Who Wrote That?

            I have not written much since I finished my MFA degree over a year ago. Looking back through writing in various stages of being, I wonder at times who this person is who wrote the words, and I relearn lessons I have forgotten.

            Nine years into my relationship with Doug and now over three years married, we struggle so much too often, it seems. We try not to offend, but we do anyway. I say I won't be impatient, but I am anyway. I remind myself that what I think existed with anyone else at any time in the past probably was not even remotely as I remember it through the rose glasses of time. As I learned so quickly when my mother died last year, the aggravations are so easily forgotten. I must let the aggravations with Doug be forgotten.

            When I was first divorced, I decided, against my counselor's advice, to "see" men. (I cannot bring myself to say "date," as that is for young people. In my defense, it was all quite accidental, as I fully intended to be  full-time mother and teacher, but that is another story.) I used to ask myself when preparing to go out, Would I be going out with my children's father if we were still married? That was the yardstick by which I tried to judge my actions. The yardstick I'm trying to learn to use now, in my relationship with Doug, is do I have aggravations with other people and, if so, would that mean the relationship is intolerable? The answer, of course, is simple. I have been aggravated at one time and another with everyone I know, and no doubt, they with me, and they probably more with me, because really, I think I am quite difficult to be around, a fact to which those who have known me longest, my siblings and parents, would readily, and lovingly, testify. In fact, when I told Doug recently that yet another person had commented how glad they were I had married him, because he is so much happier now, he asked, lovingly, if I'd told her how difficult I am to get along with.

            When I focus on what Doug and I like together, the rest melts away. I feel a lightness, and I think, Well, this is so much easier than slogging through being aggravated! Really, the minute I feel aggravated, I should think of something we enjoy together. If I think about the bird feeders he hung to bring birds to the yard for me; the joy we both take in the birds, crazy in numbers in our yard, emptying the feeders daily; the two birdbaths we added this year that they sip from and splash around in, I am happy. If I think about our VW Vanagon trips that I love, I am content. If I look at the yard and gardens we have gradually transformed into ours, I smile.              

            Thus, I look at what I wrote a few years ago about my relationship with Doug, and I realize the enormous potential for contentment in the years that remain to us has always been there, and I tell myself I must try harder to put aside aggravation, in favor of fulfilling that potential. I wrote what follows after a hike to Ladybug Meadow in the southern end of Sequoia National Park.

* * * * *

            On the way back down Ladybug Trail, we pass a white-haired couple who ask if we saw the ladybugs. I look at Doug, chagrined. "We forgot to look!"

            "We'll be back," Doug says.

            Ladybug Trail follows the South Fork of the Kaweah River. It is a hike we do only in winter, as the low altitude makes it too hot for a summer hike. Towering, gnarly oaks, their limbs naked for the winter, climb the hill above the trail and descend to the river below.

            As we continue on, I comment to Doug, "That oak has roots to talk to God about."

            If I didn't have roots in who I am, who I come from, I could not put down roots with Doug, who has the roots of here: the roots of memory, of childhood friends, of family and places. I wouldn't change that I have lived different places, that I have no sense of physical roots, no geographic home to return to, that our children, mine and Doug's, will not likely live here. But it is because Doug has roots that I am drawn to this place. I like that I can let my roots grow down into the soil of this place, much as I dig into the soil of the yard that I begin to call mine, too. We learn to let the branches of our own ways graft themselves to the same root stock and create a tree that is ours.

            On our next hike to Ladybug Meadow, we remember to lift the carpet of leaves, and we watch in awe the community of ladybugs that lives beneath them, sheltered from winter's cold. I must remember to shelter our tree of grafted branches, so that it will continue to send its roots down deeper and wider and grow stronger and fuller.

* * * * *

            This cloudy winter day, the birds sing merrily, dashing from feeder to feeder, sometimes pecking at each other for supremacy. Some prefer the ground under the feeders. A blue jay couple puts on a comedy routine, hanging precariously from the feeders, squawking their arrival and accomplishments. Mid-week, we will head for Death Valley, in the VW, the same destination as our first VW trip together, nine years ago. It now sports a quilt I made of VW camper appliqués, a new retractable awning, and new black bumpers we just put on together this week. I loved lying on my back in the driveway helping to mount them, and I felt a bit of pride in us and our accomplishments when Doug told me a friend who has just purchased a Vanagon says he has bumper envy.