"You see, insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops." -Joseph Kesselring
My daughter walked into my room this morning and said, "I had an intense dream last night. You and Dad were getting divorced, and all of us kids were yelling at you about the stupidity of such a decision at your age (I didn't even rebuke the ageism embedded quite literally in that comment but listened quietly)."
"Then the twins woke me up because they couldn't find stuffy. It was 3:00 a.m.! I had to pull out my earplugs."
Me, "What a heroic mom you are."
She gives me the look, "I told them, 'It's the middle of the night. Go back to bed,' and they did after I got up and found stuffy."
She adds, "I guess it wasn't a bad dream to wake up from."
"Well, at least you were able to find stuffy."
"I wonder what triggered that?"
I shrug.
It's interesting how sensitive kids are to the milieu of their parent's relationship. I thought they were well past the stage where our normal irritations and marital conflicts would affect them.
Larry and I had a squirmish on the way up to the lake.
I blame Costco, which can be a landmine for couples. There are too many options, everything is oversized and expensive. Larry has an opposing opinion about everything. Just sayin. The other problem is I blatantly ignored my mother's warning never to shop when hungry, and I'm starving. Everything looks good, and I'm tossing things in the cart as if I'm shopping for an army. The truth is we rarely get out of there when securing supplies for a family lake weekend under $300.
Checkout is where the tension really crescendos. While Larry is paying for the loot, I go to get a box. Larry says something to me, but I can't hear him, so he raises his voice in an irritated tone, mind you, "I said the guy is getting a box," and he rolls his eyes at me.
I didn't take too well to that. Did I mention I'm starving?
When we got to the car, I said very emphatically, "I felt disrespected when you rolled your eyes at me."
"I didn't roll my eyes. And you're too sensitive."
I accuse him of redacting history, and he calls me a snowflake (which means you're highly sensitive; I had to ask, too) before placing a hot dog he just purchased between us, but we are both so irritated with each other that neither of us takes a bite. So childish.
When we arrive at the lake, smoldering in our own musings, we must have ushered in a detectable tension with the groceries. It happens.
The thing is, marriage is not fossiled; it's liquid and always moving, even when the idiots involved do not sense the elusive motion.
Of course, we eventually moved on from the mutual hostilities, but what is interesting to me is how our thoughts, emotions, and frustrations have a subliminal effect on others. And when they are your children, their minds will process the information in conjunction with their primal fear. You know the one.
Even when they are in their 30s and married with three kids of their own, they harbor fears of abandonment. We all do.
Have you ever had the experience of walking into a room and you can actually feel the tension in the air—you get this inkling that something is wrong, but you're not sure what the hell is going on? I think our gut reaction to our circumstances is possibly more accurate than our conscious awareness of what is lurking beneath the surface. You know what I mean?
We are masters at presenting the exact opposite of what we think, and on some level, that creates a sense of confusion and unease for everyone exposed to the duplicity.
We're up at the lake with half of my immediate family, a ton of relatives, and a gaggle of friends to kick off the beginning of summer.
It's Memorial weekend, and this is our most beloved traditional event, but with so many people it's barely controlled chaos most of the time. Pickleball games are going on in the morning, trips to the wineries in the afternoon, boating excursions, roaming cocktail parties, paddleboarding, water balloon fights, canoeing, bingo games, fabulous dinners, traditional cherry ice cream by Nic, dance parties on the deck, music by Dante blaring all day, along with short bouts of reading and relaxing.
There are five grandchildren and eight adult children between the Goudreau house and ours. Dennis Prager says, "Children are God's or nature's practical joke on couples—that which is produced by passion then proceeds to nearly kill it." Bahaha. So damn true.
We have a gate between the houses, and the grandchildren just run amock between them, plying for extra food, hiding from each other, swimming in the lake, building forts under the dining room table, and tossing water balloons at their parents. It's a kid's paradise.
Dinners at the lake are informal affairs, but we encourage everyone to leave their bathing suits to dry on the tub, throw on shorts and a T-shirt, maybe run a brush through their hair.
I set the table every night with cloth napkins, matching plates, stemmed wine glasses, and hopefully, if I remember, a lit candle. Larry opens some delicious wine, the family gathers around the table, and we are all in one room for the first time all day.
Last night, Nic barbequed two gigantic tri-tips. The meat melted in my mouth, generously seasoned, and grilled to perfection. I mixed each bite of steak with a little baked potato, which was salty and creamy all at once. The corn, lightly browned from the grill, was slathered in soft cheese, butter, and salt.
My mouth is watering as I write.
It's 9:00 am, and this is our current situation—Dante and Brighton are still sleeping, Julie is playing pickleball at her aunt's place, Nic is reading on the deck, Audrey is soaking her cut foot in salt water, the twins are playing hide and seek with Cade and Quinn, Larry's watching a race on the television, and I'm still in bed writing.
Total bliss.
After the kids head back on Monday, Larry and I will linger for a few days, resurrecting the house from all the rubble while enjoying the quiet. He'll remember the weekend differently from me, but nonetheless, it will have happened, and officially, summer will have begun.
Marriage is truly a foundational institution because so many depend on the partnership's stability and agility. There is no retirement plan, and by the way, sabbaticals are frowned upon in this industry. I think the endurance of these conventions has a lot to do with what we focus on because we can find plenty of evidence to support our beliefs about the personalities and idiosyncrasies of each other, good, bad, or otherwise. Maybe what we should be doing is wooing each other even when we're shopping at Costco, engaging in a perpetual courtship that satisfies our mutual hunger, and stretching the honeymoon phase instead of our budget, especially for historical redactors and confirmed snowflakes.
Thanks for reading, I'm enormously grateful and can't wait to converse with you in the comments.
The perfect summer read…Grow Damn It!
"Be calm when your wife yells at you, calmer when she chastens you, but be terrified when she ignores you."
― Matshona Dhliwayo
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