We’ll be eating breakfast or dinner, and he gets quiet.  He stops eating and is gazing into one of the many  bouquets of flowers that are now a regular thing on the already crowded table.

It’s a different look on his face, not the one he has when writing or taking pictures of the animals or a landscape. It’s more inward than looking out.  As if he sees something of himself inside of the flowers.

Artists and athletes talk about it as being in the” zone.”  I know what it feels like; sometimes I go there when I’m working.

Jon is a linear thinker.  Stringing words together to make sense of his life and the world.  It’s different with the flowers, more abstract.  It’s about evoking emotion through colors, shapes and forms.  About creating interior spaces.  About looking so far in, what he finds is as vast as the universe.

Today is Jon’s 77th birthday.

We spent the morning at home, with me having a Zoom session with my therapist and then dashing off to Glens Falls for Jon to have his cataracts checked. We were there for four hours, long enough to be able to go to our favorite Thai restaurant when it opens at 4 p.m.

Funny kind of birthday, but the gift is seeing.

In a couple of weeks, Jon will have his first cataract surgery on one eye, then three weeks later on the other.  Soon, he’ll be able to see his flowers through the glare of the midday sun.  He might even experience the colors differently.

I can’t help but wonder what impact it will have on his photographs.  Or perhaps the kind of seeing Jon is doing when he takes pictures comes from another place.

I got a gift of seeing, too.  In the form of insight from my therapist.

We’ve had more relaxing birthdays, but the beauty of this one is that it makes it clear that it’s being together that matters more than being in a specific place.  The things we did today were things we needed to do that will make our lives better individually and together.

I’m also finding that the more I learn about myself, the more I appreciate Jon.  And the longer I share my life with Jon, the more I love him.

• by Maria Wulf, the best thing that ever happened to me.