Yesterday a young couple (everyone is young to me now) came to buy my collapsible patio furniture, only it didn’t collapse.  She and I were content to load it in the truck as it was, but her man would have none of it.

Instead, he examined each chair and the underside of the metal table, hyper focusing on the task at hand.  I could almost hear him thinking:  “Ah, an opportunity to use WD-40 and a screw driver to solve a mechanical man puzzle.”

We women drifted toward the garden, speaking of plants and pots, as he worked to  solve the problem.

“You like that pot?” I asked.  “You can have it. No charge.”

“Oh thank you! Bob look. This will replace the one you broke.”

Bob looked up confused and apologetic.

“I broke one of your pots?”

Obviously an event so inconsequential, that it warranted zero memory.

After a brief moment of feeling muddled, he returned to work. “Oh, that’s it. They pull from the back, not the front. They were just rusted.”

Having successfully folded the set, Bob migrated toward a disabled scooter with exposed motor.

I watched his enchantment with the scooter, as she lingered in the garden, thinking again about how men build houses and women make them homes.

How different the worlds that men and women live in, and how nearly impossible to relate. And yet we do, deeply and lovingly. Their simple interactions left me with a sweetness that lingered.