Introducing the "Pope Pat"
How relationship rituals get started
Well hello, beauties,
Remember the roomy, distressed, light-brown denim pants I was really enjoying so much last week (i.e., wearing daily)? Yesterday I broke out a pair of dark plaid pants, and my husband said he didn’t recognize me. “You’re not wearing those brown pants.” 🤣 Don’t worry, I had them on for my afternoon walk.
Something new has moved into the Sussex relationship❣️
It started one evening after dinner, while we were settling in to watch the rattling yet gorgeous Station Eleven. I walked up the three stairs from our kitchen to the family room with my little bowl of candy (gummi bears, Mike & Ikes), and as I passed Steve, who was stretched out in his recliner, I reached down and patted his head. Just like that. Pat, pat. It was a new move for me. What sparked it?
Sometimes I get lost in my thoughts and float away into my own world, wading through the day, my home, the company of my husband semi-detached. I’d been feeling extra preoccupied of late. Maybe my body was reaching out with a connecting gesture to say “I’m here.” Like putting change into the meter of the relationship. Let’s keep this baby running!
The first pat felt a bit strange. New relationship movs often feel out of place. Where the hell did that come from? Why that move now? Where did you pick up that one from? That was the pat’s debut. I cozied into my TV-watching daybed, and the two of us drifted away, together and separately, into the post-pandemic world of “Station Eleven.”
The next time I gave the pat was during a pee break in between episodes. I rounded Steve’s chair, thought, what the hell, reached down for a mash-up of a pat and a pet to my husband’s silver crown. In slow motion my brain was going, “hand on hair, soft, signs of drying chlorine just how I like it, a nice hard skull, my husband going with it, not flinching or looking up, isn’t it nice to have this husband.”
This went on for another several days, slowly embedding itself into my routine. Every time I rounded Steve’s recliner, I put my hand on his head. He seemed to go with it; maybe an agreeable murmur here and there, but for the most part, nothing. Then, one night following a pat, he said:
“You don’t have to do it every time.”
“Oh, OK,” I mumbled, not sure what to say. “Well, you’ll miss it when I stop.” This is a line I learend from Steve.
The next time I walked by, I kept my hand to myself.
“Wait, where’s my head pat?” Steve said.
“I thought you didn’t like it.”
“I changed my mind. I like it. But not when you mess up my hair. I like the other pat.”
“You mean like this?” I went over and dropped my palm onto the crown of his head, held it there for a second. “You like the pope pat?”
“Yes,” he said.
You see this? Right there, the “Pope Pat” is being baptized into our relationship.
A couple evenings later, I walked right past Steve in his recliner, completely preoccupied.
“You forgot something,” he called out.
“What?”
“I need my Pope Pat.”
“You’re right, I’m so sorry!” I rushed over and put my hand on my husband’s silky silver head.
“Better?” I asked.
“All is right in the world,” he sighed.
And that’s how the Pope Pat found its way into this secular household.