31 Forgotten - and Remembered

There’s a saying, “It’s always the simple things that change our lives.”  For us maybe it’s the simple things that define our lives.

It’s the 7^th inning and the Giants are working hard at dropping a Sunday get away game to the visiting Oakland A’s.  Cora comes into the room and for some reason I remember that I should be remembering something.  That’s kind of how it works when you start getting up in age; you have to jog your memory to jog your memory; sort of a mental double clutching.

Another Giant looks at called strike three and then it comes to me.  I'm not even sure why it comes to me at this particular moment but I look at the date on my watch and then at Cora, “Uh, isn’t it our anniversary today?”

“May 20.”  It registers with her.  “Yeah; 31 years.”

“Happy anniversary,” I deadpan.

“Happy anniversary,” as she looks back at the score.
She starts to go back to what she was doing and I settle back to watch another Giant futility . 

My son who was over for the afternoon is taking it all in with amusement.  “Is that all the anniversary talk?  Back to baseball?”

I ask Cora if she’d like to go to dinner.  “Tonight?  Okay.”  And that was the anniversary talk and it was back to baseball.  In a lot of marriages a missed anniversary is fuel for a fight.  That isn't the way it is for Cora and I. We usually anticipate it around the first of May, make mention of it and then it comes to back to mind the day of. 

What is a date on calendar?  It's just that.  A number on one square of 365 slipped onto a leaf of 12.
Over 31 years, more than 11,300 of those squares later, Cora and I have amassed events; good, bad, insignificant and extraordinary.  Most of them are undated; there's a vague idea of a date but the event itself, it's significance, it's place in the heart trumps the importance of the actual date.  

I don't remember the day some 20 years or so ago that Cora and I both lost our jobs on the same day.  We were already going through a major unrelated crisis.  And so there we were; two young children, a new house, our marriage dangerously close to the shoals and now the only foreseeable income was unemployment insurance.  I came home in tears and we held each other and then held on to each other; as it turned out for another 21 years.  As always Cora was the rock and reassured us both that we would get through it.

We didn’t go to dinner the night of our 31st.  I’d had a big lunch and Cora a late one; and so we spent our rediscovered anniversary reading our books on the patio outside Starbuck’s with the dog laying at our feet.  We talked about nearly forgetting our anniversary.  I was up in a bad mood that morning and headed to the gym while she went to church, irritated by my surliness.  This was the theory she offered for the oversight.  I reminded her that we’ve forgotten the last three and with that hearty laugh of hers she said, "Oh yeah that's right."  She turned her attention back to her book and I watched her read.  In 31 years I’d never realized that she moves her lips when she reads.  Something about that warmed me.  There’s always a new discovery.   I kidded her about the book.  She’s reading about Magellan’s voyage and has been for months. “You’re going to take as long to read that book as it took him to go from Portugal to PI.”  She has something of a thirst for history and starts on a book with an enthusiasm that soon wanes until the book gets relegated to the stacks. The closest she got to finishing one of my borrowed history books was a biography of Hitler.  She ended up leaving that book in, of all places, a pew at church.  That was shortly after we got married and I remember asking her with some amusement, "You left a book about Hitler in church?  Was there some hidden meaning there?"  Just a memory; strange the things that stick to mind.

After a while she looked up from Magellan and leaned forward.  “Look we’re still together and you did remember.  You didn’t remember tomorrow, you remembered the exact date.  We’re still together and that’s the best.”  

Land's End Trail

She's right; it is the best.  We stopped exchanging gifts years ago; exchanging cards instead.  Our last anniversary hoopla was our 25th.  I got Cora a sapphire and diamond ring and a matching bracelet and we had dinner with our kids at The Cliff House in San Francisco. The Cliff House was our old stomping ground.  It’s near the first place that we had by ourselves (our first was a little apartment in Berkeley that we shared with Steve, a co-worker). We loved that flat on Seal Rock Drive.  It was home when Cora had our first born; Matthew.  We had a view of the ocean and at night we fell asleep to the sounds of the wind off the ocean, the breaking waves and the barking of the seals on Seal Rock just off The Cliff House.  Sometimes we would walk to the Cliff House for a drink or walk the ½ block to the Land’s End Trail and hike along the cliffs to Eagle’s Point and a view of the Golden Gate from the ocean side.  Cora would sit home and worry when I bundled in rain gear to watch a howling storm over the Pacific from the nearby cliffs.  When we’re in the area we drive by our old flat and reminisce about those first years together.  

Seal Rock

 

Thirty one years ago on February 13^th I landed at Los Angeles International and called her at her place in West Covina.  I was there to pick her up and bring her back to the Bay Area.  She'd moved south some months before after an argument and we’d communicated on and off with letters and phone calls.  She visited the previous Thanksgiving and a month before that I visited her for a few days on my way back from a trip to Italy.  A zombie courtship; the relationship that wouldn’t die. 

Rafting 32 or so years ago

She didn't believe that I was there.  It wasn't that joyous, "Oh my God you're really here?" disbelief.  It was more that, "You're here?  Yeah right," disbelief.  As proposals go it was not at all what a woman dreams of.  Over the past few days I’d asked her twice before and then quickly rescinded.  It seemed reasonable that she wouldn’t even pick up the phone and talk to me so the only option left was to jump on a plane.  After some persuasion we were driving north in a big rented Chevy; most of her possessions in the trunk and a Sony TV sitting in the backseat.  “Hey Steve, look what I brought home.”  It was a mixed bag for Steve.  He’d just become the third wheel but the upside was that the second wheel could cook.  As things turned out he couldn't wait for us to leave and we couldn't leave soon enough.   

We’ve never been ones for big celebrations and ceremonies and so maybe that’s why we don’t get worked up over our anniversary or make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day.  We got married at City Hall after having each worked the morning at our respective jobs. Our “reception” after the ceremony was lunch with my parents.  Our honeymoon was at the seacoast village of Fort Bragg.  We’ve never been back and often talk of going back.  Maybe on our anniversary some year - if we don’t forget. 

Married one month

When we first met, she was living in a little one room apartment on the ground level of a home in San Francisco's Excelsior district.  The Excelsior is a diverse working class neighborhood, lots of Hispanics and Filipinos, south of highway 280 which runs East/West and severs The Excelsior from much of The City which is north of 280.  The Excelsior is almost like it's own little borough and, but for the SF Muni buses, you wouldn't even think you were in San Francisco.  After we started dating she invited me to the little apartment for dinner.  The first meal that she ever cooked for me was a chicken stew of sorts that included of all things, sweet pickles and slices of hot dog.  I picked at it with a fair amount of doubt but after a taste I relished it like a condemned man.   We spent many a Friday evening in that little apartment which had it's own entrance just past a side gate into the back yard. I drove us from work and she would change into a long slinky dress, slip up one side.  We would watch TV late into the evening and then I took the long drive back to my apartment in Berkeley enjoying a lingering scent of her perfume on the ride home.  Staying the night was against the rules.  I never knew whether it was her rule or the homeowner's (although I later found that one of the home owing couple was cuckolding the other). Occasionally she makes that chicken stew and I’m taken back to those dinners at her apartment, that slinky dress and those cold drives home.

There were the road trips, starting with that first one from LA.  It isn’t so much the destinations but the time together on the long drive, the conversations, the sights, the stops planned and unplanned, the sounds coming from the road and the music of the stacks of CDs; and of course the quiet unspoken periods.
 

The chilly winter Sundays, the aroma of chicken and potatoes roasting in the oven.  Reading on the couch while Cora putters around with the dog in tow.  There’s no sound except the crackling of the fire, the spattering chicken in the oven and the winter wind.  It’s almost spiritual. 

Shortly after we were married I persuaded a woman who barely tolerates camping into a backpacking trip in the Sierra back country.  Cora likes a nice walk; just not one that involves humping a pack in the high country to a place with no bed, no kitchen, no shower and no toilet.  Ever the good sport she sang along the trail and actually enjoyed the scenery – past meadows, over streams and through fields of bright wildflowers to a campsite by a mountain lake watched over by a snow patched peak.  It was just the two of us, relaxing, talking, fishing, taking short walks and enjoying each others' company.  And while there was no bed there was a cozy two man tent; there was no shower but there was a lake to bathe in; there was no kitchen but there was a small stove to pan fry the trout she caught. There was no toilet but there was a small shovel for digging a hole; okay so it wasn’t perfect.
            

You don’t travel a road for 31 years without running into bumps, potholes and assorted debris.  You get through them the best you can.  Cora tells anyone who will listen and those who won’t that staying together takes hard work, tenacity, forgiveness and forgetting, a fair amount of good fortune and a few prayers.  I couldn't agree more.  Except for the prayer part; prayer doesn't hold much truck with me.  We’ve been over, around and through more obstacles than I can remember, some serious but most of them seriously stupid.  Recently I was gathering my lunch before going to work.  Cora works at Clif Bar and brings home bars every week.  Rummaging through the bowl of energy bars I complained that there wasn’t much variety.  “There’s plenty there,” she answered.  “Yeah I know there’s plenty but they’re all the same.” We exchanged words with steadily rising volume until she said she would bring different ones home.  Not content to let it go I said on my way out; “Just forget it, I’ll buy some Power Bars.”  To a 14 year Cliffie threatening to bring Power Bars into the house is sort of like saying “Oh by the way I’ll be bringing my girlfriend home tonight.”  “Fine! Get your Power Bars.” 

A fight starts and then it escalates and then one or both of us is looking for a way out.  Not out of the house, not out of the marriage; out of the fight.  It’s usually a matter of finding a way out with both saving face.  Shortly after we got Rainey we had one of the serious fights.  This one had actual talk of splitting up, looking for lawyers and getting the house ready for sale.  Fact is neither of us really wanted to go there but we were stuck in that quicksand of pride and we’d managed to let ourselves sink deeper and deeper.  Rainey was brand new to the house and I’d doted on her, took her everywhere with me and in turn she never let me out of her sight.  I told Cora that if we were going to be splitting up and leaving the house we would probably have to give up Rainey so we should do it sooner rather than later.  I would call the breeder and tell her we had to give the dog back.  A short time later Cora came into the room; “You love Rainey so much.  Let’s stay together so you can keep her.”  She’d found the way out that we’d both been looking for.

I bounded down the stairs of the Fox office building and threw open the door and almost ran into this little woman I’d never seen before.  She was wearing purple and she was, to use Steve’s expression, cuter than a bug’s ear.  We paused for a moment and squeezed past each other; she going up and me going out. It was one of those awkward, "who's that" moments; the stock cheesy scene from a hundred cheesy romantic comedies.  Crossing the alley back to the store I wondered, hoped, that she was a new hire.  She was of course and my challenge became to think of excuses to go into the admin offices to flirt with her.  A dating service would have never matched us.  She spent her Sunday mornings at church.  I spent mine going for a run to sweat out the previous night’s whiskey before watching or playing some sport or another and knocking back some beers.  I was physically active and she was not, although there was that time she said she wanted to learn to play tennis.  It seemed like a tawdry lie because the one time we went and played I spent the entire time running around the court shagging balls that she whacked wildly here and there.  She was demur and proper, dressed stylishly and listened to pop and light rock and I was the bearded, long haired, hard drinking, hard rocker often prone to vulgarity.  After we started dating it became pretty clear that Cora didn’t plan on her office friends knowing about it.  The routine was pure cloak and dagger; after work we walked separately to the department store down the street and then met in the shoe department.  Her plan of mystery dating never worked out.  I had no intention of keeping a secret.  Shortly after Cora and I started dating one of my co-workers, John, told me; “You’re lucky.  You’re dating the nicest, cutest girl in the place.”  The fact of the matter is that I did luck out and I wonder sometimes how this thing managed to work out.    

I suppose that in the years to come we’ll be watching baseball sometime around the all-star break in July and one of us will turn to the other and say; “Did we completely forget our anniversary this year?’  In a sense baseball is the perfect metaphor for our life together; we just keep going into extra innings.

Married + 31