Steel on plaster and a ladderThis is not a project for two. If it is said that a couple that survives installing curtain rods will survive any épreuve together, then the bar has been set too low, or no one imagined my husband. I exited stage right and remained there, fingers in my ears. Which wasn't enough. I can hear him anyway.
"Je ne suis pas énervé," he tells me, after swearing a streak bleu. "C'est ma soupape. Si je rale, je ne m'énerve pas."
Non, I explain to him. A soupape does not open to relieve pressure if there is none to release. If there is pressure, then you are énervé already and you are en train de raler, meaning manifester verbalement son mécontentement, sa mauvaise humeur.
C'est comme ça.
Today, I didn't even bother. It would only m'énerver plus to hear him say it. It already makes me nuts to know what he would say, possibly more than to listen to him raler.
We cannot even say that he ralôte. Non, it is decidedly not doux.
"If you love him," said my friend, "tell yourself it is part of him, or part of what you love about him.
My friend is deluded. Perhaps right, but certainly à côté de la plaque. He is also a guy.
Love me, love my faults.
Mm -- non.
And so I stayed in the living room and worked on the plans, feeling worse and worse, more and more doubtful, less and less secure. I googled an old boyfriend, and I saw his face looking back out from the screen of my computer. His corporate biography photo. Senior vice president. Soon, he will accomplish his objective, the one he announced to me after I had destroyed love for him, too. I remembered when those eyes looked directly into my own, and I was unafraid, happy. He hadn't changed since the last time I saw him, when we wanted to see each other, but ought not have.
I have.
I looked at the wedding photos of a couple I don't even know, and then I looked at their blog.
This is the story of us.
-- Our dreams for the future.
I had to get up, find an excuse to leave my computer. Go to the toilet. I had dreams for the future, too, and I forgot to become someone. We never had dreams for our future, just an idea that we had one and that it would reveal itself to us.
Once I was loved by a very young man who solved problems with a joke, a brilliant idea, as though no problem could ever be one, until I broke up with him, when I started my French adventure, years ago. The adventure that led me to my husband, who had nothing to do with his broken heart, but maybe something to do with mine. Some days. Problems didn't used to be problems for me, either. I solved them in the due course of things, with bonne humeur. I looked forward to the future, and had dreams for one. Now I am loved by a man who sees problems in everything.
I have lost mon humeur, along with mes rêves.
I tell my son, Love is simple. It hits you right between the eyes, and I point to the spot between my eyes. Don't go looking to make sure. Don't go looking for love after love, 'just in case'. Love is simple, and it is joyous and it is playful, and when you pile too many of them up behind you, it isn't anymore. It can't be anymore. When you are happy in love, it is good enough.
I learned the hard way, when it was too late for me, after we had each piled too much up and tried to bring it all into our future together. We had no plan.
Our present was hard enough.
"Combien font tes boiseries," asked my husband. "Your" woodwork, not "the" woodwork. This is subtle, but it is significant. How far do your wainscoting and bookshelves stick out, was what he was asking.
"Pour quoi?" He wants bookshelves, too.
"Parce que, déjà avec ce système de merde," everything he uses, from tools to products, is "de la merde", his soupape, at least until he gets the hang of it, "on perde tout cet espace. La pièce va être toute petite."
"La pièce est déjà toute petite." I said, civilly. The house is already toute petite.
This is the story of us.
This is the story of how I gradually fell out of love, and I thank you for being so considerate as to keep it to yourself.
This is a blog about a lot of things – from working in the garden, motorcycles, renovations, life as a couple, French versus American culture to coming to terms with the reality of those dreams of our future.
....
"Je ne suis pas énervé," he tells me, after swearing a streak bleu. "C'est ma soupape. Si je rale, je ne m'énerve pas."
Non, I explain to him. A soupape does not open to relieve pressure if there is none to release. If there is pressure, then you are énervé already and you are en train de raler, meaning manifester verbalement son mécontentement, sa mauvaise humeur.
C'est comme ça.
Today, I didn't even bother. It would only m'énerver plus to hear him say it. It already makes me nuts to know what he would say, possibly more than to listen to him raler.
We cannot even say that he ralôte. Non, it is decidedly not doux.
"If you love him," said my friend, "tell yourself it is part of him, or part of what you love about him.
My friend is deluded. Perhaps right, but certainly à côté de la plaque. He is also a guy.
Love me, love my faults.
Mm -- non.
And so I stayed in the living room and worked on the plans, feeling worse and worse, more and more doubtful, less and less secure. I googled an old boyfriend, and I saw his face looking back out from the screen of my computer. His corporate biography photo. Senior vice president. Soon, he will accomplish his objective, the one he announced to me after I had destroyed love for him, too. I remembered when those eyes looked directly into my own, and I was unafraid, happy. He hadn't changed since the last time I saw him, when we wanted to see each other, but ought not have.
I have.
I looked at the wedding photos of a couple I don't even know, and then I looked at their blog.
This is the story of us.
This is the story of how we fell in love, and we thank you for sharing in our life.
This is a blog about a lot of things – from fashion, bicycles, food & drink, life as a couple, pop culture to our dreams for the future.-- Our dreams for the future.
I had to get up, find an excuse to leave my computer. Go to the toilet. I had dreams for the future, too, and I forgot to become someone. We never had dreams for our future, just an idea that we had one and that it would reveal itself to us.
Once I was loved by a very young man who solved problems with a joke, a brilliant idea, as though no problem could ever be one, until I broke up with him, when I started my French adventure, years ago. The adventure that led me to my husband, who had nothing to do with his broken heart, but maybe something to do with mine. Some days. Problems didn't used to be problems for me, either. I solved them in the due course of things, with bonne humeur. I looked forward to the future, and had dreams for one. Now I am loved by a man who sees problems in everything.
I have lost mon humeur, along with mes rêves.
I tell my son, Love is simple. It hits you right between the eyes, and I point to the spot between my eyes. Don't go looking to make sure. Don't go looking for love after love, 'just in case'. Love is simple, and it is joyous and it is playful, and when you pile too many of them up behind you, it isn't anymore. It can't be anymore. When you are happy in love, it is good enough.
I learned the hard way, when it was too late for me, after we had each piled too much up and tried to bring it all into our future together. We had no plan.
Our present was hard enough.
"Combien font tes boiseries," asked my husband. "Your" woodwork, not "the" woodwork. This is subtle, but it is significant. How far do your wainscoting and bookshelves stick out, was what he was asking.
"Pour quoi?" He wants bookshelves, too.
"Parce que, déjà avec ce système de merde," everything he uses, from tools to products, is "de la merde", his soupape, at least until he gets the hang of it, "on perde tout cet espace. La pièce va être toute petite."
"La pièce est déjà toute petite." I said, civilly. The house is already toute petite.
This is the story of us.
This is the story of how I gradually fell out of love, and I thank you for being so considerate as to keep it to yourself.
This is a blog about a lot of things – from working in the garden, motorcycles, renovations, life as a couple, French versus American culture to coming to terms with the reality of those dreams of our future.
....
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“People are their best selves and worst selves intermittently,” he told me, “and the best marriages navigate that ride over the hurt, which I believe they did right to the end. They both had options, and at the end of the day the life they created together won over infidelity, illness and hard times. She really held her own with my father. They were an amazing team.” John Buffalo Mailer (from today's NYT mag article on Norris Mailer.)
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