four months of marriage have begun to suggest that there may really be something to this commitment thing. Instead of feeling emotionally bent by indecision and second guessing (oh, how I don’t long for my twenties!), I’m loving watching these synchronizations unfold. Now only if I could convince—or rather, not have to convince—J to pick up the sponge after dinner.