Us, again

Backstory: 
In 2012,  our nest didn't empty but tipped over with the departure of our last two at once. It was a lot of things,  thrilling and disorienting, depressing and joyous to think of our house, empty. 

Drew, ready to go

Honest people said, "It's scary, to be alone again."

"Pffft," I said. 

I was all about the glass half-full dammit, all about the positive changes we'd make. I reeled in the things we were, and folded them into the things we'd be. 

I understand now, that I didn't know what I was talking about three years ago.

I understand now, that those honest people were right. 

I understand now, that so was I. 

2012

Two things happened this week that made me need to sit down. Sam turned eighteen, and Drew, only home from college until he found a job, found a job and moved out.

So, first, I am now the mother of adult children.  In those cheery, spontaneous conversations I start with strangers in line at the store, I can finally offer that, "My children are grown now, but when my son was that age...( here, I'll point to the toddler who is pulling candy bars off the display)... he used to slap me in the face when I made him sit in the cart."

Second, the last of the fledglings have flown. Nobody will live here again except for my husband and me. Things will change.

We'll use the space in the house differently - new office for him, new work out place for me. 

The laundry room, free of overflow clothes will be spacious enough for me to turn around without moving the ironing board. 

During those stretches when he travels, I will spend more time on my novel. 

We will follow through on all that we hoped would happen when we became this -   us again. We will plan things over the weekend breakfasts he prepares, a future of opening nights at Symphony Hall,  visits to kids in the near or faraway places where they will be filling their own nests.  

In our neater, quieter life, I expect I will notice how much has changed. I will think about how, after twenty-seven years of everything that happened, and everything that didn't, of long distance marriage and independence and individual growth, we are still climbing the same front steps together. I will explain observations like this, and probably compare our relationship to weather, or pool toys or paths in the woods, and if he thinks I'm tedious, he will be too gracious to say so.

That will be us, now. 

The fledglings four

While our family was in the making, I hoped we'd always be close as people, not because we were related and once lived in the same house,  but by choice. I hoped, that after they went in their own directions, our children would hunker down at home every now and then to connect with one another, by choice. 

I hoped they would know when too much time had passed and would connect via phone or text or FB messaging - by choice. I hoped that despite occasional falling outs, clashes of will, or silent stretches they would stay close to the people who would walk into traffic for them.

I hoped, after twenty-seven years of marriage, my husband and I would do the same thing.

Done, done, done, done, and doing.

Choices will pull at us at this time of  "my turn", and it is daunting to come back as new people to the ones who have known us forever. 

But it is liberating too, it is the only choice of many, to be us again.

Ten things to tell an engaged daughter

It's almost wedding time, and so today, I'm re-posting "Ten things to tell an engaged daughter," the most highly viewed thing I ever wrote anywhere at any time. 

From September 19, 2013:

People think your soul mate is your perfect fit. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

 -- Elizabeth Gilbert.

Very soon, our daughter will be married. In my life, I have attended only a handful of weddings where I was certain it would last. This will be one of them.

And yet, since we reached the halfway point in the planning, I've found myself wishing to offer some parting gift of wisdom. Not the birds and bees talk of yesteryear, of course. 

More of a nests and hives talk.

  

An argument has evolved between my mother self which wants to share wisdom the minute I earn it, and my better judgment, which knows that unsolicited advice is tolerated more than it is followed. People in love blaze their own path, thank you very much.

And, adds my better judgment:

We customize our marriages. We rise and fall and stumble and glide through them, trading our coins of love and promise to create a new whole that won't leave anyone's unique self out. 

After nearly three decades, we've had our wins and fails and I could offer as many don'ts as do's. Maybe more, unless you ask my husband, who claims not to remember the "don'ts" because he is very good at marriage. 

And, in a discussion of "what marriage is and isn't",  is it better to caution against the things that are sure to damage a marriage? Or share the discoveries which made you understand that marriage is not just something you have in common with your spouse, but a place where you feel more honored, accepted, understood and loved than anyplace else?

And, as I consider offering any advice at all,  should I consider how much difference do's and don'ts advice made in my own life, which was none?

And, yet, says my mother self:

In three days, I will watch my daughter walk into the arms of her man. Knowledge is for offering, like fine food that you've prepared with your own hands. You put it out there, and whoever is hungry can eat. And so, from the turned down pages of my own manual I offer the ten things about marriage I consider most Worth Mentioning. 

Be who you are. You came to the relationship as whole people, with identities and a purpose in life. Feel complete in your relationship, share your happiness, look forward to everything you'll do together, feel better about everything when he walks in the room, miss him when he's gone. But honor your individuality. He loves things about you that you're not even aware of.

Know your marriage. As you know yourself, know your marriage - why you love each other, what you need, what you have learned to give and take - and realize that very, very little of this is visible to others. When people tell you when to buy a house, or when to have children, or why your marriage should be like theirs, remember how much information they are really working with, which is practically none.

We love differently. People can love each other equally and show it very differently. Women of words can be married to men of action if each knows they are loved the best way possible by the other and wish to stay that way.

Talk. Tiny amounts of honest communication - all the time - even when you're not together will keep you in sight of each other. Absent or lazy communication - all the time - even when you're in close proximity to each other is worse than silence.  

Listen. Learn to listen as much as you wish to be heard. You do this now, but life will get noisy. There will be distractions. Listening is not just making eye contact and waiting for the other person to stop talking so you can tend to something else. That's just hearing. 

Show your belly. There are plenty of times when you should play your cards right, not give yourself away, not expose your belly. But in a marriage is not where to do that.  Show who you are. If it's hard to do that sometimes, you're doing it right. 

Bring it up. Even if you are sure what is in his heart, never think you know what's in his mind. Don't let something go just to avoid "clashing." Give each other a chance to be understanding and allow yourself to be surprised.

Use Humor. When stuff  seizes your attention  that won't matter in a year from now, do your best to treat it with humor. Humor heals, humor binds, humor relieves everything in the world and makes life easier. It also improves your facial expression.

Ask. When you do get upset with each other, start conversations with these words:  "I'm having trouble with something but I think you can help." It's amazing how responsive people can be when they are invited to help you, rather than defend themselves.

And... 

The most important thing, what will keep you attuned, what will assure you live within the hearts of each other, as well as in the same house, is this:

If it's happy, if it's loving, if you mean it...

Say it.

You make me happy.

I appreciate you.

I love you.

I'm glad I married you.

And in almost three decades, when you are about to watch your daughter walk into the arms of her love, do what I plan to.

Turn to your husband and say:

I would do it again.

Originally posted: 9/19/2013

My husband the German Shepherd

This is not my dog.
He is only here to
make a point.

I know this is empty nest season. Possibly there's something under the couch or behind the refrigerator that I haven't already said about empty nest, but today I want to write about marriage.

My friend Sharon Hodor Greenthal is an editor of the online magazine Midlife Boulevard, a popular blogger  and published writer elsewhere of all things midlife. As she has become more public she has, of course, encountered her share of critics. She's learned to deal. But I'm touched by what she says about her husband: "He has my back."

I love the sound of that because if marriage is and isn't a lot of things, it should be one thing:  an alliance - the force of two facing down the challenges of one. 

And so, here is an ally story.

Ten years ago, I described the first book I wrote to someone at a party this way:

"Well, it's women's fiction. It's basically about the choices we make and how we defend those choices when we are challenged to make new ones."

He nodded.

I said, "Probably not a book a man would read."

He said, "My wife would never read anything like that either."

Oh.

I was a new writer and not a very confident one, so I couldn't decide whether he meant his wife was not a reader, or not a reader of women's fiction, or not a reader of  "identity" themes, or not a reader of the drek I would probably write, but that smug tone wounded me.

For days.

"Maybe she's a reader of what he tells her to read," said my husband, the German Shepherd.

There's a reason writers refer to first novels as the "under the bed" book. They're terrible.  They don't have plots, they're about the author, and they are written in such a hurry the characters have the depth of a paper doll. Once, I met an agent who referred to first novels as the "book of me" and I laughed because she was exactly right. 

So that was me ten years ago, a fragile new writer who needed  helpful critique but didn't handle it particularly well,  married to a man who was blessed and cursed with the gift of cutting to the chase. Asking my husband for "helpful critique" without hurting my feelings was like asking a door slammer  to check a souffle.

So, I gave him instructions. "Will you read my book and tell me if it's any good, but tell me the good things first?"

With that, he read my first novel and responded like this: "Well, you know some readers like action and plot but not all of them. Some like character studies and stories that remind them of their own lives."

That was a lot of writing ago.

If you visit me here, you know  I recently finished a third novel and am now getting ready to submit it. If you're a novelist you know this means I've come up with an ending and will be ready to submit it in about a year after I stop fixing it.

Two weeks ago, I detected a problem with flow. The first three chapters were clunky and uneven and "too".  Too much back-story, too little action, too contrived.  I began to panic and flipped through, trying to see where it fell off, where it got fat, and the more I looked at those first three chapters (often the only material your target agent will allow you to send with that query letter that took six years to write) the more convinced I became that nobody's wife would want to read it.

"Oh dear God," I said to Gus, my writer-cat. "We actually really, really suck at this."

My husband was leaving on business, "Give it to me," he said. "I'll read it on the plane."

A week later:

"Okay, I read it," he said.

"And?"

"Sections two and three are fantastic. They flow, it's fast, the dialog is great, I couldn't put it down. Section one? I'll be honest. If I'd picked up this book in the airport, by the time I finished section one, I would have wanted my eight bucks back." 

Because I am no longer a souffle, I laughed.

 "But I found your problem," he said.

We laid the pages out on the table and went paragraph by paragraph. As he read, he described his reading experience, his attitude, expectations and mood:

"See? Here," he pointed, "I'm thinking, don't tell me what she's thinking, tell me what she's going to do, because I am  really waiting to find out."

And so on... where he was confused, where things seemed extraneous, where it worked and didn't, when he was bored.  

It took hours after we figured it out, but I fixed it.

And said right out loud as if I were meeting this book for the first time,  "Okay, this is good."

Ten years ago, my husband believed in my writing more than I did. Had he made that "eight bucks" comment back then, I might have quit.  But when I asked for his honesty this time, it was because I knew it would sting only if he was being honest, and would also be the kind of honest that gets stuff done.

And that is the very nice thing about some marriages; the more you trust someone, the more willing you are to admit when you're lost, and the more willing they are to fetch you and bring you where you belong because that's what German Shepherds do. Even if they must use their teeth to do it.  

Seven Words

Many years ago, on our tenth anniversary, Larry gave me an anniversary band. At the time, a "Diamonds are Forever" campaign was underway, urging men to "give her something that says you'd marry her all over again".  During a tight financial year, this  gift was especially meaningful,  and I've taken good care of it.

The other day, while I was shopping for groceries, between ice cream and frozen vegetables, I heard a "clink". It was barely audible. I looked at the floor around me for something I might have dropped.  An old man noticed. "Lose something?" he asked, and started looking around with me.

But we found nothing.

That night, when I took off my rings, I discovered that my anniversary band was missing. I remembered that little "clink", realized that the metal had broken, and the ring had fallen from my finger.

The sadness at losing this was numbing.  More than missing the ring itself, was to remember what it symbolized: that at a time when it wasn't easy for him to do it, my husband had found this extravagant way to tell me, he'd marry me all over again.

You've probably had that sinking feeling when, even as you realize where you dropped or forgot something, even as you're placing the call to ask about it, you know the person at the other end will be of no help whatsoever. I've called hotels about forgotten jackets, restaurants about glasses, etc.  You wait while they open the door to the office, glance left and right and come back to tell you, "nope, not here." In the meantime,  you've already decided to shop for a replacement.

But there was no replacement for this  piece of jewelry and the statement it made after ten years of marriage, when normal pressures of raising small children, managing finances, negotiating schedules had  allowed us to show each other both the best and worst of ourselves.  And though we have since assured each other of our commitment without a gift or campaign to make the point, this ring represented  an important message at a time that is pivotal in any marriage.

So, my hopes were not high when I called Hannaford at nine-thirty that night to ask a tired, overworked part-timer if he or she would mind searching the floor in Frozen Foods, but that's what I did.

After a ten minute wait on hold, during which two other employees picked up to ask who I was holding for, Kathy from Customer Service was back.

"I have it," she said.

"You do not," I said.

"It's right here. I'm putting it in the safe until you get here."

I've thought about that campaign since, the symbolic importance of this lost and found ring.

It strikes me that of the things we feel for each other, the things we should say, I would marry you all over again, has more sway, more healing power than any other message.   It is not a message that  loses substance with time. It is not the "I love you" we toss out when we hang up the phone or leave the house.

It is also a message that can be as easily lost, forgotten, misplaced, broken as a piece of jewelry.

When it falls off, it may not be with more than a tiny clink , you may not notice right away, but when you discover it's gone, your first regret will be your failure to notice the crack and do something about it. And there won't always be a Hannaford employee to help you get it back when that happens.

So, do that.  Fuse those cracks. If you mean them, say those words:

I would marry you all over again.

Mr. Everybody

Larry laughing at something
 ridiculous

SPECIAL NOTICE:  For maximum enjoyment, this post will require you to know who Lucas McCain is.

Like everyone,  I've heard adages and expressions in my life that are hard to forget for a couple of reasons:  either they were told to me when I didn't know from it, or, they were told to me by a person in their late eighties with weathered skin  and piercing eyes who didn't get that far by being a nitwit.  

Here's one: 

For balance, every woman needs eight friends who are more or less than she is in each of these four categories: wealth, looks, brains and popularity.

False. I need loyal, supportive and honest friends no matter what they have in the bank or who thinks they are hilarious and I can get by with fewer than eight. 

Here's another:

Your first serious celebrity crush(es) will predict things about your most serious life relationship.

That one's true. 

I was always embarrassed to admit my crushes  - nobody got it. Danny over Keith? George over Paul?  Really? Why?  It all makes sense now. 

I'll start with the Rifleman.

While all the other  girls  thought Mark McCain was dreamy with those soulful eyes and the way he said "Paw," I developed a stubborn crush on Lucas, the squinty, tough, wise, gritty rifleman who solved problems with his rifle and asked questions later.

There was not a single thing about him that a real woman couldn't change, I thought. And he had been left to both mother and father Mark, even with a rattlesnake in his sleeping bag. I wanted to make it all better for the tough/tender Lucas.

I never went for the Davy Jones accent, I went for the Michael Nesmith eyes which I imagined smoldering with inspiration for a ballad called, simply, "Joanne" "Susan". I wanted to look into eyes like that forever.

Unlike everyone else at the bus stop, I never really liked Mick or Paul. I liked Gary Puckett because even if you saw less of him in magazines,  his songs were always about seducing women. Did no one ever teach me the facts of life? No. And there was so much I had to learn. I wanted Gary to answer a few questions.

I never liked dumbbell Keith Partridge, but the conniving Danny. I wanted someone too savvy to be outsmarted by the average Joe.   

I didn't like jaded John or puppy Paul, I liked serious George who traded profile for pride.

And even if he wore the same khakis and white shirt every day, year in and out on the island, I liked the professor with a soul - an everybody I would have to keep everybody away from. 

I never went for the Hugh Grant smirk but the David Letterman wit. I wanted that sharp take on the ridiculous.

I didn't know I was shopping for so many things or even when I found them, until one day in November, 1983, when I heard the sound of my future husband's voice, reached for the perfume, fluffed up my hair and skulked around until he noticed me.  

And after all those crushes, I knew this was no somebody. This man, whose last name I was doodling next to my own on legal pads in meetings, was an everybody 

Mr. and Mrs. Everybody

Twenty-eight years and four children later, here we are,  still with the same last name, still making plans for the things we'll do years from now.

One of my favorite friends passed along this sentiment about marrying the love of her life: 

I think about what might never have been, and I cherish every single day.  

That one's true. 

There is no better way to describe the joy at having found, and remained with the most serious love of your life. I found and remained with all of them.   

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Everybody.

The way it really should be

Even I had to refill my water and take a snack break while I re-read this post.

But bear with me, because this is about marriage and there is a lot to say about that, if, like me, you've been married since Madonna first crawled around on a stage in fishnet stockings and messy hair.

In the seventies, Carly Simon produced a song called, "That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be" about a woman (actually about Carly) who is contemplating marriage (probably to James Taylor) but worries that she'll wind up like her father, smoking in the dark living room, or her mother, reading magazines alone in bed, or her friends from college (they're all married now) who are clinging and clawing and drowning  in love's debris. Like these people. 

She likens marriage to being caged on James Taylor's shelf. And yet, in the end she wraps up with this:

You want to marry. We'll marry.

Even as a kinda dumb and kinda smart teenager, I was puzzled by this.

Next March, I will have been married for twenty-eight years. I am thinking about marriage today for a few reasons:

Football Gus

First, our children are gone. We have time to nurture our communication now, and fill in the divets.  We notice each other again. We know each other again. If we remember the history we don't want to repeat, we cherish the history that has kept us together. We love more of the same things than we realized, and we have a kitten that we talk to like we talked to Courtney when she was small enough to be held like a football.

I also know that as resilient and enduring as our marriage turned out to be, it wasn't free. We've been challenged by different parenting styles, separation, and differences in opinion over everything from how to keep a house clean (answer: hire a housekeeper) to how to spend money (answer: take control of the finances and when the subject of money comes up, point at the window and say, "What the hell was that?").  Distance is inevitable and so is the fact that one will address it first and possibly have to describe/explain it to the other who doesn't want to talk about it. It can be lonely at the front, and there will always be someone who (in your imagination, where you are mesmerizing) would respect you more. There will always be someone who, (in his imagination where he is mesmerizing) would appreciate him more. There are indeed, silent noons, tearful nights and angry dawns, no matter how much you drink and laugh, close the wound and hide the scars.

Second, football baby Courtney will be married next year and will begin a journey over and around roads I've already traveled; the nice, just-paved ones, and the ones with detours all over the place, manned by cranky workers who tell you to slow the hell down at one end, and speed the hell up at the other. 

I can talk about some of those construction sites.

First, a disclaimer: I can't speak for men, so I'll speak for myself and possibly many other women. Second, two observations: one is that  men are thoughtless, and unkind and stupid sometimes. The other is that women are thoughtless and unkind and stupid sometimes.

We project. Disagreements escalate fast and become ferocious when one, and not the other, is grappling with a larger worry at the core; usually something to do with respect or intelligence or power. Self-respecting, intelligent women who have opted to stay home and raise children for example, are not really fighting over who left the garage door open so that all the leaves could blow in, and they don't really care who notices, but ignores the full trash can. They do care - a lot -  about disappearing.

We fight to keep, and fight hardest when we think we're losing, respect for how we think. Strangely, I didn't struggle with self-respect issues when I was driving the kids to school in a bathrobe and sunglasses.  But I did struggle - a lot - when I was sure my husband believed, as I did, that I was withering intellectually. Today, of course, I know that if I lost my mind, Larry would miss it too.

We worry about losing who we were, sure. But we worry - a lot - about who we still are and could be.  Powerful still? Beautiful? Compelling? I can say, with all my  heart, that anyone I know who has stayed married past twenty years, unless they have been impersonating whole, thinking people, has had to figure this out: how to grow in the marriage and still be, in some way, the person they always were.  

 Courtney, with her
self-concept
 and every-cat Daisy

Before I understood the sum-of-the-parts Gestalt of relationships, I wondered how it was possible to compromise, and negotiate, and give in, and sacrifice and take the high road and not feel you'd traveled too far from the home base to ever return? Today, I understand that one brings the self concept into a marriage they way they bring the cat they adopted before there was even a first date with James Taylor. It's easier to  keep and nurture self-concept than it is to go looking for it once it's slipped out through the door that James Taylor left open. (Maybe if Carly's friends from college had saved room in their lives for themselves, they wouldn't have been crowded out by their children who only wound up hating them for what they weren't.)

What a downer song.

But sometime in the eighties, Carly Simon produced another song called "Coming Around Again" . It's about a woman who is struggling with the demands of marriage and love and children. The lyrics are so romantic but also, so bewildering - there is the breaking of windows and the burning of soufflés and the (creepy) screaming of lullabyes - but the tone is hopeful and  in the end she wraps up with this:

But what else can I do? I'm so in love with you.

The lovely thing about time is that it doesn't leave you behind, it brings you with it. Things get easier. You stop delegating the responsibility for your happiness and put it back in your own hands where it belongs. You stop asking your spouse to change into you so that you can get along. You're stunned to realize that if he's done a million things to bug you, he hasn't - ever - asked you to be someone else.

Finally, one day, you'll go for Mimosas and Christmas Tree shopping and you'll be making wry jokes about things that were not always funny. It will strike you that the things you don't like about each other are no longer grounds, but forgettable details. And what you do like about each other will seem familiar and precious because it is. It's the all-grown-up version of what made you fall in love and marry in the first place.

Happily, the only things Courtney and John have in common with Carly and James are their initials. Should they ever see themselves in one of Carly's songs, they will need to have faith, that as Carly discovered, although probably not with James Taylor, if they're willing to play the game, it will come around again. I know.