Where Would I Be Without My Woman?
The Bee Gees ask the musical question.
Well, since late July I’ve been finding out where I’d be without the woman I’ve spent the last 52 years with…and all because of this guy:
Remy FroelicherDaughter Gillian sent out an SOS to Lorna early in the year asking if she’d be willing to fill the Nanny gap from the end of summer vacation until the New Year when there’d be more peace of mind about dropping newborn Remy off at a baby factory where there was no guarantee that any infants would be any more cared for than they are in the hands of the US border patrol. Months of caring and feeding a new grandchild? Catnip for grandmas.Maybe not so much for Gramps. I opted out, having very much embraced the pace and habits of my retirement. The plan that unfolded would have Lorna leaving for her new duties in Savannah in late July. Then she and I would reconnect for two weeks for a long planned 50thwedding anniversary celebration in Italy. Then she would return to Savannah, and I would join her for two weeks prior to Thanksgiving before returning home to finish off the last month of this experiment in bachelorhood. The question I got asked most often during this extended period of solitude was a slight variation on the Bee Gee’s question: Where would you be without your woman? Over time I found it to be a bit of a trick question. The expected answer always seemed implied in the overly solicitous way it was asked. I always felt that when I answered honestly that I was doing just fine that I was disappointing an inquirer who was anticipating a tale of heartbreak…or worse I was provoking suspicion in an inquirer who assumed that if I was doing fine while Lorna was away then certainly our marriage was, as they used to say, on the rocks. The truth is that Lorna and I have pretty much always lived fairly independent lives, and the bond between us is so strong that we rarely need those constant reassurances so common to relationships that if not exactly on the rocks are nonetheless rocky. A further truth is that thanks to technology absence ain’t what it used to be. Face Time, texting, social media…all those things we deplore for disintegrating human community are really quite good, when used judiciously, at binding relationships.My days flew by…helped most definitely by my new passion for bike riding, which actually turned into kind of a part time job. Getting to and from the bike path takes about 40 minutes, and my usual round trip ride itself takes about two hours. So before you know it a good chunk of every day was taken up with physical activity…add to that recovery time and feeding the resultant hunger and it may just as well be a shift as a greeter at Wal-Mart. Then after my usual reading, writing and duties in the Resistance my day is ready to surrender to Netflix, which is where Lorna and I often connected at the end of the day anyway. And binge-watcher that she is, she left me with a long list of shows to catch up on.
So her spirit, as George Harrison once so beautifully put it, is here, there and everywhere…and I don’t just mean in episodes of Helen Wheels and Riverdale. Lorna’s mark is practically on every inch of this house (except perhaps the corner I’ve carved out as my own office). By her mark I don’t just mean particular design choices and color palettes. This house of ours is such a reflection of her tastes, her passions and her soul that it is impossible to inhabit it without feeling you are inhabiting her. So while I may not have been with her over these many months, I was--in a profoundly metaphorical sense--of her. Never was that more apparent than when I had an epiphany while looking at our carpets. The carpets have been a bane to Lorna’s otherwise blissful existence for at least a decade. Whenever she would, in that indirect way of hers, suggest that maybe it was time for new carpets, I would develop a hearing problem. When she decided to become more direct about it early in 2018, I became equally direct by declaring it too far down our priority list of household improvements to discuss. And then she left. And I was left home alone with the carpets…and they began to haunt me. Each day they seemed to grow increasingly cruddy, and it seemed that every time I entered our once lovely home all I could notice were the stains on the 30-year old carpet. I was beginning to see them through Lorna’s eyes. That’s what I mean by inhabiting me. When I reconnected with Lorna in Savannah, Gillian took me aside and reminded me that on Christmas Day Lorna would be turning 70 and there’s probably nothing in the world that would make her happier than new carpets. The month between Thanksgiving and right now…today…December 29, 2018, thus became one of the most insane periods of my life. One would think that given the amount of time Lorna had been pining for new carpets, she would’ve had a pretty good idea what they would look like. But the search and back and forth that ensued was as if I had just sprung the idea of new carpets on her. At last she made her decision, and we got a measurement of all 3300 square feet, followed with an estimate attached to an expiration date, which was before Lorna was due to return home from Savannah. She wanted to be here for the big job, which was a bad idea for many reasons not the least of which was the damage the subsequent dust would have on her health. Finally I prevailed upon her to leave it all to me…and I entered the be-careful-for-what-you-wish-for part of the story...
The carpet installers would move the big, heavy furniture…but it was left to me to empty closets and China cabinets. As happens our closets were full of bookshelves (& BOOKS!), credenzas, filing cabinets (& FILES!!!), exercise equipment, holiday decorations, shoe racks (& SHOES!!)…and enough China to host a dinner party for half of Beijing. Not only did it all have to be moved, but it had to be off the floor, which meant hauling things out to the deck, the balcony, and performing Festivus-worthy feats of strength to lift them up to higher ground. Managing it all put me in mind of those monkeys who are tasked with pulling a banana into their cages using only two sticks.
Alas! It’s done, and the new carpet looks glorious, and Lorna is winging her way home. And as the old year draws to a close I know exactly where I’d be without my woman. I’d be without Meagan and Gillian and their families; I would be without a precious array of in-laws and their children and their children’s children; and I would be without an ineffable, yet undeniable sense of love and connection, which gives me the strength to easily endure quantum solitude.
Happy New Year, Everyone!
Well, since late July I’ve been finding out where I’d be without the woman I’ve spent the last 52 years with…and all because of this guy:
Remy FroelicherDaughter Gillian sent out an SOS to Lorna early in the year asking if she’d be willing to fill the Nanny gap from the end of summer vacation until the New Year when there’d be more peace of mind about dropping newborn Remy off at a baby factory where there was no guarantee that any infants would be any more cared for than they are in the hands of the US border patrol. Months of caring and feeding a new grandchild? Catnip for grandmas.Maybe not so much for Gramps. I opted out, having very much embraced the pace and habits of my retirement. The plan that unfolded would have Lorna leaving for her new duties in Savannah in late July. Then she and I would reconnect for two weeks for a long planned 50thwedding anniversary celebration in Italy. Then she would return to Savannah, and I would join her for two weeks prior to Thanksgiving before returning home to finish off the last month of this experiment in bachelorhood. The question I got asked most often during this extended period of solitude was a slight variation on the Bee Gee’s question: Where would you be without your woman? Over time I found it to be a bit of a trick question. The expected answer always seemed implied in the overly solicitous way it was asked. I always felt that when I answered honestly that I was doing just fine that I was disappointing an inquirer who was anticipating a tale of heartbreak…or worse I was provoking suspicion in an inquirer who assumed that if I was doing fine while Lorna was away then certainly our marriage was, as they used to say, on the rocks. The truth is that Lorna and I have pretty much always lived fairly independent lives, and the bond between us is so strong that we rarely need those constant reassurances so common to relationships that if not exactly on the rocks are nonetheless rocky. A further truth is that thanks to technology absence ain’t what it used to be. Face Time, texting, social media…all those things we deplore for disintegrating human community are really quite good, when used judiciously, at binding relationships.My days flew by…helped most definitely by my new passion for bike riding, which actually turned into kind of a part time job. Getting to and from the bike path takes about 40 minutes, and my usual round trip ride itself takes about two hours. So before you know it a good chunk of every day was taken up with physical activity…add to that recovery time and feeding the resultant hunger and it may just as well be a shift as a greeter at Wal-Mart. Then after my usual reading, writing and duties in the Resistance my day is ready to surrender to Netflix, which is where Lorna and I often connected at the end of the day anyway. And binge-watcher that she is, she left me with a long list of shows to catch up on.
So her spirit, as George Harrison once so beautifully put it, is here, there and everywhere…and I don’t just mean in episodes of Helen Wheels and Riverdale. Lorna’s mark is practically on every inch of this house (except perhaps the corner I’ve carved out as my own office). By her mark I don’t just mean particular design choices and color palettes. This house of ours is such a reflection of her tastes, her passions and her soul that it is impossible to inhabit it without feeling you are inhabiting her. So while I may not have been with her over these many months, I was--in a profoundly metaphorical sense--of her. Never was that more apparent than when I had an epiphany while looking at our carpets. The carpets have been a bane to Lorna’s otherwise blissful existence for at least a decade. Whenever she would, in that indirect way of hers, suggest that maybe it was time for new carpets, I would develop a hearing problem. When she decided to become more direct about it early in 2018, I became equally direct by declaring it too far down our priority list of household improvements to discuss. And then she left. And I was left home alone with the carpets…and they began to haunt me. Each day they seemed to grow increasingly cruddy, and it seemed that every time I entered our once lovely home all I could notice were the stains on the 30-year old carpet. I was beginning to see them through Lorna’s eyes. That’s what I mean by inhabiting me. When I reconnected with Lorna in Savannah, Gillian took me aside and reminded me that on Christmas Day Lorna would be turning 70 and there’s probably nothing in the world that would make her happier than new carpets. The month between Thanksgiving and right now…today…December 29, 2018, thus became one of the most insane periods of my life. One would think that given the amount of time Lorna had been pining for new carpets, she would’ve had a pretty good idea what they would look like. But the search and back and forth that ensued was as if I had just sprung the idea of new carpets on her. At last she made her decision, and we got a measurement of all 3300 square feet, followed with an estimate attached to an expiration date, which was before Lorna was due to return home from Savannah. She wanted to be here for the big job, which was a bad idea for many reasons not the least of which was the damage the subsequent dust would have on her health. Finally I prevailed upon her to leave it all to me…and I entered the be-careful-for-what-you-wish-for part of the story...
The carpet installers would move the big, heavy furniture…but it was left to me to empty closets and China cabinets. As happens our closets were full of bookshelves (& BOOKS!), credenzas, filing cabinets (& FILES!!!), exercise equipment, holiday decorations, shoe racks (& SHOES!!)…and enough China to host a dinner party for half of Beijing. Not only did it all have to be moved, but it had to be off the floor, which meant hauling things out to the deck, the balcony, and performing Festivus-worthy feats of strength to lift them up to higher ground. Managing it all put me in mind of those monkeys who are tasked with pulling a banana into their cages using only two sticks.
Alas! It’s done, and the new carpet looks glorious, and Lorna is winging her way home. And as the old year draws to a close I know exactly where I’d be without my woman. I’d be without Meagan and Gillian and their families; I would be without a precious array of in-laws and their children and their children’s children; and I would be without an ineffable, yet undeniable sense of love and connection, which gives me the strength to easily endure quantum solitude.
Happy New Year, Everyone!
No comments have been added yet.
