In A Town This Size: ‘Are you glad you moved in with k?’
June Edition: In A Town This Size, a monthly column featured in The Ogdenite print newspaper
MEMOIR | ESSAY
“Happiness was an absurd and even harmful idea,
unless it was really comprehensive.” (Saul Bellow, “Herzog”)
Scrupulous readers have wondered aloud and within earshot how things are going with my recent move to Ogden. Of course, I can’t help but hear the silent question dangling in the air nearby: “Are you glad you moved in with K?” The shortest answer is simply “yes!” However, because the devil (aka the interesting part) is in the details, and not wanting to disappoint your natural curiosity, but also acutely aware of the delicate balance and discretion that successful relationships require, let me pull back the curtain a bit and allow a glimpse inside. In a town this size, one cannot be too careful.
Perhaps the best place to begin is where nearly all our mornings begin – K, chasing sleep in the predawn stillness, and me “clomping” (K’s word) around the house:
“It’s like you’re looking for something you’ve misplaced every morning. I can tell by the cadence of your steps.”
“I’m just trying to get my bearings. Wandering around is how I loosen up in the morning. You can tell by my cadence?”
“Yes, I can tell you’re looking for something.”
“No, I’m honestly just walking around half-asleep.”
“Hmm. I see. Could you be quieter?”
“It’s those squeaky floorboards in the living room.”
“I hear you everywhere ...”
Our morning tête-à-tête notwithstanding, the move to Ogden has actually encouraged improved cooperation and communication. Among the qualities that K values are stability, symmetry, order, and containment, so I have learned the best answer to the question, “Did you put it on our shared calendar?” is also, simply but less enthusiastically, “yes.” Grocery lists are now a group project, and voice-activated. Google recognizes me as an authorized giver of commands. A look inside the cupboard will tell you what you need to know about my contributions.
“Hey Google, add Pub Cheese and Ritz crackers to the shopping list.”
In the evenings, when K says, “I’m going to take a bubble bath,” it is not an invitation to play the trumpet (described by one writer as a “machine where you put in compressed air and divorce comes out”). Although a music lover at heart, she prefers bathing in silence to defending the walls of Jericho. To her credit, she does not slam the door or roll her eyes aggressively when the trumpet sounds. She does, however, suggest that 9 p.m. is her “wind down time” and perhaps not the best hour to run scales. Happy relationships, like good music, require knowing when to be quiet.
Not surprisingly, moving in together has made more time for the simple things – watching classic movies together on a Sunday afternoon while folding laundry, reading next to each other on the couch, putting a fresh coat of paint on a weather-worn shed, lounging on the banks of the Ogden River listening to one of our favorite local singers. These are the moments where life unspools itself slowly amidst daily routines and quiet graces and makes life here on Malan Avenue just right.