When Mark and I met in 1993, we started a conversation that continues with barely a lag to this day. We talk about everything and nothing, and would rather blather together than solve the problems of the world with anyone else. On working days, we phone each other many times with tidbits of news or thoughts or reminders, and when we're both in the same place we tend to communicate almost constantly through words or touch, eye contact and laughs.

Although there are times when our wires get crossed, we're most often on the same wavelength and frequently have the same thought pop out of our mouths simultaneously.

We come from very different backgrounds and by rights shouldn't have ever had much of anything in common, but being tuned to the same key has had us singing the same song for the last thirteen years. (Not literally! Please, no! Mark is tone deaf and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket made of sheet music, so singing together is purely a metaphor for our harmonious relationship.)

Since thoughts of having children didn't come into marriage until we'd been together for many years, we developed together as an adult unit functioning within our double cocoon without distractions. By the time we became parents together, our symbiosis was entrenched, so the habits of our mutual habituation ... the threads that bind us ... were strong and resilient.

The photo is from a weekend getaway to Praslin ... an island about 20 miles from our home island of Mahé ... in 2002. It was the last weekend getaway before Sam came home, which has worked out to mean our last weekend getaway. We should do that again someday.

We'd probably spend the whole time talking about how much we miss the kids! Well ... okay ... maybe not the WHOLE time.