i tease her from a place of eternal love
something i've teased deborah for in the past is her "phone voice," like how when she is talking on the phone to a stranger she sounds like a different person, one who is totally unimposing and deferential and courteous, which is not to say that those are not parts of who she is or can be as she interfaces with the world but also the phone voice is not the 'real" her, not all of her,
and so i've teased her about her phone voice even though i have a phone voice (if a less drastically different one) and many people do to one degree or another so it's not entirely fair that i tease her but also in my defense i tease her from a place of eternal love and have gotten much better at not going too far in my teasing over our years together (if i am not yet 100% perfect in my calibration)(and who is),
anyway one of my favorite sounds lately is in the evening when she's making calls to the voicemails of our elected representatives, which at first i knew she was making but didn't really actually hear her make because as i finished work, trying to tie together the loose ends of the day's code, she would close the door behind her and go up to the attic with her phone and an index card with a script written in her neat small handwriting and dial the first number
but lately sometimes she does it from her desk downstairs and her phone voice for these calls is not her usual phone voice, the one i tease her for (but, of course, also love): it's different, not loud or rude or hateful, but firm and resolute, quiet but insistent. anyway the thing i love that i wanted to preserve is how at the very end of her script calling for a cease fire and an end to genocide before she hangs up she says "free palestine" and it always makes me happy to hear and i'm thankful to get to be with someone who believes in what's right and uses her voice (in whatever tone she feels the moment needs)