Longevity as Love

 

(Here’s what I posted on Facebook today.)

I don’t usually share much personal information here, but today is my 45^th wedding anniversary. Add five years before marriage of living together and that’s a half century of life side-by-side with my wife Karen. And the numbers continue: 50 years of summers in Northern Michigan, 42 years living in the same San Francisco house, 41 years teaching at the same school, 44 years of life with our remarkable daughter Kerala and in a few weeks, 40 years of life with our remarkable daughter Talia, some 40 states and 40 countries we’ve traveled to, 42 years of hosting neighborhood Christmas caroling and 42 years of a ritual New Year’s walk with friends and my sister’s family. 

 

Karen and I aren’t exactly soulmates in any conventional sense, as we each follow different stars. But still we’ve built a notable life together, weathering all the storms and basking in the sunshine of the usual round of political disasters and jubilations (please, jubilation next week!), losses of loved ones and delightful enduring friendships, raising two children and now two grandchildren, pursuing our separate art forms, surviving a pandemic, sharing nutritious and delicious meals and etc. and etc. Those bright eyes in this photo staring hopefully into the future still with some twinkle in them as we look back to the past. Longevity is a form of love and here we still are, “travelin’ along, singing a song, side by side." Happy Anniversary to us both!

 

 Karen is coming back from a weekend singing retreat today and I’m beginning this anniversary day with a trip to the dentist. But I did write her a handwritten card and then another longer version written on the computer. The storebought card has a John F. Kennedy quote on the front: “We are living in extraordinary times.” Here is the typed message: 

 

One week from the strangest election of our lifetime, “extraordinary times” is an understatement! And here we are, still together, battening down the hatches to weather the storm we pray won’t come or ready to take to the streets with the collective jubilation 100 times greater than the Giants World Series win at Yancey’s. Extraordinary times.

 

But hasn’t every year of our 45-year marriage, our 50 years since that kiss on Tank Hill, been extraordinary in its own way? And most extraordinary of all— we’ve lived a half-century together! And each morning wake up to the next day ready for the next adventure. 

So much life shared together. Somewhere around 40,000- 45,000 meals shared together, 15,000 nights saying good night and mornings saying good morning. The sheer quantity of life lived together is indeed extraordinary and something to be celebrated. 

 

But of course, it’s the quality that tells the deeper story. The camping trips, the travels far and wide, the Michigan summers, the hours spent in the old SF movie theaters, four decades of driving to and from school and that whole place a shared universe in itself. Giving life to two extraordinary children, with the birthday parties and piano recitals and basketball games and school plays and more camping and traveling, the pumpkin carving and Thanksgivings and the Revels and Christmas caroling and Christmas mornings and Easter egg hunts and a few 4^th of July fireworks and so much of that with the neighbors as well. Board games, card games, reading aloud, Cheers and Bill Cosby, art projects, occasional music jams. Then the graduations—8^th grade, 12^th grade, college and suddenly two adults. A few boyfriends, a husband, two grandchildren and around we go again doing what we did best and still do. 

 

Meanwhile, all the weddings and memorial services and retirement parties and milestone birthday parties (your scavenger hunt!), the loss of so many friends and parents and a sibling and aunts, uncles and cousins, neighbors and school folks. The joys and pains of national elections, art shows and music conferences, bike trips apart and together, family reunions, Palm Springs gatherings, Paula Poundstone and New Year’s gatherings, protest marches, A pandemic and sheltering and the whole new worlds of TV series watched sitting on the couch together. All the SF goodbyes to restaurants/ Cafes  like Narai, Heidi’s, Stoyanoff’s, Peppers, Just Desserts, Tart to Tart, the movie theaters like the Gateway, Surf, Parkside, Bridge, Coronet, Regency, Lumiere, Alhambra, Clay and looks like the Castro, the stores like all the bookstores (9^th Ave. Books, Cover to Cover, …), Le Video, Tower Records/ The Magic Flute, Streetlight Records, Community food stores, quirky sights like Fleischacker Pool, the North Beach postcard store, the 9^th Avenue Bank of America. And then hello to Crissy Field, Tunneltop Park, the Presidio without the Army and yet more. We watched them all come and go, leaving behind the imprints of all the marvelous times we spent in each. 

 

And while I’m naming places, why not evoke the travels? The Southwest, the Northwest, Maine, Key West, Savannah and Charleston, Estes Park, Yosemite, Portland, Washington DC, New Jersey, New York, New Smyrna Beach, Hawaii, Providence, Boston and beyond. 

 

Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Cuba, Bahamas, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco, England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Java, Bali, Japan, Australia, Fiji. Each one memorable and indelibly stamped on our mutual life. 

 

It has been quite a life together. But we’re not done yet— more to come! Here’s to continuing to live in extraordinary times because we help make them so! Onward!