Last summer, during a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, off Cape Cod, I took a picture of an old stone wall and had it printed. A friend of mine looked at it and said, “It’s just a stone wall. Why did you take a picture of a stone wall?“

Meaning: This something that you took a picture of belongs to the category “stone wall.” Stone wall is a completely  insignificant category. What’s to notice about a stone wall?

Well, look again. Specifically, look at what is in the picture. Don’t think “category: stone wall.“ Just look at the picture. If you just look at it, you might see something like what I saw —

• Mass (There are big, heavy stones in this wall.)
• Lichen (This is an old wall — and it’s still alive with lichen.)
• Quality (It looks like a farmer’s wall, demarcating a field. This is no fancy suburban wall. This is a utilitarian wall. This is a working wall. And it feels like it is still working, even though the farm is long gone.)
• Is-ness (First forget category; then forget words. Just look at “it.” What do you sense about “it” when you just look at “it?” What does “it” say to you?

There is an “is-ness” about this wall that transcends category. It’s there, even though you can’t find words for “it.” Something that was there for me when I took a picture of it.

Now consider your partner.

My husband, Frank. My wife, Gloria. Category: Spouse.

How could it be different? After all, you’ve been married to Frank for 16 years. He is “my husband, Frank.“ But see if you can look at him (or her) without category wife or husband — in fact without any category at all? Find a time and place where you can just look at this person with whom you’ve shared years. Look without category. Look without name. Just look — the way you would just look at a tree, or the reflections of light in a stream, or what the setting sun does to that column on your porch. What do you see there, on that face?

If you can’t find a time/place to just look without being seen, then take a photograph of your partner, have it printed, find a quiet time alone and look at what “it” contains, as if you were looking at my picture of the wall.

Yes, he is “my husband, Frank,“ “my wife Gloria” or whatever his or her name is. Still there is something special there, something utterly beyond “category spouse or partner,” something new to be seen and experienced, if you take the time occasionally to just look. If you want the relationship to remain alive, you have to see and experience beyond category: my partner.

When people tell you that they know the person they are married to, you might want to find out what they mean. There are very different ways of knowing someone — even someone to whom you are married or with whom you have a serious relationship.

These ways are different enough from one another so that it is quite possible that when you say that you know your partner well, you in fact only that person well in one or two areas — and not at all in some other area. If that is true, then could it be possible that this oh-so-familiar person you share your life with may be a virtual stranger in some way that actually matters? You answer. And even if you said yes, would you want to ask about that area of his or her life?

How well do you actually want to know your partner? Are there areas that you really don’t want to know about — like life with her first husband? Or the consequences for him of flunking out of graduate school? Or even what she and her woman friends talk about?

A suggestion: List for yourself some areas of your partner’s past or current life that you don’t want to know about. What do your answers tell you about the breadth and depth of relationship that you are comfortable having with  that person?