artfulnotes: on 59 Years

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

on 59 Years

July 2^nd, 1955

Other planets, other times . . .

Every time that I glance at a picture of some friends, in faraway places and times, I am drawn into the world of science fiction—those folks exist somewhere still and if I could only cross the barriers of time and space, I could find them and query them on how life is in their land. So it is when I view pictures of myself and my lovely bride at the inception of our life together. It is now 59 years and counting since we joined forces and became a tribe of two . . . to be more a bit later. I had little idea what life would deliver to me and to my bride after we joined forces. And being a kid from Brooklyn, with little travel and even less adventure in my then 20 years, I could not have foreseen the glorious days ahead.

We have moved through exciting and troubled times in our lifetimes—the first and grandest Republican depression, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Freedom Movement, the election of John F. Kennedy, arguably the most exciting election in my lifetime, then his tragic ending, perhaps inevitable in this bizarre land we call America. Yet, with all the hate this land of ours continues to generate, much goodness also continues to flow through the land and our life together has managed to capture much of the goodness. I would say we have been blessed, but that implies an outside hand and no such hand exists. Instead, we have been fortunate, lucky perhaps to have lived the life together that we have.

Every morning now, my bride and I share a little cappuccino and head out to our little pond, where we feed our koi’s and observe our nature preserve. We are surrounded by beauty and by little beautiful critters. Before we drink our cappuccinos, we clink our cups and say, “To us,” a small ritual, but an important one. Then we sit, smile and commune with each other and with our little friends.

In the evening, we complete a similar ritual, although this time with a glass of wine. We observe, we talk to our koi’s, expecting no response, but instead giving them our smiles. They are lovely critters, and because they exist, they give us pleasure, the gentle kind.

So, for brief moments, we relax and forget about our planet and its many, many terminally stupid inhabitants. We are in our little world, and ours is a gentle world. In our world, we are very happy. And we are surrounded by love even outside our little world of two, because we have a large and loving family. The family gives us much love and kindness and we return it in kind. Whether people are blowing themselves up in far away places fails to puncture that love.

And so we celebrate 59 years together and hope for many, many more years. I love my bride now even more than at the beginning of our lifetime together. Our love is now complex and rich.

And so, my love, here’s to us . . . somewhere, my love those folks pictured below continue to exist . . . we hope they are happy as are we.