marriage as it should be

good song that you could listen to while reading this if you want:

I was in the souvenir/gift shop of the Cluny Museum tonight looking over the postcards I've seen several times already, sliding my hand across glossy covers of books that whisper to me "you can't fit me in your suitcase." And I want to buy those books almost just to prove that yes, I will find a way to fit all of you, this whole store actually, into my suitcase and none of you can stop me. Actually, I was not feeling so hostile. I was just doing an assignment, happy to be back at one of my favorite museums in the city. I heard English everywhere. There were a lot of Americans in the museum today. I think it was "if you are an American, come to the Cluny Museum" day, but I don't know. I could be wrong. I kept hearing them and tried not to slip and fall into that deep puddle of warmth and comfort that is homesickness.

I had barely been in the shop for a second when I saw an American woman holding two books in her hand, and I caught the end of her conversation with her husband who was standing at the door. I recognized her pose, leaning across the book table, eyebrows raised and a hint of panic, trying not to inconvenience her husband who wanted to leave the store, but knowing that she would really really like having those books. She was a sweet-looking woman, with mid-length dark blond hair and a kind, middle-aged face and she wore comfortable walking shoes and a purse slung across her body and a little sweater to combat the constant but mild rain outside. "I just think it would be really interesting to read about" she said, looking to her husband.

He was taller than most french men with a collared shirt tucked into some belted levis. He wore some kind of tennis shoe and some glasses, and he was a middle-aged man with a short, american hair-cut and a face that I wouldn't really describe as attractive, but he wasn't unattractive. Maybe just like a dad, or a 25-years-of-marriage type of look. He was probably in his later-forties. But probably not late forties. He was edged near the door, waiting for whatever his wife needed to purchase before they were off again into the rainy streets of Paris. "Which ever you want dear," he said kindly, understandingly. But in a sympathizing understanding way, not an empathizing kind of understanding way. Because he doesn't buy those kinds of things, but he knows that she really likes to. She smiled, saying something about getting the bigger book, and she hopped over to the cash register where the woman behind the desk said, "bonjour!" boredly and took the book. The woman buying the book might have said bonjour back, but it would have been so quietly that I didn't hear. And I know all of this because I kept spying on them when I heard the husband say she could get which ever she wanted, and their entire married life spanned out before me as I filled in the details of where they were from, how long they've been planning this trip to Paris, and where else they would be going after this museum. They had just come from the Pantheon and they were making their way toward Notre Dame, where they would climb the tower together, and the map of Paris in the husband's head would fill out into reality as he looked at monuments and traffic and nodded his head with his hand to his chin, muttering to himself, and the wife would lean against the metal fence, breathing deeply while she looked at the Seine and the 19th century architecture and held her bag from the Cluny Museum in her cold, wet hand. And then when they would go to their hotel tonight, she would read about The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries after they planned their day for tomorrow, and when she closed her eyes she would think of the beautifully frozen 15th century woman in her beautiful dresses and shiny necklaces and silvery hair and they would weave in and out of her dreams while she deciphered the meaning. And so I kept watching them. And I watched the purchasing woman smile warmly but still a bit shyly at the woman working as she scanned the book and told her it was huit euro quatre-vingt quinze centimes, and the woman's eyes widened, asking the question with her eyes, and the working woman flipped the screen of the register around pointedly so she could see that the book was 8.95 euros. She handed the money to her, smiling again, and said "merci" before going back to her husband who was standing at the door in the most clear body language that said he was ready to go but he would wait, and they turned together and walked out of the bookshop, out of the museum, talking.