In
my new apartment, I wear socks to bed, cozy despite the cold of the home I’ve
constructed over the past few months with Chris.
As
the sun shifts from the front living room to the back bedroom throughout the
day, my plump cat rotates her naps from the bay window, to the worn purple
couch, to her nest of blankets on the bed, following the rays of warmth.
I
think I could read for days from the library of books our two collections have
joined to combine, lazily sipping peppermint tea in the living room on a day
when the blasts of fog whisk across the rooftops and mist drenches you on a
brief jaunt to the market around the corner. On a sunny day, though, the
blacktop of our patio heats up, and it’s not such a chore to grade if I can
bask in its warmth.
Never
much of a cook before, I suddenly find myself enjoying adventurous forays into
vegan chili, green curry, and tiramisu in the tight corner that is our kitchen.
Feeding someone and choosing dishes that will nourish us both is, I realize, a
concrete way of caring that I’ve never really experienced or wanted to show
before.
The
coffee pot awakens with a gurgle ten minutes after my alarm trills a rising
scale of notes every weekday, and I bluster around, hair, makeup, outfit,
breakfast, lunch, and snacks tucked in my bag and out the door in 35 minutes
flat. I don’t often return before 6:30 in the evening, drooping with laptop,
grading, and gym bag in tow. And though we both have work still to do, and may
retire to separate rooms for these tasks after dinner, I can hear the keys of
Chris’s laptop clicking and his voice muttering and as he dictates his essays
to himself through the thin walls. The cat pads softly between us for a scratch
or a massage as we work.
