The Impossible Union of Artists.

And in the end, there was nothing to be fixed. She saw him through his periods of ungroomed Ted Kaczynski silent isolations, and was there with a cup of tea and an inquiring eyebrow when he came up for air. He took her, too — when at two a.m. the lights in their tiny place were still on, as she furiously transcribed an incoming vision.

Once in a while he wished he’d put a wall in, built a real bedroom when they’d first bought the place; Mostly he found an odd contentment being in the glow — of both the lamp and The Light — no matter the hour.

And so they muddled. What he wrote in his dark times was genius, and she knew it. What she brought forth from her agitations was beauty, and he knew it. They witnessed each other, separate together, understanding in some ways, and in others deeply alone. They tried to grow in how they related, to shift some things, but were sort of dummies in that sphere. The best they could offer was “I will love you as you are, I won’t leave, I’ll be here when you get back, don’t worry.” and “I will lay what I create at your feet first, as an offering, an honor, an homage.” In the wordless handholding after a disagreement, usually about some perceived obligation to the outside world, these promises still held true.

Maybe they needed each other exactly because so often neither of them needed anything. Because maybe if they were left alone, the next warm night, wandering out in the fields, they might rise off the earth, float away, spontaneously become immaterial. The other’s gaze grounded them, made them, literally, into matter.