Lucky in so many ways

We’d spent the day at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, seeing things I’d never seen before – cliff dwellings – and camping in a terrific campground. But now we were off to Taos via Los Alamos. But as we drove into Los Alamos, I saw an even bigger sight: white tents! White tents mean farmers markets or craft fairs or art shows. “Tim, stop the car! And, oh, look! There’s a bagel place.”

Anchorage has lost its real-bagel places. The only one left makes bread and shapes it into circles and calls them bagels, but they’re not. I wanted a real bagel, a Ruby K’s Bagel Café bagel. I got two. Tim and I sat outside at their tables, loved the bagels and how pleasant it all seemed, and we were on our way to Taos.

 Somewhere along the way, the road did a little twisty thing along the edge of a mountain. There were those scary sharp arrow signs in a row – not even the curvy arrows: “Tim, slow down, you don’t know what’s ahead. You’re going too fast if the curve keeps curving. There are edges here!”

 

Yes, it’s my edge problem. My we’re-up-high-and-there’s-an-edge-to-the-drop problem. But it was brief and we were through. And then, halfway to Taos, I spotted a roadside stand. Roadside stands are right up there with white tents. “Stop the car!”

So I jumped out of the car, reached into the back seat for my fanny pack, and it wasn’t there! Where was my fanny pack! Did it slide forward off the seat? Had I shoved it into my daypack? No, the crushing realization loomed: I’d left it somewhere. The bagel place. I’d looped it over the chair outside.

 Cue the mindless blathering: “It has everything in it. Both our credit cards so now neither of them can be used. It has my vaccination card. It has that iPhone you gave me that I haven’t set up or charged. How can I be so stupid?”

I remembered the dozen times I’ve left that fanny pack in movie theaters. I remembered the time I left it by the side of the road while fixing a flat in Costa Rica and, even though I realized it in seconds, with the one-way streets we had to go around the block and by the time we did, the fanny pack was gone and our credit card was buying pizza and candy and costume jewelry. “I have just totally fucked up. I have to stop this. I have to tie that thing around my waist no matter how stupid it looks. I have to never do this again.”

Tim turned the car around. The GPS lady went crazy: “Make a U-turn at some place and return to New Mexico 68 north.” Tim said, “Call the restaurant.”

“How do I turn off the GPS lady so I can Google the restaurant? “Make a U-turn at some place and return to New Mexico 68 north.” How do I make her stop? “Make a U-turn at some place and return to New Mexico 68 north.”

I dug out the receipt from the restaurant. It had a phone number on it. “Make a U-turn at some place and return to New Mexico 68 north.” How do I stop her so I can phone???

And, of course, all the while, I’m blathering about what a fuck up I am, how I have to stop leaving this stupid fanny pack in places. Tim is calmly driving back. GPS lady is yelling at us. Somehow, I get her to go away. I phone the restaurant. No one answers. Their mailbox is full.

I remember there was a Starbucks next door. I manage to Google “Starbucks Los Alamos.” There are two. One seems right. I tell the man that I can’t reach Ruby’s, that I have left my fanny pack outside, does he have a number for Ruby, can he check? He says he’ll go outside and look. It’s not there. Ruby is closed and doesn’t reopen till 8 a.m.

Tim says, “We’ll get a room in Los Alamos tonight.”

I Google “Los Alamos Police Department.” My hands are shaking so bad that I’m Googling Los Alanow Polive and Lps Alampa Polive and everything else till I finally get it right. (You realize I’m still blathering about being a fuck-up and how am I going to get this fanny pack purse carry thing right.)

I tell the dispatcher I’m a tourist and we were driving to Taos when I realized I’d left my fanny pack at Ruby K’s and maybe somebody turned it in but I don’t know how to reach Ruby and they’re closed but maybe she can find out how to phone Ruby’s owner? She says she’ll call me back.

More blather, more hysteria. Tim calmly driving. We get to the scary road part with curves and edges, and I whisper to Tim, “You remember this part means slowing down.” He does.

We get to Ruby K’s. The door says they closed at 2 p.m. A young girl is sitting outside.

“How long have you been here? Did you see a fanny pack on this chair?”

“I just got here. But the door is open. They’re inside.”

The door is open? I walk in. I say, “I left my fanny pack,” and without a word, the guy hands it to me.

The dispatcher calls to say she reached Ruby’s, and I tell her I’m holding the fanny pack. I go next door to thank the Starbucks guy and tell him it worked out.

I tell Tim I am going to write about this, about all the wonderful people who helped out. He asks, “Will I be the hero of this story?” I tell him yes, yes, YES! We get in the car. We drive through the scary, curvy part yet again. I don’t say a word. We get to Taos.

When I get out of the car, when we stop, I count and say out loud: “I am putting my fanny pack down, my sunglasses, my mask. Three things. When I leave, I have to pick up three things.” Maybe this will work.

The next day, we stop for a picnic. I count my things. As I’m packing up, I say, “Someone put the spoon away with the peanut butter still on it.”

Tim says, “The same someone who didn’t leave his fanny pack in Los Alamos.”

Sweat/No Sweat

I’ve been doing a daily nighttime diary for 14 days for Carnegie Mellon University: “Help Us Learn about the Impact of the Coronavirus on Individuals, Couples, and Families.” It asks me what Covid-19 measures I do, what activities I’ve done during the day, and whom I’ve interacted with and for how long. Then it asks how I’m feeling, both emotionally and physically. I recommend the study.

Most days, the only person I’ve seen in 24 hours is Tim, and most days – especially bad weather ones – we’re in our house for a lot of the day. That’s usual for me, but Tim has always been a coffeehouse or daily athletic club, get-out-of-the-house kind of guy. That’s not possible now. Our house is our only inside place. Our only inside place.

Usually, we inhabit the house very nicely together. This surprised me, but I’d had to adapt to his invasion presence when he retired, so this was old business. I go downstairs, he stays upstairs. I am so grateful for this space!

But with Covid-19, how Tim and I occupy the house is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

It started with his little 8-minute workout routine. I’d hear his phone beeping and he’d start jumping or sitting up or hopping or stopping. It was so cute! I offered assistance: “Why don’t you use the old ensolite pad I still have? Oh, what about those weights I got for exercises when both my legs were broken (and haven’t used since)?” 

Little by little, those eight minutes grew. Tim rediscovered the monkey bars on the ceiling in Sophie’s old room – which has been My Precious Space for years – and he’s added pull-ups to his workout. He comes in while I’m writing on the computer and he grunts and lifts and sweats right behind me.

He moves from room to room on his now-hour-long circuit. Hopping things seem to happen in his office, but stretching things seem to happen in the living room. I’m not sure where he does the giant blue ball things. Or the lunging things. (I’m downstairs and just hear thumps.) And now, there’s The Box.

I only exercise outdoors, period. Indoors, I may interrupt inactivity to do things, but the general backdrop is inertia. For me, Covid-19 means there is no consequence to laziness; if I don’t know what day it is, everything can happen tomorrow. Tim does Covid-19 strenuously and in motion. Outdoors and indoors. He just finished building The Box.

I love boxes. I love a good, clean box with a snug-fitting lid. A box just the right size for whatever contents. I am a Box Person. Boxes hold things.

Tim’s box is empty. It’s 18 inches square, wooden, beautifully crafted, and empty. He jumps onto it. Yes, he stands in front of it and jumps up vertically and lands on the box. Apparently, according to YouTube, it’s a Thing.

I stood in front of the box. Nothing happened.

I don’t even know what muscles to tell to move to make me jump up vertically like that.

Now, if you can see where this is going, it’s obviously about more than a box. I have to adapt to living with someone who is doing Covid-19 very differently from me. In the same house as me. I can’t just tell him to stop jumping and sweating and hopping and sweating and lunging AND SWEATING all over the house.

Omigod, what happens when it’s winter and the windows are closed?!?

I have to appreciate that Tim’s taking care of his health and wellbeing in the best way. (The Carnegie Mellon researchers would be very impressed.) I have to appreciate that he just purchased a giant floor mat so his sweat won’t land on the carpet. Finally, I have to appreciate that just because I am a slug, I do not have any moral authority to begrudge the non-slug in my midst (especially when the non-slug doesn’t complain about my craft supplies invading the common space). We share this Covid-19 interior space, and I    have    to    adapt.

Uh, oh. This might be harder than jumping onto that box.

Invasion of "the Other"

My husband has retired.

[Pause for those of you who’ve already experienced this and are either cringing or just waiting to hear what I write next.]

It’s an adjustment. First came panic, then came hostility, now there’s … contentment.

The panic had to do with my space. I have my own office/studio, but pretty much, the Whole House has been mine for the last few years. He left in the morning and came back in the evening. I wasn’t observed.

For the first days after he retired, he didn’t just observe, he hovered. That must have been when the hostility surfaced. He thought I was going to be available, and I had my own agenda, I owned my own days. [Look at all these words in bold! These are strong feelings.]

According to quantum theory, observation of something changes that something; and I know that’s actually happening: his observation of me is acting on me, changing me. I can get really existentialist about all this and quote my own philosophy thesis on Sartre’s horror of objectification by “the Other.” My “Other” is looking at me.

Whoa, I just now realized how my two main areas of intellectual interest actually overlap!

Anyhow, we got that straightened out. He mostly leaves the house in the morning, and I can share the house by going somewhere else in it. Thank heavens for rooms, multiple rooms. (Although he has observed that while he keeps all his personal items in his office, my personal items manage to migrate to every single common space in the house.)

When my mother first visited us and met Tim, she was enthralled. She and I were sitting at the dining room table, and Tim was wandering around the house, looking up and around. He was looking for light bulbs that might need changing. My mother oohed, “Oh, he’s handy! He’s looking for projects!”

Right now, as I write this, Tim is trekking the lawn, looking for dandelions that need pulling. Tim relaxes by doing things.

I relax by doing nothing.

I know what you’re thinking: she’s not doing nothing, she’s writing. Well, I only interrupted my doing nothing because I needed to tell you about doing nothing. I’ll go back to doing nothing.

I’ve always had issues with productivity and categorizing myself as lazy. Mostly, I try to consider a day productive if I’ve done two things. It used to be three things, but in the summer, I reduce my requirement to two. I count lying on our deck as the extra because I’m outside and not on the couch.

Yesterday, I picked up a paint chip to see if the color would work for our front door. That counted as one productive effort, so I lost momentum because I was also doing laundry; my productivity quotient was met. I thought today I might wash the door, but since I’m writing this, my door-momentum has faded. Besides, I also returned a book to the library when I was picking up the paint chip.

I am married to a man who will get the paint chip, wash the door, paint the door, clean up afterwards, and count all that as one productive effort. And he would have finished it by now – in one day! – except that I claimed the door as MY (eventual) productive effort. But with one mumbled comment, it’s clear he has observed my inactivity, thus proving Sartre’s – and my – horror of “the Other.” I am seen doing nothing! It doesn’t help that I am also forced to observe his activity.

Fortunately, “the Other” has other benefits, such as companionship. Today’s second productive effort will be going on an outing with him. I adapt.

What's your 'resting face'?

My writing pipeline got clogged.

I’d written a piece for Valentine’s Day, and I balked at posting it. I was saying nice things about Tim, about Third Third revelations and appreciation of marriage; and it just seemed so … smug. Even though I admitted to “explosions, terrible ‘discussions,’ voiced regrets, shouted furies, quiet hopelessness,” it just seemed so … self-congratulatory. Like, hooray, we’ve made it!

But then I felt bad about putting aside a post that was so nice to my husband (since “nice” is not an adjective I really own); so I just … ran aground. That stalled post was blocking all alternative and future posts.

Combine that with winning a free two-month trial of Team Training at my athletic club and my discovering how utterly exhausting fitness can be. Basically, I ran around the room zipping through exercises that involved things like kettle balls and medicine balls and sliders for my feet. And big long ropes and elastic stretchy things and hanging from the ceiling. Not to mention jumping up and down and squatting for interminable periods of time. After all that, swimming a mile seemed like a rest day.

I was comatose by 7, asleep by 9.

We’d been on vacation and saw relatives, alligators, and manatees. In Epcot Center, in record-breaking rain, Sophie and I were on Spaceship Earth and somewhere along the line, they took photos of us. Afterwards, cartoon characters showed up in a video with our faces. Sophie’s face was pleasant and smiling. Mine was scowling.

“How’d you do that? Did you know when they were taking our photo? How come mine is so grumpy?”

“I just have a better resting face.”

“Resting face? Who ever heard of a resting face? Do people have resting faces?!?”

Well, I guess they do. And what I thought illustrated curiosity on my face actually looks like confusion if you’re generous and pissed-off if you’re accurate.

So then I had to practice a better resting face. Which is impossible while hauling kettle balls and medicine balls and pushing up. Or just sitting around fretting about that bit-of-love blocking my blog.

Someday, I’ll tell you about the valentines my husband has hidden around the house for me for thirty years, but right now, I’m just going to borrow a little quote from one of my favorite authors, David Grossman. In Someone to Run With, he describes the rotten underworld of the city, but then the wise woman of the novel, Leah, says this:

“You need a man with a big hand,” Leah pronounced. “You know why?” 


“Why?” She knew she would now be painted a picture. 


“Someone who will stand with his hand up, open, strong, steady – like the Statue of Liberty, but without that ice-cream cone she’s holding – only his hand, open, in the air. And then” – Leah raised her square, rough, nail-bitten hand and moved it gently from side to side, like a flying bird – “even from far away, from any place in the world, you’d see that hand and know you had a place to land and rest.”

That is my husband’s hand. And when I think on it, my resting face smiles.

A Truly Scary Story

You can be in your Third Third and stupid at the same time. All the accumulated wisdom of age is no protection against the occasional lapse in judgment. Then you have to re-learn something by lessons, by research, by observation, even by osmosis. But sometimes, you need a 2x4 to the head to get the message.

My 2x4 to the head came in the form of logs.

This is how I go kayaking in Prince William Sound: I examine my maps. I talk to people who’ve gone out there. I talk to the charter boat captain. I pack my supplies in a dry bag. The important supplies go in what we call the sealed Immediately Accessible Bag. We bring repair tools, a first aid kit. We check the weather. I don’t do anything foolish because Nature is serious business and vigilance is required.

But when the sun is shining in Anchorage for an amazingly long time and temperatures are at 70 degrees – in September! – and Tim suggests a little 2-hour canoe ride, well, then, my brain takes a vacation.

Mentally, I think I was imagining riding across a lake, reclining with a parasol over my head. I think I was in a Victorian romance for a sunny 2-hour cruise.

Yes, I know what happened to Gilligan.

So this is how I prepare: I put my camera in a Ziploc bag. I stick some extra clothes in the car. I put on my rubber boots and life jacket. And that’s it.

So, off we go. Right off, we encounter the shallow start. Later, I find out it’s called a “boulder garden.” This is how a 2-person canoe works: the person in front sees the obstacles. The person in back steers away from the obstacles. The person in front must communicate effectively to the person in back, and the person in back must receive those messages and act on them.

Even if they’re married.

“I said left, your OTHER left.” “Go around the rock counter-clockwise, COUNTER-clockwise!” “When you say 1:00, do you mean the boulder is at 1:00 or I should steer to 1:00???” F***! F***! “Paddle HARD!” F***! “Right or left? Which way?” F***! F***! “It’s better to the right.” “I think there’s more water over there.” F***! F***!

Years back, Tim and I were in a raft. He said, “You might want to paddle.” We hit a sweeper (tree over the river) and got tossed about.

“Why didn’t you warn me?!?!?”

“I did.”

A marriage is made of Midwesterners who quietly suggest things and New Yorkers who understand warnings shouted with great urgency.

Back to our boulder garden. We make it through and the current picks up. Things are starting to get delightful. I should have packed a lunch for a picnic. We round a corner … and face a right angle turn. Slammed into a logjam, the canoe turns over, pinning me against the logs. I can’t move. I try to climb over the logs, but the branches just keep breaking off, and besides, I’m pinned.

This is the terror moment. This is every story you’ve ever heard of people who die on a river because they can’t get out. This is visceral thoughts of that horrible movie, Deliverance. This is you with cold water rushing around you, relentless rushing water. And you’re stuck.

Tim shifts, moves, and the canoe frees me. He tells me I have to get out of the water. I know I have to swim, but I feel so constricted, so restrained. My whole body isn’t moving the way I want it to. I wonder if I should kick off my boots. But I take off and make it to a gravel bar. I am very, very cold and my hands don’t grip anymore.

Tim is on another gravel bar, and the canoe is idly resting by a third. That is an astonishing sight. Tim retrieves the canoe and then comes for me. He says we have to cross the river to get to the canoe. The river I’ve just come out of. This is my low point. I have not yet realized that the reason I feel constricted is because I’m wearing my life jacket, that I will not drown. Tim’s calm Midwestern hand holds my frazzled New York one, and I can do this (while I blather corny motivational messages as step-by-step updates).

We make it to the canoe, and I shout, “We’re home free!”

Tim says, “We have no paddles.”

Hmmm… That’s a stumper.

He points to the dense, impassable, thick forest of alders in front of us. On the other side is the road. Somewhere.

A mouse couldn’t fit through that forest. Tim calls it “alder bashing,” and I think about bears. We fight our way through … to another braid in the river we must cross. More alders. Another braid. Finally, at the very last braid in the river, we can see the guardrail and the road on the far side. This is the main channel; this is fast and deep. Chest-high.

But by now, the sun has warmed me. I realize I’m wearing my life jacket. I realize if I miss the shore, I will catch the next gravel bar. I will not die.

We didn’t die. Tim and Bob bashed more alders two days later to retrieve the canoe with new paddles. I have a truly amazing batch of bruises up and down my leg, I spent one sleepless night with continuing terror flashbacks, and my camera is failing to dry out in a bowl of rice.

This is not another amazing Alaska adventure story. This is a cautionary tale of stupidity, of complacency in the face of sunshine, of weird romantic fantasies replacing experienced reality. I re-learned something valuable in my Third Third. I won’t forget it.

Not all hands on deck

We built a deck.

Let me correct that: we had a deck built. I had nothing to do with any hammering or digging or measuring. My job was to say what I wanted and pick out colors. My job was actually to decide to go ahead and build a deck at all. After that, I was pretty useless. Tim is the hero of this story.

We’ve lived in our house for 28 years. The concrete patio has been crumbly and broken for a while, but we’ve gotten by. Mostly, we don’t use it. Tim would say, “The stairs need work. I keep repairing them, but they need more work. We have to decide what to do about the patio.” I’d look but couldn’t decide where I’d want a deck, where there’d be the most sun, what about over there, and it always got too complicated.

But this summer, after visiting a friend’s deck, I said, “I’m ready for us to build a deck.” In Barbara language, that might have meant next year (and the us is definitely an inaccurate pronoun). In Tim language, it means decide on a design tomorrow, pick out materials, hire a contractor – can he start Monday?

He’s my husband – you can’t have him!

First off, he rented a jackhammer to break up the old, crumbly patio. He and Dillon, our friend’s son, banged away and hauled the rubble to the front of the house.

Tim loaded the truck. When it was all carted off to the dump, it was 16,000 POUNDS of concrete.

I’m keeping him!

When Lance, our marvelous, master-craftsman, deck builder, dug out the Sonotubes, he unearthed giant boulders. My job was to put them on Craig’s List and wait for everyone to fight over our free rocks. They did.

The deck is mostly finished. It’s spectacular. Friends say it will change my life. My Third Third life is going to involve spending a lot of time on that deck. It’s so sturdy that I figure in an earthquake, the deck will keep the house standing.

The lawn is littered with lumber that I wouldn’t let Lance or Tim haul away because it can be recycled. My friend Connie said it would be a crime not to recycle it, but Connie and I can be a bad influence on each other that way, and it’s not lying around on her lawn. If worse comes to worst, I’ll go back on Craig’s List.

Tim sorted the lumber for me, but I’m waiting for it to dry so it won’t get my car wet. Yesterday, he said, “I’ve ordered a load of topsoil to fill in the patio hole. They’ll be here in the morning.”

“Now?!” I panicked. “What’s the rush? We’ll have a pile of dirt that’ll turn into mud. I still have to dig up the baby tree that I’m donating. Why do you have to rush things?”

“Because I have to get seeding started to put the lawn back together. I’ve already found a kid to help me move the dirt.”

Just now, I looked out the window. The topsoil is raked and spread over the torn up spots. It’s done.

I can hear my friends yelling, “Yay! We’re on Team Tim!”

Now I have my big job: planning the deck warming party. It’s a little problematic because of the forecast for rain. I’m trying to dawdle a little to see what the weather does. Eventually, I’ll have to get around to finding some deck furniture. That’ll take some research.

How odd this is! I usually think of myself as a get-it-done, make-it-happen mover (who often has to prod her husband), but I’ve clearly been just watching from the peanut gallery while Tim handles, hauls, sweats, and gets dirty. It’s good to have our identities messed with a little, to reevaluate ourselves, to let a marriage shift around and rebalance itself. A little disconcerting, but interesting. I have to hope all my laziness is just premature deck lounging, but I’m thinking each of us just has different speeds depending on our different talents. (I wonder if Tim would accept this generous analysis.)

This deck is a gift for our Third Third, and I hope it means more enjoyment, socializing, and relaxation. I hope that every time I sit on it, eat on it, or lounge on it; I’ll remember whose sweat made it possible.

Who cooks dinner?

So let’s say you enter your Third Third earlier than your spouse: who does the cooking?

Do you:

1. Do more of the cooking because he/she is still working (and earning income) and wouldn’t it be nice for them to come home to a hot meal? (with pleasure)
2. Continue to share the cooking/household chores because you worked hard to establish an egalitarian household and you’re committed to that in your relationship? (with pleasure)
3. Do more of the cooking because … (same as #1, but with resentment)
4. Continue to share the cooking/household chores because … (same as #2, but with resentment)

I know there are some people who are delighted with their newfound time to cook and prepare meals. Those are the women who lined up at the Friends of the Library book sale in front of the cookbook shelves. Those are the folks who take photos of the meals they’ve prepared and post them on Facebook. (Yes, I do know ONE MAN who does this.)

I’m not those people. Mostly, I kind of forget about eating until I have a headache, BUT when I cook, I like it to be healthful, non-meat, and not processed. That takes time. This is the weekly cycle we’re on:

Monday: I cook delicious healthy meal with side dishes. I have to stop what I’m doing at 3:30 for this to be possible, but I am pleased with my effort, and my efforts are appreciated.

Tuesday: I cook delicious healthy meal with side dishes. I have to stop what I’m doing at 3:30 for this to be possible, but I am pleased with my effort, and my efforts are appreciated.

Wednesday: I have to make extra trips to the store for a missing ingredient that is not in stock at two stores (corn meal!?). This particular meal turns out to have a few more steps in it than I’d anticipated so my day gets eaten up with meal preparation. I decide husband is not properly appreciative. I have to stay up late to get my personal stuff done that I couldn’t get done during the day.

Thursday: I assemble a meal of delicious leftovers. I watch husband like a hawk, evaluating whether he is eating his way through the leftovers so we won’t get another meal out of them. I fill out angry survey form for grocery store that did not have corn meal in stock.

Friday: Husband is picking up on clues. He starts saying things like, “I’m making a list with some items I want to cook for a meal. Do you have anything to add?” I feel bad because he has contributed 40+ work hours to our household this week and now I am frightening him back into egalitarianism because he knows me and knows I am ready to blow. I feel very grumpy about all this, but I did not quit my job to cook dinners.

 

My husband and I had achieved a very nice balance during our working years. He did things; I did things. We both parented. Every now and then, I’d get miffed because my things were do-over-and-over-again things and his were big-project-achieved kind of things, but we worked out a balance of effort. I’ve never mowed the lawn; he’s never tended the garden. If something broken required glue, he fixed it; if it required sewing, I fixed it. We rotated regular meal preparation, but mostly he cooked food, and I cooked meals. Things felt even.

But now, I have more flexible, “leisure” time. And in talking to many women friends, that creates a guilty burden of “we should be” cooking dinner. And the problem with guilty burdens is that eventually resentment finds its way in. I’m sure my husband would say I shouldn’t feel this way, that I’ve earned my time, that I contribute to the household (if not at the same income level as before), but that’s because he’s nicer than I. He’d also say peanut butter is fine for dinner.

So other than giving myself a personality transplant (attempted, never successful), I’ve been trying to come up with solutions to the perceived Dinner Burden:

1. Maybe peanut butter, yogurt, or whatever scrounging yields can be counted as a meal. Maybe dinner-as-meal is a Second Third thing. Maybe Third Third dinner needs to be re-imagined as bits-of-this-and-that, not a whole meal, but still sitting down together. Maybe a dinner meal can then be a surprise kind of thing, as in “Oh! You made dinner! What a nice surprise!”


2. Browse my magazines and collected recipes and get enthused about cooking one of those creations?


3. See a lot more movies at the Bear Tooth and eat dinner there?


4. More giant soups, more salmon, sandwiches? Great volumes of leftovers? Start a recipe folder of “easy”?

Taking suggestions….

Do you know this man?

First, some backstory. A few years ago, I visited the Louisville Slugger baseball bat factory in Kentucky. They take you on a little tour and give you a little mini bat afterwards.

My mini bat sits at the top of the stairs, behind the recycling. In all the carpet-laying and de-cluttering, Tim couldn’t understand why the mini bat endured. “Can’t we get rid of it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s here to be handy; in case someone breaks in, I can bop them one.”

Second bit of backstory: I am completely erratic in my sleep cycle. Most of it is me (reading a great book till all hours), but some of it is circumstance (3 a.m. wrong number). A lot of it is just the toggle switch that doesn’t toggle to “sleep” in my brain.

Friday morning was the 3 a.m. wrong number. Friday night was the really great book and the noise outside that involved one young woman with a very abrasive laugh. So Saturday morning, I woke up and told Tim I’d had a rough night, barely got any sleep at all.

“I beg to differ,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“There was the 4 a.m. vandalism that I had to chase down with my axe handle.”

This is one of those sentences that gives you pause. You suddenly look at your husband very differently. Suddenly he’s a guy with a secret life right under your nose. Either that, or he’s lost his mind.

“I woke up to the sound of crashing as they bashed the mailbox, but by the time I got into my caftan and grabbed the axe handle, they had already walked down the street. The mailboxes and some cars have been spray-painted.”

If you’re like me, you’re still stuck on “axe handle.” The rest is barely processing … and it’s not just because you’re tired.

“You have an axe handle?”

“Yes, I keep it in the closet. It’s better than your little weanie baseball bat.”

“Did you call the police?” “No.”

Interjection by friend: “He’s lucky. If anyone had called the police, they’d go after the crazy guy in the caftan with the axe handle.”

Interjection by wife: “Yes, but if he’d called the police, and the culprits were just walking, they could have been apprehended.”

Husband: “What I should have done is gotten in my car with the bear spray.”

Lesson for my Third Third on the eve of our 27th wedding anniversary: Don’t ever think he’s run out of surprises.

Farewell to greeting cards

When I’d visit my mother, I’d sometimes go through her drawers and think, “Why is she saving all these greeting cards? They’re just signatures on some commercially-created sentiment.” So then I’d try to get her to throw them out, and she’d say no, she liked going through them. Her friends said the same thing.

I bet they never went through them! I bet they just sat there taking up space!

I’d think about how much room she’d have if she’d just get rid of those greeting cards. It offended my de-cluttering sensibilities!

So as the Great Carpet Nightmare has ended and I vowed not to keep anything that could be successfully de-cluttered, I came across a box. Two, in fact. I don’t know how they evaded previous de-cluttering bouts: these boxes had never even been opened.

They were full of greeting cards and theater programs! I’d be embarrassed except that it was so gratifying – so thrilling – to recycle such a huge pile.

My mother saved her Playbills from her lifetime of Broadway plays. She kept them in pristine condition, even had them framed. She saw Lauren Bacall in Applause, Zero Mostel in Fiddler. When she moved out of her home, her collection went to the local theater as a fund raising opportunity for them.

My theater programs? They’re for local theater, little regional theaters. Out North, Toast, Cyrano’s, Kokopelli Theater Company, Pier One, Alaska Rep – several of these theater companies no longer exist. As I went through the programs – hundreds of them – I had no idea what the plays were. I couldn’t tell anything from the titles. So the idea of going through them and fondly remembering each production – that was an idea I’d already ditched. The memory was already gone.

The greeting cards? They were more interesting. My sister, Allison, and I had just been laughing over the birthday card I’d sent her. Every year, we three sisters send cards with messages like, “Do your boobs hang low? Do they wiggle to and fro?” My sister Elizabeth sent me one I still laugh over; telling a shoe salesman about bunions and asking, “Is this the year you start blurting out your ailments to complete strangers?”

So this year, I sent Allison one about good sisters being ones that make you laugh, but great sisters are ones that make you laugh till you pee. She found it hilarious because Elizabeth had sent her the identical card the year before.

So there I was, going through the greeting card box, most of them from Tim. Cards from about a three-year period. Some Valentine’s Day, some anniversary cards. There was this one:

 And then there was this one:

This one:

And this one:

Notice anything? There are even more like this, and they’re from 25 years ago – when we had memories! He didn’t notice he was sending me duplicates, and I didn’t notice I was receiving them. I even saved them without realizing (which is just proof that NO ONE looks at old greeting cards).

NO ONE looks at old greeting cards. Not even to find an uncashed $150 anniversary check from my mother … from back in 1997.

So all the greeting cards have been recycled … except those lovable duplicates. They say something about us, and I’ll look at them and laugh over them at least a few more times. Maybe I’ll even notice if an identical one shows up again.

Going solo

When I first wrote about this idea of a month in New York, even people who travel a lot said they were jealous, and that surprised me. I narrowed it down to three reactions: (1) it was New York City, (2) it was long-term, as a “resident,” not a tourist, and (3) it was on my own, without Tim.

Some married women were startled; some thought it was “brave.” Some said they’d miss their husband. One friend who took a solo trip said she didn’t miss her husband till after Day 11. My friend Helen wrote that a “solo adventure could really open up the time and space to think through all those other big questions” we have about life.

Well, I’m not sure I’m figuring out any Big Questions, but I have thought about marriage. Do I miss Tim? I’m not sure what “missing” means. With technology, it changes. We talk on the phone, we send each other emails, we make plans. (I still send him on errands.) We’re still connected.

But when I decide to go to a collage class at Materials for the Arts in Queens, I don’t have to compromise because Tim’s not interested. I don’t have to compromise on a daily basis AT ALL. Marriage is a steady dose of compromise, from not having the light on late at night to whose turn is it to cook dinner.

I plot out my activities on a calendar, and it’s heavy on the arts, literary events, theater, political and Jewish stuff. I am pretty confident that those things would never show up on Tim’s wish list of how to spend a solid month. I can imagine his groaning from 3,500 miles away. That’s why this trip is my special event and vacation, not his.

When I created my space in the apartment – clothes go here, reading material goes there – I didn’t have to confer. I didn’t even have to leave any room for Tim’s stuff. My very specific, anal-retentive organizational tendencies could just Impose Order. And when they break down and junk accumulates, it’s only My Junk.

So do I miss Tim in my space? No. Do I miss him in this life? No. I wanted this experience of solitude. I have not experienced real solitude for 27+ years, and even here, I still have conversational and emotional access to Tim. But what I have now are 24 hours in every day that I have to fill or not fill on my own. Where I have not been successful at home in finding a new rhythm and giving myself the freedom to move slowly – or not at all – I have begun to do that here. It began with just needing to recover from wearing myself out, but it morphed into just letting myself Be.

My cousin Larry and his wife Kathy are both retired, and I asked how they spend their days. Larry said he fills his day with less, does everything slower, takes more time. Kathy said her days are still filled with to-dos because they still eat dinner and require clean clothes. I thought about how I left my to-dos in Anchorage. Yes, I still make dinner and do my laundry, but it’s just me, and it’s easier. There’s just so much less.

I’m trying to understand why things are simpler. I had fish, asparagus, and a salad tonight, but I only had to make exactly how much I was going to eat. When Tim and I eat dinner, it feels like a bigger production. It feels like it takes time, requires more clean-up, invades my day. Here, it was a short respite between my afternoon adventure and my evening one. I was happy when I realized the timing would work and enjoyed preparing it; it felt like a break instead of a chore. Afterwards, I pretty much had two bowls to wash and a pan. It’s like camping, kind of bare bones.

I never forget that I am here because Tim is back home working, and I marvel at how generous and gracious he is. (I think I would be a lot crabbier.) I also know this is temporary. This is not my life; it’s a very distinct departure from my life. From the life we share. If at any moment I felt permanently alone – as if there were no Tim to return to – this would be a challenging, frightening, unpleasant experience. I wouldn’t even do it.

So, no, I don’t miss him, but it’s because I know he’s there.

Stop! Do you see a pattern here?!

I’m leaving on vacation to New Orleans this week so I’ll be offline for about ten days. (Attention: thieves, burglars, and arsonists) But before I go, I’ll start by telling a little story from my second third.

A while after Tim and I were married, everything about him started irritating me. No, it was beyond irritation; it was the D-word. How had I gotten myself mixed up in this marriage thing? to him? Now I was just angry, full of regret, and searching for escape.

We went to a counselor. She asked if we were there to figure out how to separate or how to stay together. “Separate,” I said. We had a couple of visits and then had to take a break; we’d previously made plans for a trip to Mexico (when I still liked him), and we’d be away.

But after the trip, we never went back to her. Had no problems. Love was restored.

Just about a year later, our marriage was (in my opinion) back on the rocks. Any fix must have been temporary. This was a bleak story of a marriage that could not be saved. So we went back to the counselor. But again, we had to take a break for a previously planned trip to South America. True Alaskans, we always make sure to head to sunlight, sunshine, and warmth in the winter.

A little dose of light, and we canceled any future visits to the counselor. Life and love were good.

The next year, the counselor said, “Stop! Do you see a pattern here?! You always come to me the third week in January, and then you go to Central America in February. Why don’t you schedule your trip for the third week in January and then you might never have to see me?”

Worth her weight in gold that counselor! We made our light-seeking trips earlier – have done it ever since – and never saw her again. My mood stopped sinking as low as it did back then because now I knew what was going on. But even dawn simulation lights and other remedies just weren’t enough to keep me … pleasant. I needed my infusion of light to come from natural reality. Just earlier.

So, the marriage was preserved, and the lesson learned. Tim and I are leaving on vacation this third week in January. Oh, but this has been a snowless winter. There’s no snow to reflect back the minimal light we have, no snow to be out and about in. No cross-country skiing, no winter wonderland. It’s even hard to find addresses in the dark, to drive on certain roads. It is dark, dark, dark. Not even crisp and cold dark; it is soggy, wet, dingy dark. (Attention: tourists and visitors)

So I looked back on my last few posts, and I see the pattern there! All that moaning, all that doom and gloom. Depression and lethargy, DVD binges and sleep disturbances. In a snowless winter, I needed to be out of here earlier!

At least, by my Third Third, I’d learned it had nothing to do with my marriage. Thank heavens I wasn’t dragging us back to marriage counselors. Now, whether Tim might feel differently … hmmm, I’m not pushing my luck: he had to deal with that zombie on the couch, the voice from the abyss.

See you all in about ten days!

Solo in the Third Third

I’ve got Tim.

I’m married to him, and that changes my Third Third dramatically. I have two sisters, both single, and at least one of them has a whole different reaction to the notion of retirement because she’s single. Even the prospect of travel planning changes when you don’t have a ready-made travel partner. Even remodeling options change when you don’t have a spouse who’s measuring, cutting, painting, and nailing in all the molding on the new floor.

I would not be sitting here figuring out my future if I didn’t have a husband. I’d be at my job.

One sister lives alone in her single-family home. The other lives in a large, woman-occupied building with two roommates. When I think of the issues we’ve been having lately with my mother – her anxiety at being alone – I think of how we may have to re-structure our living situations in our Third Thirds.

As our neighborhood on Long Island became increasingly the domain of widows, I tried to convince my mother to get together with her best friends and all move in together. “I don’t want anyone else in my kitchen,” my mother said. So now they’re all anxious about living alone.

Aging hippie that I am, I’ve lived in housing with lots of folks. Then we bought three flats in one building and all lived there. Anchorage even has a co-housing arrangement that broke ground. I’ve always thought it was nutty for every household to have a washer and dryer, and as we get older, there are even more reasons to share space.

But you have to be willing to share. Maybe even your kitchen.

Back to Tim. He’s younger than I am, which increases the chances that I’ll die first. Lucky me! Seriously, when we look at our Third Thirds, we have to know that whatever’s in place now may not be in place later. The best retirement plans in the world can shatter with the death of a spouse, not to mention divorce.

My friend Judith recently traveled with her sister. Her sister almost jokingly described it as a practice trip for when they were both widows. I take a road trip a year with one sister, and one circle of women friends is looking at the Chilkoot Trail for next summer. But I understand what my one sister is saying: it’s the planning for the Third Third that benefits from a partner, a life partner.

I keep telling Tim we need a “theme” for our Third Third (so much so that’s he’s probably thinking how much easier his Third Third would be if he didn’t have me in my Third Third at the same time). What I mean is a theme we craft together. (With a life partner, that planning involves negotiation – something the singles don’t have to accommodate – but that’s the subject of a different post.)

I’m a pretty independent sort. I do what I want, don’t need Tim to accompany me, and am ready to try New Things. I’ve been toying with the notion of spending a year in New York or London without Tim. But that still means we’d confer on logistics, resolve finances, and communicate with each other. We’d still be partners, and in a crisis, we’d be on the next plane.

When I was younger, I used to say that having a boyfriend meant I didn’t have to fret about New Year’s Eve. In my Third Third, my sister points out that I don’t have to think about who my emergency contact is or who will hold my health care proxy.

And this doesn’t even get to the issues of those who, Oops, forgot to have kids.

Not just a floor; it's a symbol

My house is a catastrophe. It has no floors, there’s plastic everywhere (supposedly to keep out the dust), and the oven and refrigerator are in the dining room, facing the walls. Closets had to be emptied, and I can’t reach the sink over all the power tools and scrap. Never mind, it’s covered in plastic anyway. Last night, the air compressor went off at 3 a.m. and I thought a plane had crashed into the house.

When I find a place for something, that is its place for the rest of its useful life. I don’t let things move. If the bath towels are on the third shelf, right side of the closet, they will be there from Day 1 to Day 10,950. All this external order gives me the freedom to have internal disorder (I call it creativity).

Now I am barely holding on to mental stability as I realize everything will have to be put back – once I locate it. Things are in boxes or stacks all over the house. My house is one giant fruit basket upset, and it’s all so DUSTY.

I think I’m hyperventilating. But that may be because this is a love story.

Twenty-six years ago, my husband wooed me with dates and social events, planned outings and invitations. Over the years, somehow social calendaring became my job. Many women friends tell me the same thing happened to them. Tim’s current idea of planning a date is calling at 4:30 and asking, “Are there any good movies?”

Meanwhile, I look for fun things to do, pick out theater events, invite friends over, arrange vacations. Tim is an eager companion, but I am in my Third Third and tired of having to do all the planning and inviting, the discovering of new, fun things. Plane tickets and websites and changing airfares; reservations and loyalty programs and Trip Advisor. And then he just gets to relax and enjoy?

So even though I am supposedly old enough and long-married enough to know better, I can lapse into something like this: Forget it, I am going to stop planning things for the two of us. When he notices that we’re not doing anything together, maybe he’ll plan something.

Maturity is not a requirement to growing older. You can grow older without it.

Which brings me back to the floors. Every night for two weeks, Tim came home from work and ripped carpet and flooring up. Carpet with horrible dust underneath, tenacious staples, and different subsurfaces. He lugged debris outside. He walked around and around, testing for squeaks, eliminating them. He talked to workmen to find out the best way around a problem. When Paul came over and said, “Y’know, now is the best time to level the stairs and make sure they’re all exactly the same height,” I said, “No, no, no! This job is too big!” An hour later, Tim said, “Paul’s right. Now’s the time,” and he shimmed one stair which required adjusting its neighbor which required adjusting that one’s neighbor, on and on. The stairs are now perfect. Each night, Tim would shower off dust and sweat and fall into bed.

I unloaded two bookcases.

Every now and then, I thought maybe I could help and we could do this together, but really, I hated the thought and he didn’t help me plan social events or vacations so why should I…?

And then one day, a light bulb went off. I realized the floors weren’t Tim’s; they were ours.

He was not working on the floors because he loved working on floors.

He was working on the floors because it was his way of building our life together. I’m not talking about a division of labor; it’s not about I-have-my-jobs-and-you-have-yours. It’s about this is our home and we live in it together so it needs to be nice and happy and secure. While I was planning little vendettas, he was … working on the floors.

Many years ago, someone once gave me advice on staying married: Try to remember the gifts you receive, not the ones you don’t.

It wasn’t the floors that reminded me; it was the man working on them.

They shouldn't have had to wait till their Third Thirds

Yesterday, Jay and Gene were married for the fourth or fifth time. But only now – finally, finally! – is it legal in all its details. Their first marriage in Anchorage was commitment-only, not legal. The Portland marriage was nullified by the State of Oregon. In between there were Canadian and South African weddings, but those were either missing some certification or only led to civil unions. (I may be inaccurate on some of these; it’s very confusing.)

So a love that blossomed in their Second Thirds had to wait till their Third Thirds to finally be legal. It’s a terrible shame … and yet finally, a fabulous victory.

I can’t remember exactly how we met. Probably theater. Not only did Gene offer me my favorite role of my acting career (Janice in Italian American Reconciliation by John Patrick Shanley) – the role responsible for the present color of my hair) but together we staffed Out North. In fact, if Out North were their only legacy, it would have been enough.

Right off the bat, I must have met Jay, too. As one woman put it, you learn very quickly they’re a package deal.

Jay and Gene were married in a Quaker wedding, which was a New Thing for me to experience. As weddings go, it’s between eloping and hiring the hall, but a lot more meaningful. It’s silent. Everyone thinks about marriage, about Jay and Gene, about commitment, about things. And when they feel moved to share, they speak up. Then everyone silently thinks about what was said. Until the next person feels moved to speak.

Tim and I eloped. I’m uncomfortable with being the center of attention (unless I’m on stage) and so I’m not very good about celebrating life passages. Someone once told me that attitude doesn’t give the community a chance to celebrate with you, and I guess I never understood that until Gene and Jay’s wedding. We all wanted to be there. We wanted to witness this finally-have-the-opportunity event.

This is what was right and fitting about this whole milestone: Jay and Gene were the first step in the quest for same sex marriage in Alaska. They were the actual pioneers, the ones who filed the first lawsuit after their marriage license was rejected. When the battle became too wearisome over the years and years and years, they moved to England.

Only at the wedding, when Taylor spoke, did I realize the hurt that went into leaving. Somehow I’d always thought of it as another political statement. Somehow I’d missed the emotional toll. But Taylor reminded us that Jay was raised here, that they were embedded in the fabric of this community. Only now, when I’ve looked at relocation, at how wrenching it would be to leave where you’ve built a home, do I understand how hurtful the process of feeling you have to leave could be.

It was a right too long delayed, this marriage of their Third Thirds. Who knows what else they could have done if they hadn’t had to expend energy on this hard-fought, well-won road to legal marriage? But Gene and Jay crossed one off the “to do” list. That’s a capstone for anyone’s Third Third.

The Quest for New-ness #2

When Tim and I were visiting Portland, I told him I didn’t want to drag him around to “my things” (art festivals, transit rides, fruit stands) without his getting to put “his things” on the agenda. So he said, “I’d like to see the World War II exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society.”

Lesson learned in marriage: If you ask for something, you need to go along with it. You need to positively reinforce the other person’s contributions to your life together.

But World War II exhibit?!? Not a World War II exhibit! Although I could have expected this: when we were dating, I once told Tim he had to introduce a topic of conversation. He said, “What do you think of Reagan’s foreign policy?”

So off we trotted to the World War II exhibit … and if Tim didn’t drag me away from the enigma code display, I’d still be there. There was a terrific way to view local WWII veterans’ stories that made me want to see if Anchorage could do something like that for Viet Vets. They even had one of those battle planning tables with the wooden pushers to move your armies and planes around.

In the quest to keep my life fresh and interesting, sometimes I have to research, sometimes I have to dig deep, and sometimes I have to put up with a suggestion from left field and go ahead anyway. Other times, I get real lucky, and a new experience just lands in my lap. That happened with the invitation from my friend Talis to his “8th Crushing of the Apples.”

We arrived to bushels and bushels of already-picked apples. 2,116 this year. In alternating years, Talis can get more than 10,000.

And there was a beautiful wooden, hand-crafted apple crusher and press. Apples went in, were crushed and pressed in cheesecloth sacks, and out came delicious apple cider. Sometimes we couldn’t get the pitcher in fast enough to catch the juice, and cider spilled over. It was a bounty of apple cider, an abundance of apple cider!

Different apples made slightly different tastes, but all were delicious. This cider was even pink. (Why is store-bought cider yellow?) I’ve been drinking apple cider my whole life, but it took till now to experience its true, fresh taste.

What else is out there?