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Yesterday, I wrote about how interesting it's been for me to listen to reader's reactions to Sima, who they tend to love or hate.

As for Lev, Sima's husband, the reaction is more consistent: for the most part, readers adore him.

Personally, I don't always buy it. I mean, don't get me wrong: of course I like Lev—I wrote him, after all. But their ardour has a protective, maternal consistency to it, and sometimes I wonder: you love him on paper, but wouldn't he drive you just a little nuts in real life?

I often got asked how I came to write Sima and Lev's marriage. At the opening of the novel we're told they've been married 46 years. Readers wonder, fair enough, how I had the insight—some might say chutzpah—to write that kind of relationship given that I'm, well, young enough to be their daughter, with change to spare.

There were many, many aspects of the novel that developed as I wrote, the plot driven by where the characters forced it to go.

This wasn't one of them.

I set out to write that marriage. I wanted to know:  how is it that love changes? How do couples move from joy to distance? How can the incredible intimacy of decades sleeping in the same bed, eating at the same table, exist alongside emotional isolation?

And finally: is there a way back, not to that giddy, early love, but to a kind of renewal?

That question stayed with me. And it's one I think I answer, for one couple at least.

I mentioned above that some choices I made when writing were intentional and others happened because the characters demanded they happen.  But there's a third category, too: dumb luck.

I named Sima after the owner of a basement stationary shop who designed my Bat Mitzvah and wedding invitations. Lev I chose just because I liked it.

It was a few years into writing that a friend of mine said, "I like the way you play on the Hebrew expression, sim lev."

Um, what Hebrew expression would that be, I asked?

He explained that sim lev, which literally translates as "put heart," is used colloquially for: pay attention, take notice.

What my West Coast compatriots might call mindfulness.

We could all use a little more sim lev.  Or, well: I could.  Or, well: what blogger couldn't?

I learned so much while writing Sima's Undergarments for Women. Not least of all, that.