By Gina Barreca/Hartford Courant, October 20, 2014
Here’s what I’ve learned in 23 years of marriage: Love isn’t blind, but it can be hard of hearing.
At the beginning of a relationship, you hang onto each other’s every word the way you hang onto each other’s arms: more to display affection than to satisfy a real need. You laugh at every story and gasp in delight at every exaggerated tale.
Every conversation begins a new pathway.
Your heart beats faster when you hear your name or an endearment murmured by your beloved. You spend hours wondering whether you should repeat how much you care or if that would be overdoing it. Your sweetheart probably heard it the first time, but it might be worth repeating.
Then familiarity sets in and, like the foundation to a house, you settle into each other for better and worse.
You’ve learned every pause for comic effect and quirky inflection of the well-worn funny story. You know when an exaggeration is close to a fib and when a fib is close to a lie. Your heart beats faster when you hear your name or an endearment because it often precedes a request or a rebuke. If there’s no answer when you shout, you wonder whether you should shout again or if that would be overdoing it.
You realize how important it is to be heard and how even more important it is to listen. Listening can’t be overdone.
So you each listen, and you both learn your cues.
In a good relationship, the dialogue always changes slightly, even when you’re more or less rehearsing other conversations. If you’re lucky, you’re rarely playing to an empty house.
And at the best of times, in the most fortunate of lives, in the most hard-won, fiercely protected and carefully cultivated relationships, there can come a time when you go beyond listening with your ears and know it in your bones.
It’s not only about finishing each other’s sentences, although that’s part of it. It’s knowing that the ground on which the foundation is built is unyielding; it’s understanding that there are pathways to each other that rest beneath both of you like power lines, buried under the earth, unseen and silent.
There’s an old joke about an aging couple. He wants to prove that his poor wife is losing her hearing. He decides to collect hard data to take to their family doctor. While she’s cooking, he starts the test. Approaching her from the doorway without being seen, he asks, “What are we having for dinner tonight, honey?” No response. He moves 10 feet closer and speaks louder. “What are we having for dinner tonight, honey?” Still nothing. She doesn’t even turn around. He feels bad, but she needs to admit she has a problem. Finally, now standing no more than two feet behind her, he makes his final attempt. “WHAT ARE WE HAVING FOR DINNER TONIGHT, HONEY?” he yells. “FOR THE THIRD TIME ALREADY,” she yells back, “WE’RE HAVING CHICKEN.”
My husband has tinnitus, which used to be known as having “ringing in your ears” but is now defined as the perception of sound when no external sound is present. If you live with me, according to Michael, there is no such thing as having “no external sound present,” but we’re managing.
Sure, there are some odd conversations: On a recent holiday, he stopped to ask for driving directions. A local woman told him to take the “roundabout.” Only Michael heard what she said as “banana boat.” She was pointing in the direction of a yellow building and he assumed that’s what she meant. “Is that the banana boat?” he asked. She kept pointing to the traffic circle, trying to override his comment. “Roundabout! Go toward the roundabout!” “Banana boat? Is that the banana boat?” Finally she just smiled and walked away.
As he told me the story, when he returned to the car, we laughed so hard we were wiping tears from our eyes.
After 23 years, it turns out that conversations can become epic journeys (with some roundabouts).
And the best parts are worth repeating — with bells on.
