We're a JPG Couch Couple

JPG Magazine recently held a Couch Couples Photo Challenge in response to a video project by Rannie Turingan, aka photojunkie, on Vimeo. I found the video, which shows 20 different couples on 20 different couches, to be a moving glimpse into the daily lives of these couples.

Rannie's video reminded me that one of the best things about coupledom, when it's working out, is the relaxed intimacy that can easily be taken for granted when you've been together long enough. In the throes of a new romance, you want and expect fireworks, but after the years add up, and up, the fireworks will inevitably sputter. (Unless you're both drama queens and feed off of that.) What remains is the everyday sharing (with occasional fireworks, if you're lucky) that would seem too mundane to chronicle, while it's the very mundaneness of it that makes the comfortable intimacy in Rannie Turingan's video special in my eyes. Watching it was a wake-up call to appreciate the small moments as well as the bigger ones.

It's not often I have a photograph in the archives that perfectly suits a JPG theme challenge, but I found a self-timed portrait of Kevin and me taken in Berlin in 2005 that fit the bill, so I submitted it. Now we're on the JPG Blog (9th couple from the top) as one of their selected couch couples. By the way, I'm writing this, with Kevin beside me, from a big comfy couch in Budapest.