“I think of Sarah. The rest is easy.”

Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns

Valentine’s Day has just passed, another day of loving ovations and broken hearts. My wife and I spent the day job hunting (me), house hunting (her), and packing up our worldly belongings (both of us). As of this past Tuesday, we are in our final two weeks as Angelenos. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the least bit anxious, yet overall I feel eerily calm.

Spending our Valentine’s Day together, preparing for our impending move was our kind of romance, and it may help explain the gusto with which we are embracing this huge change. You can draw considerable power from a functional relationship. As far as I’ve been able to tell so far, it’s an endless supply.

Commissioner Gordon gets it. In this sequence from Frank Miller’s masterpiece, The Dark Knight Returns, an old and retired James Gordon is being hunted by a gangbanger. His instincts fully intact, he draws upon the only strength he needs to answer the challenge.

There is considerable trust and communication in our marriage, and each feeds the other. The more we trust, the more we communicate. The more we communicate, the more we trust. It’s a perpetual motion machine. I know she has my back, and she knows I have hers.

The rest is easy.

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