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I have activated the gas faux fireplace again, for a little ersatz cozy.
Outside, a bumptious wind agitates the patio chimes, and they
complain of their harsh treatment with music of a restless zen
genre...the metallic sound of a monk with an anxiety disorder.
Above is a high, streaky cloud cover with chaotic contrails going
every which way, a sky equivalent of scattered undies on a weekend
bedroom floor.
Dull cloud color reflects off the leaden river below, and the silence is
deep between the occasional and unique hissing sounds of each
passing car.
I am in the stillness between inhale and exhale. The majesty of
desert eons overwhelms this pitiful and temporary little town (and
also my sense of the ordinary)...for the moment anyway, before the
steel pachinko balls of routine start rolling and clanking again, any
minute now.
Today will be an outrider sort of day, errands, supply gathering and
the like. Chores are lining up like poor folks at the soup kitchen, but
before I go, Walt, I wanted to mention something I have learned.
It was with rubbery thighs that I ascended and descended a ladder
this year, to take down the Christmas boxes . Why rubbery?
Because, it was in the neighborhood of twenty boxes that I brought
down, one box at a time. No Stairmaster could have savaged my
thighs more thoroughly.
Now every wall and horizontal surface in our home displays some
figurine or decoration from Christmas past. They remind us of the
time when the grandparents were parents, and parents were
children, especially since the two of us will be spending the holidays
at home this season, in our little aerie monastery above the river.
But, it's all too much, foolish to have so much Christmas stuff. I
could get by with a single snow globe. All the time, up and down the
ladder, I'm thinking about putting the boxes back after the first of
the year.
But there is a new voice in me that says, "Get over it. It makes
Sharon happy. What do you have to do that is more important than
making Sharon happy?"
And that's right, Walt, that is how it is for me now, not in the old
token way like when we were younger, bringing home flowers or
buying a present, but an all the time, every day behavior. It is really
so much more simple than I thought all these years, and the
reasoning is all different...something about a willing sacrifice that
isn't really a sacrifice at all. Youngsters and thinkers will have
trouble with this notion.
If I try to make the case to you, this will become an essay, a boring
treatise. So I'll just say that at this stage of the game, for me, it's not
the only thing, but I can find nothing more meaningful or rewarding
than seeing to it that Sharon is happy. To put it in modern terms, it
is the bailout for a recessionary institution of marriage...and it can
work both ways!