Question of the Month: Partners
Tell me about your partner.
We talk so much here about ourselves and our writing lives. But who’s that person (or animal or drug or ritual) you go home to, or that person you rely on to balance out your life? I want to hear all about him or her.
Mr. H and I met our second year in college. He was a drama major reading Einstein. I was still a science major reading Oliver Sacks. We traded books. He read mine and I pretended to read his.
Our first date was to an August Wilson play.
He grew up in Honolulu, Singapore, and London. He had a British accent when we first started dating, but now you mostly hear it in his syntax or in his funny choice of adjectives.
Mr. H teaches, paints, designs and builds sets, designs and builds costumes, creates cool scar make-up, writes songs when he’s in the shower, and plays guitar in a punk band.
When our first dog was dying, he carried him up the stairs every night so he could sleep in our bed and carried him down the stairs every morning. Our boys were the first babies he ever held.
He played Lego with the boys and sewed costumes for them. And when they got older, he taught them games like Magic Cards and Glory to Rome.
How is my life better because of him? Because we talk about anything and everything. Because we’re both constantly curious and constantly learning. Because we laugh. We laugh a lot. Because we know life has ups and downs, and he’s the person I want with me on this great rollercoaster of life.
I’ll end by sharing the books I read since my last post:
Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel
Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing
Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Yukio Mishima, Death in Midsummer
Helen Simonson, The Summer Before the War
Jessica Anya Blau, The Trouble with Lexie
Thelma Adams, The Last Woman Standing
Natalie Baszile, Queen Sugar
Don DeLillo, Zero K
Anand Giridharadas, The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas
Sari Wilson, Girl Through Glass
Tracy K. Smith, Life on Mars: Poems
Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven
Paula Whyman, You May See a Stranger
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project
Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven
Gina Frangello, Every Kind of Wanting
Akhil Sharma, Family Life
Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger’s Daughter
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
And some re-reads:
Elie Wiesel, Night
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
So that’s it for this month. But jump into the comments section and tell me about your partner. I want to know that side of you.
