The Tree

It’s more beautiful this year than ever before.
We say that every year.
Which doesn’t mean it’s not true.
It holds our memories-
and celebrates our survival as the most delicate of ornaments survive with us.
Each one has a story.

This is the baby carriage that was on Paul’s first Christmas tree

And the one that we added when Diana was born.

This was the flower that Liza wore in her hair in Hawaii.

She wore one like it in Glendale.

This is the snowflake that my friend Kathy made for me.

And this is the sled that Diana made in third grade. (She will know if that’s right or if it was really second grade).

This is my personal favorite that I bought in Wickford, Rhode Island on a lovely day with Jo-Anne.

This was a gift for Eliza (collector of Pigbos) from Jo-Anne this year.

This is one of thirty wooden hearts. Paul made them for the Christmas of 1987 when we were very broke. He was painting goose plaques in Fredericksburg and the hearts were the throw-away part of the plaques. They are the ornaments that we can never lose.

This is the 2008 bride and groom commemorating Liza and Jon’s wedding.

And this is the dreidel that brings Hanukkah to the tree.

Here is the elephant that we just bought in New York to help us remember Thanksgiving with the Berkons.

And this is the whole tree on Christmas Eve.

Lastly, here we have a very tired Christmas poodle.

The end.

Happy Anniversary

“Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be…”

We heard these words of Robert Browning when we were kids. I can remember rolling my eyes at the thought of life being better when you got old – when your hair turned gray and your hands were as lined as Shredded Wheat. I saw my elderly neighbors the Budlongs, the Belgers, Marsha Soar’s grandparents. They moved slowly – sat for hours on the porch – took the front steps gingerly.

My mother had no use for aging. She fought it with everything she had. She refused to tell her age and kept her hair blonde and her dresses pink. She encouraged us to kiss her octogenarian mother’s cheek “even though her face is so wrinkled”.

And so it has come as a big surprise that the “best” is indeed coming to us at this time of life. Paul and I celebrated our fortieth anniversary a week ago and realized that our fortieth year of marriage has been the best yet. Despite the inevitable marks of age – the graying hair, the lined faces, the stoop at the neck – we are laughing more and feeling more simpatico than at any other time.

Our married life began when we really had very little in common. He was the artist and intellectual, and I, the political junkie and party lover. We discovered early on that there was something powerful and ineffable that connected us to each other and have yet to define it. But it’s still there – after all the relocations, the dashed expectations and the hard-earned successes. It’s been reinforced by all of that and by the joy of our daughters from their births to the immediate present. Our interests now seem to have converged. He's come to appreciate my passionate devotion to Chris Matthews and Hardball and I am finding new beauty in slightly injured ladder back chairs and peace in the small stretches of the Appalachian Trail we've been exploring.

Marriage is a mystery. We will never know what really goes on the in the marriages of others and we barely know what’s really going on in our own. That said, I thank my dear husband for being by my side all these years and promising to hang out with me here on the mountain for as long as we have left. It’s a great wondrous ride together.