SHOPPING

Once, Adam and I were discussing about what makes a couple A COUPLE. I had told him the dream Sean had had a few days before. He had dreamed he and I had gone shopping for the food of the week. He had told me he supposed we were in England 'cause I was so excited at the new and different brands. He remembered I was very happy throwing things into the cart. Adam didn't let me finish telling him the dream because he interrupted me saying, "There's nothing more couplish than doing the shopping together." True. When romance is over, I mean all the possible romantic scenes Hollywood offers, common life pervades. It instills and settles like another piece of furniture in the home. Romance gives way to common everyday life and then the misty vapours of a veiled existence lift and show the daily routines and habits of common people that work and struggle to make ends meet. Can love survive in such a graceless surrounding? Well, there is exactly where it starts growing.

Sean had a sequence to that dream. We finished the shopping and arrived home. We lasted hours taking everything from the car into the kitchen because we were chasing each other and having fun. We even let the ice cream melt, which is a sin for both of us. He has been married, he knows. I used to live with someone, I know.

Recently, Sean had another experience. He was awake. He was shopping. When his turn in the queue arrived to pay, he was surprised to see he had bought frozen food, fruit and nuts. He told me, "It was as if you had bought them!" And yes, I buy fruit and nuts whenever I go shopping. And when I used to go to the supermarket and buy meat I used to freeze it. Of course Sean and I hadn't talked about this. He knows, because he has seen me eating, that I like to eat fruit and that I am a nut addict.

I don't go shopping any longer, what for? I buy what I need in the corner store. But whenever I feel like the need to write a list of food I think, "What would Sean like eating? What should I prepare for him?" Each time I pass by the vegetable stand, the tomates catch my eyes unavoidably and I imagine the smell, the taste, the texture of a tomato soup, Sean's favourite, and I always think, "I should start practicing my tomato soup."

Shopping is not just buying food to store in the fridge --it implies planning a balanced meal, not just of nutrients, but of tastes, of flavours. It implies sharing and thinking of the other. Sean doesn't like nuts, he hates them, and he is not a fruit fan.