Life is sometimes hard and oftentimes, it’s just not easy, but you know … maybe if you believe in yourself first, hopefully you can find someone that believes in you too …

Over the last year my girl and I have lived 2,500 miles apart—as you may have read in a couple of her posts where she questions the highs vs the lows. In our current “temporary” living arrangements we have to take advantage of our time together and I think we do that in spades. When we’re together we laugh a lot, we play, we have differences of opinion, we debate, we hold each other, we pass each other and a fingertip or hair (not mine, I have none) brushes up against the other’s skin, almost to show we are there (present) even in passing …

My second-favorite intimate time with her is our dinnertime conversations. What? Did you just roll your eyes, maybe even throw up in your mouth a little bit or perhaps you just sat back, crossed your arms and are now totally confused. Either way, it’s OK because this is MY second-favorite intimate time with her, not yours—not that you’re ever going to have any kind of intimate time with her (because you’re not). Let me explain …

When either of us cooks or when we cook together (most nights, it’s together) we talk and often play, which is very much a sort of verbal sharing pre-dinner-conversation foreplay. 

I liken it to a seductive dance: the prepping, the addition of olive oil, the dash of sea salt and cracked pepper, maybe the special drink she likes me (and me alone) to mix for her as she chops some veggies … then the opening of the squeaky old window to help air out the smoke as her garlic begins to turn darker and darker and once on the verge of burning (the way she likes it), my eye roll and the “babe I think your garlic is ready,” and her response of “mmmm, it’s perfect” and ending with my second eye roll and “uh, ok babe.”

We set the table—a farm-style table I built with reclaimed old pine from the Rivoli Theater here in Pendleton—to placing the bottle of wine and glasses in the middle of said table, plates are dished … and then the final tease: I have to take pictures of our creation. SHE: “Ooh that’s a good one, I’ve created a monster haven’t I?” I ignore her remarks and continue taking pictures. ME: “Babe, I’m sending you one. What do you think of this shot?” She looks, shakes her head and quietly shows her pleasure of approval with her eyes, “will you please pour me a glass?”

Clink. Our glasses touch and we take our first bite and then, the real conversation begins as if music has begun, her hand in mine, my arm around her waist, I pull her in close, her eyes meet mine and we take our first step of the verbal waltz.

I cannot get enough of her. Intimacy is not just sex, it truly is not. The time I share with this woman in the kitchen preparing food is quite intimate and then our meal and conversation, it’s like verbally making love, which most nights leads to the real thing. I think know this is one of the things that keeps our relationship what it is—a love affair in the bedroom for sure, but just as important it’s a love affair in the kitchen and the dinner table (sometimes on it) and it is all more than I have ever imagined.