My Lost Wedding Ring

About four years ago. I lost my wedding ring. My ring finger had grown wider and wider over the 32 or so years I had worn it and one day I took it off. Where I put it is a complete mystery. It could have been in our TV room by our daybed where I may have idly removed it for a finger breather, but turning that room upside down revealed nothing. It could have also gone missing in my "man cave" off the kitchen. I often sleep in that room and may have removed it there. The decrepit wooden floors there could have either swallowed it up or sent the rolling band in innumerable directions, but again, it did not turn up there. Finally, I could have lost it while putting up tarps on our outdoor shed. The precise reason for this I cannot recall, but it caused me to get down on my hands and knees to comb through the grass and leaves searching in vain for it.

Since then, I have come to believe that this white gold antique band inscribed with "G, love without mediocrity, pp" has been a reason for our troubles. That by losing this band, I have somehow released the demons that cause marriages to fail. The prevalent one is infidelity. By infidelity, I don't mean an affair or some such thing, but the infidelity of losing a symbol that was/is a touchstone of our relationship. I, of course, have kicked myself innumerable times for misplacing the ring, and yet there is the voice that says to me, "well, maybe it was a subconscious thing--you know that things have been pretty up and down for you two." 

And that is the quandary. Is losing the ring a symptom of a larger issue or did I just stupidly lose that ring? Confessionally, marriage is tough to maintain as a couple changes. Betsy and I are genuinely loving to each other, but we simultaneously go down destructive rabbit holes that are predictable and, at times, laughable. We struggle from time to time, but we also still find a lot to love in each other, even if some of that could well be the sentimentality that comes from a lengthy history and all that comes with it. Still, with losses on both sides of parents and pets and illnesses of close friends, there is also the fear of aging and what will become of us in our waning years. There are also the natural jealousies that come from disparities in finances, the tug-of-war of can I trust you to be here when I need you most, and the last gasp of is this the way the rest of my life should play out?

I never really understood the power of the ring. My mother gave us her wedding ring from my dad and her's marriage. I replaced a missing diamond at some point which made it feel more like Betsy's ring. But even that gesture was ill-conceived. We were in serious debt when we bought the "bloodless" diamond. Ironically, there was some bad blood for a while over it. Since I lost my ring, Betsy has offered to replace it several times, but no real action has transpired on it. Whether it is the usual hemming and hawing or perhaps an underlying current of mistrust or something else, I don't know. But with every day the imprint of the ring continues its slow fade, the more I wonder if it is a harbinger of things to come.

Just today we spoke to the guy replacing our upstairs window and said that the secret to a long relationship is to be stubborn, but not too stubborn. As I begin the "retired" phase of my life with her, I hope that I don't become as rigid as she seems to be about how and with whom she spends her days. But, I also know we are two people with two different ways of navigating our needs. While I tend to be the more self-contained, Betsy does need her friendships and traditions. I am hopeful, ring or no ring, we will be able to find our sweet spot together without also becoming the bane of each other's existence. Future me understands that one of us will be left behind. I leave these thoughts behind for her as much as for me. I want to remember how things are in all their imperfection because the soft glow of time tends to make the bitter sweeter than it should be and the sweet, a bit sourer for the wear and tear of living it.

Somewhere in this universe, my ring lies or has been found. Secretly, I want it to find the right finger to live that life without mediocrity. I have done my best to uphold our optimistic exuberance and yet, I know I've failed at some points and with age probably will be happy with that. If I am with Betsy until the end, as I plan, it may not be entirely for the pleasure of her company, but because learned that real, down-to-the-bone love is as imperfect, forgetful, and clumsy as I have turned out to be.

Considering the Long Goodbye

 From the moment of conception, we are on our way out the door. Our life is relatively long and painfully short in the accounting of it. What we are given and what we take are a matter of wonderment. For instance, life itself. We are the product of cell division that began with two people giving in to their desires and living out their hopes. If we are fortunate enough to make it out into the world, our first experience is a firm tap on our backsides to jumpstart our lives ex utero. A gasp of breath and crying is how we begin our journeys--fitting in its way.

We will be doing a lot of gasping for air and crying in our lifetimes. We'll gasp for air when we are trying to learn to swim. We'll gasp for air when a special person enters our lives and changes it for a moment or, perhaps, for the rest of our lives. We will gasp for air when are on our last breath, too. And we will cry,. Sometimes for joy, but often out of varying degrees of hurt and grief. The one who broke our hearts, the parent who disappointed us, the friend who heard and believed us, and so many times when frustration got the better of us. And when it is time to say goodbye. We will try to hold back those tears, but they will come anyway.

Goodbyes come often, whether it is to school friends at the end of the year or loved ones passing before us, or transitory people like co-workers or love interests people will come and go. In a way, I think of tears as the water that fills the rivers that send these people out ahead of us.

And there is not enough time, so tears are also the cement that mortars the memorial walls that remind us of those who have passed before. They are the punctuation of the sentences of life, the commas, and periods that mark place and time.

So if we choose to linger a bit and consider where we've been and what we've done and those we loved along the way, it doesn't surprise us that tears cascade or creep from our eyes. Making the goodbye a little longer still.

(Making) things That Don’t Last

 (Making) things That Don’t Last

 

Lately we make things that don’t last

Present and future are in the past

Everything just ore in a furnace blast

We make things not intended to last.

 

People think that they know it all

Everything else, thrown away in a ball

We’d never notice the clarion call

Vengeance coming before a fall.

 

But our children don’t believe that stuff

Every day they think they’ve had enough

Going to school with masks that hide

Feeling held back losing their pride.

 

We have leaders who do not lead

But they take us on trips at blinding speed

Subdivide us like planting seed

We have leaders who can't be believed.

 

If there is no hope, what can we do?

Surely there;s something better for me and you.

We have learned that wounds can heal

Given proper care, they will seal.

 

And what is left at the end of the day

Is the love we put into play

No one gets out of life unharmed

But someone must sound the alarm.

 

We used to make the things that did last

We did it together brick, metal, and glass.

All ships rose, better than the past

When we worked together to make the things that last.

Stone (plucked from a river bed)

 You were the wet, gleaming mottled stone that I plucked from the riverbed.

Like souvenirs past, I thought you solely beautiful, precious and solely for me.

I added you to my collection of finds and looked fondly at you.

Like the others, over time, you lost your unique gleam.

I spent less time taking you in and more remembering how you were.

In a lifetime, you collect a lot of objects and over a lifetime, their origin slowly fades.

Someday, someone will have to attend to my collections, and decide what to do with them.

Perhaps they will even wonder why you or any of them were so important to me.

Important enough to be kept, just stones after all.

Or perhaps, you will become part of their collection

Or a pellet in a driveway

Or a stone tilled into a garden.

It is my hope that wherever you end up, someone sees you in a way that I was not able.

That you will be singularly important to them, and they tell your story repeatedly.

And when they are at the end, another will come and another after that.

Know always that when you held my attention, it was with a depth that I will never forget

Nor forgive myself for ever taking for granted.

Words That Keep You Going

 The Words That Keep You Going (April 21, 2022)

“I have these rubber duck earrings…”

“I was talking to that Holder boy…”

“On your left…thank you.”

I don’t know the people who spoke them.

They answered my prayers.

In a godless world, you rely on the voices you hear.

“I have these rubber duck earrings” meant don’t take it all so seriously.

“I was talking to that Holder boy” meant that there are connections to be made.

“On your left” meant to look beyond yourself.

“Thank you” meant you are important.

Thoughts during the COVID Pandemic.

A Meandering from a while back

 

Reflecting on a Full Moon

Summertime with a coolness in the night air is something to embrace. Add a full moon and it is almost magical with the cicadas singing and the lightning bugs all aglow. Sitting out on our screened-in back porch, it was easy to block out the First Ave. white noise and the occasional explosions of the few remaining scofflaws still blowing off their July firecrackers. The man in the moon was particularly in focus when I stepped out onto our yard to take it in between the pin and burr oaks. The last bit of the day was desperately trying to hang on against this backdrop and moments later would beat a retreat. The dew forming in the grass let off an aroma of lushness as my feet swish-swished through it back to the porch with the moon as my spotlight.