I sit here on the anniversary of my marriage to my husband who is now 78, and I say to my 74-year-old self, “Self, did you think 27 years ago you’d be sitting here contemplating verbs and old age and giving out sage advice, sage being not only a spice?
I vividly remember our wedding, my dusty pink Laise Adser dress with pastel green nubby cloak with hood, like Meryl Streep wore in the French Lieutenant’s Woman. Bill and I fit like Bogie & Bacall, like bookends of similar but different backgrounds. We remember radio. We were Catholic. We were from the right-hand side of the United States, and we both love pug dogs. Is this the basis of a spiritual relationship? It is.
There’s more this story – how I met him after he had been a Baha’i for two weeks; how I had to go back to being a legal secretary, having left my cubicle four years earlier to return to college; how we had income which was good in the beginning, and how I just before I met him I made the insane decision to buy a radio for my car. We met, we laughed, we matched, and in a dream one night our DNA code swirled around us in figure 8’s. That’s what I call, “It’s a sign.” Yeah, we did a lot of that too.
I made a list of qualities wanted in my unseen mate, and this list fell out of a book a year after we were married. Everything on this long narrow list, “Sensitive, spiritual, humor,” was there – I turned to him waiving the list of scribbled hopes, and said, “I forgot to put tall,” but if so, I wouldn’t have married my husband who is about an inch shorter than I.
It’s been an action packed life. We moved seventeen different times. I had health issues which I’ll speak of at 80 or so. We traveled across Russia, visited Siberia, and lived in Ukraine and Belarus, before, during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We also lived with my second mother-in-law who told me one day, “You carry the heavy stuff for him,” and now it is the day of our 27th anniversary.
I sit here with a hiatal hernia, and a suspiciously ingrown toe. I am in my red and black PJs – contemplating words used for aging. Baby Boomers take note. “Use strong verbs – might I suggest “lurch” and “cope.”
My marriage, and a plethora of other happenings, healed me, and now we both face the final frontier. I finally have self-acceptance and self-appreciation, except for an occasional Thursday of black condemning thoughts. It is a time of great inner wisdom and also a time when my body becomes like an old truck spending more time in repair. An ashtray falls out, gets fixed and doors fall off. The unknown is with us every night when our sliding door shuts. Allergies descend upon my husband at every weather change, and it feels like the English Channel roars through my ears, until I turn and rub his back to his snuff, snuff, cough, cough away. I am like someone spraying the end of the contents of the Raid Can.
Again it is also surviving a twin’s passing first if you want to know, and it’s being grateful for skin that looks young thanks to a friend’s gift of Clarins. It’s having a pool house with very low rent and landlord kindness. It was having heart and gall bladder surgery within days of each other and surgeons writing off their fees, but not telling me. It’s standing up to my last breath for the oneness of humankind, and always helping someone every day. It’s living beyond the fringe and not having 401K’s and not giving a rat’s ass, but rather living in a quirky world where status is a blind removed from my mind knowing wealth follows poverty and poverty follows wealth , and I think of the quote, “ O Children of Dust – Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor …” and even when my cash flow is minimal, I listen.
It’s having lingering fears in a dark hour at night, when I get up to pee and hope when I am very old, I will not be a burden, and I don’t want my family to take care of me, because I’ve lived with two mother-in-laws. It doesn’t work very well.
It’s every day having something slow me down, feeling crappola, but then again getting up, like a Russian Matroishka doll who bops up repeatedly after falling, and like a Russian Woman who is strong, and other women also, it’s seeing the beauty in so many faces, and loving the nobility among the anonymous. It’s having two themes fascinate me – man’s humanity to man and man’s inhumanity to man. I don’t mind dying, it’s the getting there, and I want to have integrity and nobility. So far I’ve managed to have dignity in the extreme times of my life, but one never knows his or her ending. It’s also having great kids, family, grandchildren and friends.
It’s living with more soul than body, and not ganging up on myself for having a peanut butter sandwich every morning for breakfast, and drinking lemonade, a good kidney stone prevention. It’s always turned towards something greater, a Divine Presence, and yet being willing to throw my whole being over a cliff for the wellbeing of the world.. It’s always learning, always seeing the wisdom in all things, no longer have shoulders tense up about every issue on earth.
Moderation to some degree has come to me. Trust, like surfing the opaque waves, is there also, but I have to guard this feeling until my last breath, and maybe one silent no breath. It is a life of purpose and humility with a whispered hope that I’ve left the world a little brighter.
Happy anniversary to you and your beloved.
tanks dahlin
Whenever I read one of your incredibly marvelous essays, I want to scream, “how does she do it!”, and then I exult and give thanks that she does do it and I have had the royal privilege and pleasure of banqueting on its rich and enchanting insights and its exotic ups and downs and its sweet nothings and its spicy romps and its piquant side trips and its mouth-watering humor and even its overindulgence of pugs. Yours, Esther, is the moveable feast that Hemingway wrote of. You and Bill are a blessing.
I hereby appoint you Royal Blurber; gratitude; that’s the way I feel when i read yours and others; I guess we each come with our supply or penchant for certain types of words and then roll them around on a lawn as if we were in a giant lawn game – word game
What he said.
I love reading your essays. Rich and vivid – ah, now I’m getting distracted by the thought of a deep delicious red wine.
That’s the effect you have – thought-provoking and comforting at the same time.
Thank you so much; you praise is high praise I think;
You’re not getting older, Esther, you’re getting better! Brilliantly written! To get to year 27 I guess I will have to live a very long time!! Happy, happy anniversary to you and Bill – you both inspire in so many ways!!
thanks good dahlin; love you to pieces
Thank you Esther for giving me an enlightened start to my day. Your words truly move me. Happy Anniversary to you and your beloved!
We are all in a process – glad you liked it-hugs
Happy Anniversary to you both…what a great post…very touching….very genuine! xx
thanks dear one-equal kudos to yours of today also
Esther, a very, very Happy Anniversary 🙂 Always love these essays, so much heart and wisdom all rolled up in one delicious write. My parents are 80 and I see where that trail is leading–you put it perfectly, like a car that needs to go to the shop more often–you really made me laugh! A bit of reckoning and also when I see what is coming, it makes me be less serious, dance more, laugh harder, make love more–you just never know what is around the corner, have to enjoy what you have while you have it! and it’s clear you do that every day. Love and hugs 🙂
Thanks Sara, your comments warm my soul
“It’s always learning, always seeing the wisdom in all things, no longer have shoulders tense up about every issue on earth.” 🙂
This one sounds very wise, like coming from the heart of someone who has lived, struggled and got up again. Happy anniversary to you and Bill. Rest easy, Ms. esther… 🙂
Happy holidays and may you get infected with all the blessings and cheers of the season. Dance on! 😉 ~ San
thank you dear one – i feel our connection
Happy, happy, happiest of anniversaries dear Esther! I remember hearing something somewhere as a child and I don’t know what that was anymore but I turned it into this: I’m like a bird flying thru this life, a journey started in darkness and ending in darkness, but in the middle is this glorious cathedral full of brilliant light and the reflections of thousands of stained glass windows. And if one has to fly thru life, how much better to have a mate flying beside you.
wow – how lovely; i read this with a touch of insomnia, what better way to receive this description where only the fan under my laptop breathes, emphasizing the silence of the tips of my fingers clicking letters, a;sj; kl type of thanks lovely
Esther, I’ve not ‘visited’ of late – long story, all words – and so glad I chose today to pop in. Love your story, your truths, your perspective, your metaphors and analogies. In fact, I love how you have lived your life! Very inspiring and humbling. You reach out from the screen and grab my heart, fill my soul, dance alongside me with your whispered integrity and nobility – peanut butter in hand (YES!).
you brighten my heart; huge hugs
Hello Sorrygnat, my name is Ronald and I am a photographer. The photo you used is my intellectual property and I can see it was published here with a watermark from the agency that represents me. Basically it is not common practice to use an image like this. Normally you would need to purchase a licence to put a photo on your blog. You can purchase the photo from me if you like. Its not expensive at all. You can contact me through my blog if you like. Apologies for posting here but I couldnt find a way to contact you privately.
Oh my gosh, i can either take it out or find out how much it costs; i googled free stock, my error! How may I help. I’m not a person with a lot of money, and also you can see, i could use a little more tech savvy; my email is estherbill@gmail.com
Thank you Esther, I have emailed you 🙂
Oh, I related to this essay, Esther. Happy anniversary to you two.
[…] to find matching images. Anyhoo, searching the net, and I found a hit on my Clock Eye image. It was used on a blog written by a lovely woman called Esther Bradley-DeTally. Esther is a talented writer and author […]
Well, ah declare, gosh, shucks, you are some’thin
[…] to find matching images. Anyhoo, searching the net, and I found a hit on my Clock Eye image. It was used on a blog written by a lovely woman called Esther Bradley-DeTally. Esther is a talented writer and author […]
if I am able to do it; i’ll write a memoir or book about aging, and then I have to find you and pay you more; because I think your image would make a great cover! hugs and high regards.
rules for a Happy marriage
Reflections on Aging | Sorrygnat, World Citizen
glad you liked it; we are all truckin’ on!