There is a whole industry dedicated to the onerous task of relationships. I purposely didn’t put a descriptive adjective there because depending upon whom you read or what you are looking for, that could mean improving them, strengthening them, revitalizing them, rebuilding them, redirecting them or maybe even sauteeing them with butter. I will have to fact check the last one, but it wouldn’t surprise me. These are some of the titles I have come across, “Ten sure fire ways to get your guy to talk, really talk”, “How to open your man’s heart without him even knowing”, and “Five questions every man will want to answer”. This makes me wonder if there is a companion site posting themes such as, “How to get your girl to be quiet”, “Five ways to get her to quit nagging you and not sleep on the sofa”, and “How to stop a redundant conversation once and for all and still keep her smiling”. Men and women communicate differently. This is probably the cornerstone on which every book about relationships is based. So what? Different ways of communicating does not mean we can’t. It just means we have to learn how. Some men lament that women go on and on about the same things over and over again. We will beat the ghost of the horse into glue if you let us. But is that really always the case? Sometimes, maybe. Sometimes not. There are times when our re-explorations are kind of like the sports news. If I know the final score is there anything else that needs to be said here? Show me the scoring drives and let’s return to the weather report. But 3-2 wouldn’t tell me anything about what happened to get us there. Just the tally, which is beside the point when you really care about the team or the sport. It’s not the end result, but the middle that makes the exchange what it is. If I just know the score, I don’t know much at all. I don’t know the tension in the coach’s face, the injury suffered by a key player, the save so close they had to check three different camera angles several times over before making the final call. I don’t know they walked into the game and everyone said, they will not succeed. No way. Except they came in so strong and tight that their glides across the ice even catch the eyes of non fans with awe. Way. They make you want to understand how to skate that fast in tune with your mates and the puck. They lost the series, but did you see Game Six? That’s what the people who really love the team remember. When you see the hunger in the players eyes or those last minutes when something other then adrenaline is going all across the field. When a father stands up and the cameras let you into a moment of family pride. You can’t just cite the numbers. Because I forgot the actual score, I just remember everything else that happened. That’s telling it like it is, wouldn’t you agree Mr Cosell? And sometimes our explorations are like an artist practicing a song. Yes, the chords are C F G and they are in time, but no they didn’t sound just right, so I’ll do it again. And again and again. Till you feel the guitar weeping and something that is a wee bit more than twelve bar blues coming back. Till you can hear what is under the notes. That has nothing to do with playing the music just right, it is playing the pauses and finding the way to bend the notes into your own little shapes, almost like handmade commas. When you have heard a piece like that, you must try twice as hard as you know how to give back a gentle harmony. And women of course lament in return that we only receive little replies that give us vagaries of the highest order. You are onions making us all weep! So we must become like crusaders flipping through the dictionary with one hand, flagstaff raised in the other to determine, “What exactly do you mean?” Except even the most dedicated Oxford researcher will never be able to write a page about what’s inside “my you”. Those are things only to be found in that moment, by paying close attention to everything around it. Like feeling the sense of a long deep breath without trying to analyze exactly where your diaphragm is in each instance of the inhale. Perhaps, we have not quite understood how to listen. There are times when less is more and we may forget that much is bundled in tiny phrases or common words. The shortest poem is two words, coined by Muhammad Ali. He is credited with delivering this poem to Harvard graduates in the early seventies, “Me we”. Think about that for a moment. No one spends their life in elegant phrases and with their backs straight. Our red silk evening bags are not meant for the corner grocery. But a brown paper parcel is strong and does what it needs to. It lasts without being anything it is not. We spend more time at the deli than the ballet. Perhaps indices of comfort and companionship are at the end of a long afternoon when someone can say, “This is nice”, and “I am glad you are here”. The joy and calm that are found in these moments of tenderness doesn’t need to be overproduced, simply honest. Because Ladies, we are all duly suspicious of phrases that drip with sweet much the way we are of that lovely chocolate cake. The one with the frosting, mousse and raspberry sauce. It’s not really wholesome and will spoil us in the wrong way. It’s not the sort of thing you can last on for a long time. Different than a sandwich with a little bit of everything and a swipe of butter all the way across the top. A relationship, is the learning of the how. A very particular how that is really only between one man and one woman. They are a unique dyad who learn by paying attention to one another. So sometimes he tells a little more, or she a little less. It is learning how to listen, so when you share conversations they are in a language all your own.