A bag of coffee beans.

My partner travels often for work. One week, he’ll be summoned to attend an event in South East Asia, and the next a conference in Africa or a workshop retreat in South America. Jetting from London, his (our) home, and back in fleeting bursts. Sometimes weeks, often days, he’ll return and we will be reunited, whether for mere moments or months before his next trip.

For a long time, I had assumed that his was a life that was glamorous. Darting from London to cities around the globe sounds fascinating, an ability to learn about others, absorb culture and bring knowledge back is something many would perhaps aspire to. But the reality isn’t quite that. Work trips are short and intense, even before time zones are factored in.

But he goes, diligently with passport in hand, exiting and entering the UK collecting stamps, and getting frustrated when eGates don’t recognise his documents.

And on his return, at the earliest moment possible, he will come back to my arms, and we will embrace and tell each other how missed they were. In Tagalog, there is a word for the small gifts you bring back for loved ones from a time away from home: pasalubong. These tokens display love perhaps more vividly as personal, thoughtful gifts that mean the world.

With the platitudes and embraces over, he will start to unpack, putting laundry in the basket and fresh, clean, untouched clothes straight back into the wardrobe, already folded they slot right back to where they’re stored.

But at the bottom, there is often a treasure destined for me: a bag of coffee beans from whichever city he returned from.

And with this, I am not only getting pasalubong from his adventure, but I am reminded of his love, of our love. Each bag of coffee beans is more than the sum of their content, it is what is left unspoken that is heavy. It’s the way it isn’t a big deal, whether he returns with coffee or not, but it is the way I know that he has me in mind even if we can’t speak or hold each other.

It’s a strange feeling being in a relationship such as this, perhaps straying far from the hetero-normative relationships I have been a part of previously, where there is heavy connotations of ownership rather than collaboration. This instead is about choice, and freedom, and love because of that. We are not attempting to change one another but instead to celebrate each other.

With that, I flip the switch on the kettle, grind some coffee beans from the bag he just gave to me, place them into a moka pot upon the stove and brew some fresh, syrupy coffee. He takes his with a shallow spoon of condensed milk, I take mine black with perhaps a sugar, and we drink silently appreciating everything we have, together.