Where We Used to Live

269 Broadway in Central Square, Cambridge, MA.  We used to live here, or at least reasonably close by; we think the actual building may have been torn down.  It was a tenement very much like this one which would have been right next door, in the same complex.

Second Best

I made a declaration and a promise last night.

My body, so ugly, so deformed, so ghastly and hideous and out of proportion, is second best to all of Ron’s other lovers.

And, for the sake of our marriage and our family, I will get over it.

Ron’s former lovers are from privileged, well-to-do, or high social status backgrounds.  They are artists, lawyers, daughters of executives.  One is Asian, the perfect woman by American standards.  They had opportunities that could never have been available to me, even if Hell itself froze over.

Ron loves me and I love him.  That’s the big difference between us and his prior relationships.  I’ve loved him for over forty years, searched for him in other men, raised his son, watched his grandchildren grow.

He tells me that in his heart, that’s what matters, the advertisers and marketers be damned.  I suppose time will tell.  I told him that I’m afraid he’ll leave me because “I (count) myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me.” I have to be prepared for that by holding back a part of me, protecting it from the kind of suffering that’s dogged me with every other romantic relationship.

Last night, I wrote down all the names of my husband’s exes that I could remember, and all the ways I could survive his rejection – staying busy, moving to a cheaper place, meds from my sympathetic doctor.  Through the years, I’ve learned a lot about how an ugly woman can avoid the malevolence of the beauty police as she flies.

Simple Question

After weeks of listening to my husband talk about his old girlfriends – even though I’ve begged him not to, but the names still come up – I asked him, begged him on my hands and knees to answer what I thought would be a simple question:

How is my body better than theirs?

He can’t answer it because the reality is that they were beautiful – long hair, petite, brunette, etc. – and this good man sleeps with a disaster, a tragedy, a mistake of nature.

It is certainly not right that everything I am, everything I’ve done and accomplished, learned and mastered, is rendered useless by the fact that I’m not petite and dark.

It is even more unjust that Ron – so decent, so generous, so loving – should have to put up with it.

What a sick, perverse world we live in.

Hating Zorba

My husband told me his Zorba story, or at least one of them, a while back, and it stuck with me.

I never liked “Zorba the Greek”.  I grew up with men like Zorba – crude, dirty, full of themselves, pretentiously primitive.  They were the kind of people who were mean to their wives, hunted out of cruelty and liked to tease little girls.

I thought Zorba to be a man without honor: taking advantage of women because of a rationale that to do otherwise would be the one sin that God could not forgive, squandering his friend’s minimal inheritance by trying to make himself out to be an expert in construction.  The filmmaker’s absurd conclusion, that idiotic dance on the beach, is insulting: it would have been much more life-affirming if Alan Bates’ character had knocked Anthony Quinn’s block off.

Thus, it surprised me that Ron, a bright, educated man with a strong sense of ethics, would have found the film so compelling.

I thought that it might be the music, but I’ve heard real Greek dance music, and it’s dark, musky, sensual.  In contrast, Mikis Theodorakis’ watered-down score is timid, tepid, commercial.

There’s a big Greek church a couple of towns over, and I’m planning to invite Ron to attend their annual festival next year.  We’ll see if we can generate some heat for ourselves there.

Christmas Eve

We drove to the bike path and the beach, and stopped at Eastman’s for keys, a bow saw and clamp.  At Falmouth Heights, we checked out the function room at Casino Wharf and picked up a gift certificate for Candy and John at the BBC.

Ron set up the mitre saw and fixed the book case in our room.  I’ve hit my head on it twice so he removed all the excess wood on the top.

I threw a chicken in the rotisserie for a late lunch, wrapped presents and immolated some wings.

Had Peter, Bonnie and the kids over for dinner.  Pot roast, squash, green beans, salad, and they brought apple pie and ice cream.

Christmas Shopping

Yesterday, I made bread and granola, booked an appointment with our attorney, spoke with our investment manager about 2010 contributions to the kids’ 529 accounts and did laundry.

Ron got acquainted with the water shutoffs and the fuse box, replaced the furnace filter, started troubleshooting a problem with the lights in the bathroom, refilled the bird feeder and shoveled off the deck.

I also made us late for a Harvard-Pilgrim seminar on Medicare supplements by asking to drop off Christmas lights from Franklin Street at the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store and by messing up the address.

Just as well.  The information was pretty much a duplicate of what we’d heard earlier in the week, and we were spared a droning monologue by another attendee, part of which we listened to while waiting for a private meeting with the H-P representative.

We stopped at Home Depot for a few items, including a gift certificate for Peter and Bonnie, then picked up gift certs for the kids at Borders plus some cheeses and other good things at Trader Joe’s.

We took the back roads home to avoid traffic and to drop off a Christmas gift to the Robbins children.  Saw Jeremy, who looks very much like his Mom.

By that time, it was too late to stop at Town Hall.  Next week.

Supper was cheese and crackers and Medjool dates stuffed with melted Manchego.

We talked about visiting Nova Scotia, where Ron has been told that everyone looks like him.  Could be interesting!

Bored of the Rings

The wedding ring saga continues, with yet another disappointment.  Trying to find something we like in our size that’s reasonably priced has become not a lot of fun but rather a bloody bore.

Yesterday, while Mr. Fluffles was being groomed, we checked out a furniture store in Teaticket and then went across the bridge to a jeweler in Buzzards Bay to look at wedding bands.  Our generous friend Candy gave us her old ring for trade.

Unfortunately, we weren’t impressed by the offer we got or the selection.

We did get cheap gas in Wareham, some nice gourmet treats at Mazilli’s, and a few more items at Job Lot.

Back on Cape, we picked up Fluffles, had lunch at the house, then hustled over to Edgewater to load up the truck for a transfer station run.  Made it with about four minutes to spare.

On the way back, we stopped at Town Hall so we could see what the Mass. version of a marriage license application and certificate look like.  Our excellent Town Clerk offered to phone her counterpart in Washoe County to see if anything could be done to get me a document with my first name and Ron’s surname.

By evening it had started snowing again, but we went out anyway to deliver Mary’s Black & Decker jar opener and Cathy’s bowl.  We picked up a a pair of bedroom slippers for Ron, too.

Frozen

I’m afraid Ron won’t move here from California, that whatever is here won’t be good enough, or that Malevolence or the Fates will keep us separated.  It’s like being crushed by a glacier.  And every so often, he’ll say something that is so uniquely Ron that it tears into my heart because I might never see him again.

It’s an adoptee thing.