Behind the Puddle

Brian and I spend a lot of time sitting beside each other behind the puddle. Most of it isn’t particularly romantic. We talk about what we’re having for dinner or something that needs to be done around the house. I point out a bird I think he should immediately stop whatever he is doing to look at. We talk about whether the feeders need filling.

We talk about something one of the kids said, something one of the girls did, or a story we’ve probably already told each other. Sometimes we don’t talk at all. He sits in his chair, and I sit in mine. The dogs find their places. We watch the same little piece of the world.

There are no grand declarations. No important occasion. Nothing anyone would put in a scrapbook. Just two people sitting beside each other on an ordinary day. I’m beginning to think relationships are built mostly there. We tend to mark them by their milestones. Those dates matter.

The day we met. The wedding, the anniversaries, the births, and the vacations. The celebrations and losses we have traveled through together. But they are such a small percentage of the actual relationship.

Most of a relationship happens between the milestones. It happens in the grocery store, in the car, across the kitchen, and in text messages asking whether we need anything. It happens in knowing how someone takes their coffee and in noticing something and thinking, I need to tell them about this. It happens through repetition. Showing up again, and again, and again.

Maybe that is why I feel connected to some of the wildlife behind the puddle too. Obviously, Pinecone and I do not actually have a relationship in the way Pinecone would understand one. I’m fairly certain I am primarily recognized as part of the food-delivery system. But familiarity has grown through shared time. I notice when Pinecone hasn’t appeared. I look for Stella and Stanley. I wonder where Shelly has been. I recognize the routines of creatures who have absolutely no idea they have become part of mine.

Places can become like that too. This puddle has been behind our house for years. But something changed when I began spending time with it. I stopped simply knowing it was there. I began knowing it. Not completely. Maybe we never completely know anything we love. But enough to recognize when something is different. Enough to miss what hasn’t appeared and celebrate a return. Enough to care.

Maybe that’s what shared time does. It turns familiarity into connection. Not every conversation has to be meaningful. Not every visit has to be memorable. Not every moment together needs to become a story.

Sometimes the relationship itself is being created in moments neither person will ever remember. A thousand ordinary exchanges. A thousand times sitting beside each other. A thousand small acts of knowing and being known.

Then one day, we look beside us and realize someone has become woven into the way we understand our life. Maybe relationships don’t deepen because we constantly create extraordinary moments together. Maybe they deepen because, through all the ordinary ones, we kept choosing to stay.