Marion and I
This weekend Michael and I went up to Ontario to visit his Aunt Marion. I thought of you, my Canadian friends, and if there had been more time I would have liked to have met up with a couple of you, but it was not to be. It was a fast 72 hour trip, but a good one.
Michael’s mother passed away a year ago in February. This Mother’s Day he was especially feeling the loss, and he decided he needed to make the voyage up to see Marion, her sister. Marion is 78 and Michael hadn’t seen her in over 10 years, though they have always kept touch with little notes, cards and phone calls.
Michael had told me a number of stories about Marion, and right from the beginning I felt a kinship with her. She was divorced in either the late 1950s or the early 60s and she immigrated to Canada from England in 1962. She’s never remarried and has lived alone ever since. Michael would tell me about her eccentricities and quirky ways and in them I saw shades of myself, patterns I recognized from when I was single. He told me she doesn’t like people staying at her house and that even though she had plenty of room, she would rather that visitors stayed in a hotel. I smiled with recognition. He told me on his last visit Marion was uncomfortable when he asked to use her restroom, and I nodded knowingly. Then when he told me about her gardening and love of birds and hippy ways, I knew she and I were two branches of the same tree.
I understand about valuing your own personal space. I know about enjoying people, but not visitors. I have been a hermit, I’ve loved my solitude, and I’ve valued my privacy. I lived alone for a long time and I know about having routines and patterns, methods and rituals. So for me, meeting Marion was a treat, and a glance into the crystal ball of what I will be when I am her age.
At one point we were discussing the cottage and it came up that I bought it. She looked at me with her bright eyes and said, “You kept it in your name, I suppose? I certainly hope you did.” Neither Michael or I said anything about it, but inside I grinned. I knew where she was coming from. She wasn’t putting down Michael, she just knows that a woman has to be able to rely on herself. In another moment around the kitchen table she said, “You can’t be yourself when you get married. You always have to be something for someone else. Well, I know I didn’t feel like I could be myself.” Michael looked at me knowingly, having heard these same words from me. “You two are alike.” he muttered under his breath. I met his look with a bit of a grin and said “See? I told you!”
I think Michael may have thought her little mannerisms eccentric, but I understood them. When you don’t have anyone but yourself to rely on, you figure out ways to make things work. You use bungee cords and rubber bands to repair things and make little conveniences. You have particular places for things, and though others might think it is a mess, it isn’t, because you put everything there for a reason. You do what you want - including get rid of your bed and sleeping on a couch in your bedroom if that’s what you prefer. I only lived alone for 7 years, but I was well on my way to being just like Marion.
When we left I joked with him about it. How when I am her age I will put together little bags of treats for people who come to visit, how I will buy scores of little trinkets to put around the house if they make me happy, and like her I will wear an old wedding ring “to keep the wolves at bay.” If I had thought twice, I wouldn’t have said that last one. There is a 24 year age gap between Michael and I, and while we both know that when I am 78, it is rather unlikely he will still be around, still no one likes to be reminded of it. He didn’t say anything, but I felt the error of it the minute it was out of my mouth and quickly changed the subject.
I think I am going to start regularly writing to Marion - sending her cards and photos of things I think she would like. I want to do it not just because she is now a relative by marriage, but because in a way having nothing to do at all with Michael, to me, she’s family.
Michael’s mother passed away a year ago in February. This Mother’s Day he was especially feeling the loss, and he decided he needed to make the voyage up to see Marion, her sister. Marion is 78 and Michael hadn’t seen her in over 10 years, though they have always kept touch with little notes, cards and phone calls.
Michael had told me a number of stories about Marion, and right from the beginning I felt a kinship with her. She was divorced in either the late 1950s or the early 60s and she immigrated to Canada from England in 1962. She’s never remarried and has lived alone ever since. Michael would tell me about her eccentricities and quirky ways and in them I saw shades of myself, patterns I recognized from when I was single. He told me she doesn’t like people staying at her house and that even though she had plenty of room, she would rather that visitors stayed in a hotel. I smiled with recognition. He told me on his last visit Marion was uncomfortable when he asked to use her restroom, and I nodded knowingly. Then when he told me about her gardening and love of birds and hippy ways, I knew she and I were two branches of the same tree.
I understand about valuing your own personal space. I know about enjoying people, but not visitors. I have been a hermit, I’ve loved my solitude, and I’ve valued my privacy. I lived alone for a long time and I know about having routines and patterns, methods and rituals. So for me, meeting Marion was a treat, and a glance into the crystal ball of what I will be when I am her age.
At one point we were discussing the cottage and it came up that I bought it. She looked at me with her bright eyes and said, “You kept it in your name, I suppose? I certainly hope you did.” Neither Michael or I said anything about it, but inside I grinned. I knew where she was coming from. She wasn’t putting down Michael, she just knows that a woman has to be able to rely on herself. In another moment around the kitchen table she said, “You can’t be yourself when you get married. You always have to be something for someone else. Well, I know I didn’t feel like I could be myself.” Michael looked at me knowingly, having heard these same words from me. “You two are alike.” he muttered under his breath. I met his look with a bit of a grin and said “See? I told you!”
I think Michael may have thought her little mannerisms eccentric, but I understood them. When you don’t have anyone but yourself to rely on, you figure out ways to make things work. You use bungee cords and rubber bands to repair things and make little conveniences. You have particular places for things, and though others might think it is a mess, it isn’t, because you put everything there for a reason. You do what you want - including get rid of your bed and sleeping on a couch in your bedroom if that’s what you prefer. I only lived alone for 7 years, but I was well on my way to being just like Marion.
When we left I joked with him about it. How when I am her age I will put together little bags of treats for people who come to visit, how I will buy scores of little trinkets to put around the house if they make me happy, and like her I will wear an old wedding ring “to keep the wolves at bay.” If I had thought twice, I wouldn’t have said that last one. There is a 24 year age gap between Michael and I, and while we both know that when I am 78, it is rather unlikely he will still be around, still no one likes to be reminded of it. He didn’t say anything, but I felt the error of it the minute it was out of my mouth and quickly changed the subject.
I think I am going to start regularly writing to Marion - sending her cards and photos of things I think she would like. I want to do it not just because she is now a relative by marriage, but because in a way having nothing to do at all with Michael, to me, she’s family.