(no subject)
This morning Dear Mate turns 59. For the next 64 days we'll be nominally the same age.
In a couple of days we'll have been married 21 years.
Amazing to look back on that. How different it all was when our kids were living with us, how delightful and easier it is now that they're all grown, with adult lives of their own and, in two out of three cases, kids of their own. And also how, in a certain way, lonelier.
Got reminded of that by a couple of days with granddaughters -- the dailiness of having them 24/7, how much I had to struggle to carve out any of my own work, never mind meditation which disappeared when the 5-year-old woke up and pattered her little feet in. And also the delight of constantly helping them make sense of the newness of the world, all around them in nearly every moment there is something to understand that was unavailable yesterday.
Especially the seasons -- this year I've seen them two or three times in each season, and marveled at how little they remember of the same time last year. Of course, everything was so different back then -- they were half-a-head shorter, one was still unable to control her angry outbursts even a little bit (and now does very well), the other couldn't see over the edge of the kitchen counter without a stool (and now can). Last year one loved water in every form, and didn't even mind not being able to breath under water, totally confident that some adult would fish her out. This year the other one was willing to relax in the water, playing bravely and with evident delight in a friend's pool.
Back in 1985 it would have been impossible to imagine that my kid would have produced such beautiful and well-behaved children. But back then I couldn't imagine myself gray-haired. Nowadays it seems lots easier to imagine myself at 80 than it ever did to see 60 until just the past couple of years. (Pardon the convoluted grammar). Was it just the dailiness and the constant overload? or is there something in the last dozen years of interior peacefulness that gives my imagination more freedom? or is it that around me people in their 70s and 80s are in greater supply than before?
Thinking lovingly of friends and colleagues on this beautiful summer day, and enjoying life, and thinking of love and marriage and being 59 together.
Happy Birthday, my very Dear.
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In a couple of days we'll have been married 21 years.
Amazing to look back on that. How different it all was when our kids were living with us, how delightful and easier it is now that they're all grown, with adult lives of their own and, in two out of three cases, kids of their own. And also how, in a certain way, lonelier.
Got reminded of that by a couple of days with granddaughters -- the dailiness of having them 24/7, how much I had to struggle to carve out any of my own work, never mind meditation which disappeared when the 5-year-old woke up and pattered her little feet in. And also the delight of constantly helping them make sense of the newness of the world, all around them in nearly every moment there is something to understand that was unavailable yesterday.
Especially the seasons -- this year I've seen them two or three times in each season, and marveled at how little they remember of the same time last year. Of course, everything was so different back then -- they were half-a-head shorter, one was still unable to control her angry outbursts even a little bit (and now does very well), the other couldn't see over the edge of the kitchen counter without a stool (and now can). Last year one loved water in every form, and didn't even mind not being able to breath under water, totally confident that some adult would fish her out. This year the other one was willing to relax in the water, playing bravely and with evident delight in a friend's pool.
Back in 1985 it would have been impossible to imagine that my kid would have produced such beautiful and well-behaved children. But back then I couldn't imagine myself gray-haired. Nowadays it seems lots easier to imagine myself at 80 than it ever did to see 60 until just the past couple of years. (Pardon the convoluted grammar). Was it just the dailiness and the constant overload? or is there something in the last dozen years of interior peacefulness that gives my imagination more freedom? or is it that around me people in their 70s and 80s are in greater supply than before?
Thinking lovingly of friends and colleagues on this beautiful summer day, and enjoying life, and thinking of love and marriage and being 59 together.
Happy Birthday, my very Dear.
...