Thursday Night Gnocchi

I’m making hand-rolled gnocchi for dinner. It’s a Thursday night. I don’t really like to make the gnocchi because of the way I have to scrape dough off the counter and scrub around my finger nails mid-process, and because it’s a little more dairy than I usually want to eat on a weeknight. I’m making it at my husband‘s request, which is the only reason I ever really make it. I asked him recently what he likes about it so much, and he couldn’t even tell me.

“I just do.”

We’re not even people who are easily wooed by handmade pasta. Our eyes never linger on that section of the menu, catching on literally anything else first — fancy little snacks, salads, opulent proteins.

As I’m rolling out the Thursday night gnocchi, I’m thinking to myself how unbelievable it is that my husband lives the kind of life where he can request hand-rolled gnocchi on any random weeknight where I have at least 5 urgent tasks to complete in the few precious hours between work and bed, and it’s no sweat really.

The moment this thought rises to the top of my mind, the next one to surface right beside it is how unbelievable it is that I’m living the kind of life where I can come home on a rainy day from the airport with my visiting mother in tow, and my husband will already be standing in the driveway with an umbrella, waiting to escort us the 8 feet to the door, clean and dry. And how it’s not even surprising to see him there, because this is what he always does. I don’t even have the kind of hair texture that becomes particularly disgruntled in the rain, really.

This thought is followed by a series of others just like it, a sentimental string of pearls.

• The times I have become so completely consumed with a task that I can’t bear to tear myself away from it for a single second, and my husband has filled my favorite thermos with coffee and has held it to my lips with a straw, a cold glass of water quickly following.

• The dress I wore a few weekends ago that I described seeing and loving to him, not knowing it was already on its way to me in the mail.

• The way that after dinner, I will lay on the couch, and before he does the dishes, he will ask if I want him to turn on the TV for me, get me a blanket, lower the AC. And how sometimes I will guiltily accept, because I hate to disturb our old little dog who has usually nestled into the crook of my arm almost immediately.

I put the gnocchi on the table, and he thanks me.

“My favorite! Looking more beautiful than ever.”

I think about how to be truly seen and loved is all we can ever really hope for, and if that’s the case, we’ve made it. We’re here. We’ve been married three years this week and things are looking more beautiful than ever.