In Praise of the ‘Nod’

I am sure the universe knows exactly what it’s doing when it brings people together. It rarely pairs like with like. More often, it brings opposites into the same orbit — people different in a hundred small ways, who, somehow, make perfect sense side by side.

Take my husband and me.

I like to share. Everything.
What I did. What I didn’t.
Who I met, what they said, what they didn’t (but clearly meant).

The blog I’m writing.
The butcher who messed up my order. The stray dogs in the colony. The cook who staged yet another dramatic exit. The cousin whose cousin is now somewhat famous…

And him?

He’s a man of few words.
But many nods.

Let’s be clear — these aren’t the tender, attentive, “yes, my dear, I agree” kind of nods.
These are the absent-minded, default nods — dispensed while checking emails, reading the news, or scrolling through WhatsApp groups.

Over the years, we’ve settled into a rhythm.
I talk. He nods.
I throw up my hands in mock exasperation.
And then — eventually — he looks up. Fully present. Curious. As if hearing it all for the very first time.

*

It’s not perfect. And yet — there’s something oddly comforting in this dance of words and nods.

Because I understand where his mind is… It’s somewhere between a delayed shipment at customs, a lost pitch, the latest dip in stock prices… and a hundred other quiet battles he fights daily.

And still — his nods, even if distracted, tell me something.
That my words have landed.
Somewhere. Softly. In that busy, burdened, but deeply dependable heart.

It’s hard to explain. It’s not logical.
But in those simple nods, I hear this:

“I know you need to say it.”
“I know it matters to you, even if it doesn’t matter to the world.”
“I trust your instincts, even if I missed the details.”
“And I’ll always be here, nodding along — because I love how your mind works, even if I can’t always follow where it’s going.”

It’s his way of showing up — with a nod.
The smallest, quietest act of partnership.

(Though at times, he does surprise me. Like the time he suggested we holiday in Bruges — something I must have mentioned, sometime, somewhere. He had remembered. Even if I’d forgotten I had said it.)

*

So here we are. All these years later.

Me, still talking.
Him, still nodding.

A marriage where one partner needs to speak — and the other gently makes space for it. And in these little spaces between our words and nods, we’ve built something whole.

And honestly?
That’s more than enough.