WE had a good day yesterday; a good weekend, actually. It was slow and uneventful, and allowed us to catch up on life. The kids were gone Saturday night, and it was blessed to have some time between us that wasn't filled with noise and drama. We are broke this week, so there were no household projects, just the slow paced puttering of garage cleaning and laundry, broken only by a really great nap, where I fell asleep and dreamed and awoke (finally!) in no pain.
Yesterday we went to B's brother's place and picked up a box of honeycrisp apples fresh from the orchard where his brother works. We had an hour or so of visiting, and then came home filled with the wonderful scents and sounds of autumn.
On the way home, we turned a corner and found a wallet lying in the road. Scattered beyond it, blowing in the breeze, were bills and cards. We stopped and picked frantically until we had them all, dodging the sporadic traffic and feeling like criminals. When we'd picked them all up, we jumped back in the car and stared at each other incredulously. I counted the bills while he looked for ID. "There's over $120 here!" I said.
"That's nothing. There are four credit cards. This guy is going to be really upset when he finds out he's lost his wallet." B said. We sat there a moment while he surfed his iPhone looking for a phone number for the owner. "Well, duh!" He said after a moment. "The address is right on the driver's license! This guy lives just a mile up the road!"
So off we went to find him. A mile up the road a man was out in the front of his house, bent over changing the siphons in his ditch. B leaned out the window. "Are you Mr. X?"
The guy straightened up, obviously trying to place our stranger's faces. "Yes I am."
"Do you know where your wallet is?" B said. The expression on the guy's face as he patted his hip pocket reflexively and it dawned on him that it wasn't where he expected it was tragic. He looked at B as if he'd done a magic trick as B handed his wallet and belongings out the window of the car.
"I tried to pick up all the bills, but there was a breeze." I said. "I hope it's all there."
He was absolutely poleaxed, and very thankful. We left feeling pretty good. I was just glad we came by when we did, because right behind us on the road was a carload of kids who had stopped to pick up some spilled onions on the shoulder, and would have been along next. Who knows if the man would have recovered the wallet. He was missing his cell phone too, and we told him where we found things so he could go back to look. All in all, a pretty good (and very lucky) day.
When we got home the girl and I decided to make apple crisp, so she hopped up on the counter in the kitchen and put her cast up on a stool. While we peeled and measured, we watched "Dirty Dancing". It's always been a classic movie, but the loss of Patrick Swayze has made it even more poignant. We watched it through to the end (complete with prerequisite snifflies), and as my hands sliced apples, I thought about how strongly it resonated.
I have always been Baby, big nose, awkwardly clumsy, needy and never socially graceful. Even today, some days I get up and get ready for work and catch sight of myself in the mirror on the way out the door and think "Good heavens, who is that little girl playing dress-up?" I can buy the same clothes as the other women and shop at the same stores, and what looks polished and sophisticated on other women simply makes me look like a teenager at Halloween. I am missing, and always have been, that 'something' that makes me lack the elegance and poise that I crave. Baby, with her pushed out tummy and big frizzy hair, makes me think of the me that looks back at me from the mirror. Just like her, I am idealistic, optimistic, and want to save the world.
While I watched Patrick move across the dance floor as Johnny, I remembered that it must have been easy for him to make this film, having been a dancer prior to becoming an actor. You can tell it; it shows in his grace and in that lean, dancer's build. B is the same way. I saw the same curves and lean sinewy grace in Patrick that I see in B every day. B was a wrestler, but I think he must have been born with that build. He's grown older, and softer with age, but you can still read it in his movements; in the shapely calves and strong legs. PD has not been able to claim that from him. Even with the disease, he is still more graceful than I. Like Johnny, he has much more worldly knowledge, and life has left him discouraged and somewhat jaded. He's honest, faithful, and will fight for those he loves.
The change that Johnny brings about in Baby is huge, but equal to the change she brings about in him. They work in symbiosis, each potentiating the other's faith, confidence, and self-awareness. And that is what B and I have done for each other. I have no doubts but that we would not be where we are if we had not found each other. We have grown, together, as we have grown together.
It was hard to see that parallel last night in the movie, and then to see the reminder, flashed at the end of the film by ABC Family network, of condolences to the family and friends of Patrick Swayze on his loss. The disease that took Patrick was cruel, slow, and degrading. There comes a point where parallels are too painful to contemplate. I went to bed with two thoughts foremost in mind.
Yesterday we went to B's brother's place and picked up a box of honeycrisp apples fresh from the orchard where his brother works. We had an hour or so of visiting, and then came home filled with the wonderful scents and sounds of autumn.
On the way home, we turned a corner and found a wallet lying in the road. Scattered beyond it, blowing in the breeze, were bills and cards. We stopped and picked frantically until we had them all, dodging the sporadic traffic and feeling like criminals. When we'd picked them all up, we jumped back in the car and stared at each other incredulously. I counted the bills while he looked for ID. "There's over $120 here!" I said.
"That's nothing. There are four credit cards. This guy is going to be really upset when he finds out he's lost his wallet." B said. We sat there a moment while he surfed his iPhone looking for a phone number for the owner. "Well, duh!" He said after a moment. "The address is right on the driver's license! This guy lives just a mile up the road!"
So off we went to find him. A mile up the road a man was out in the front of his house, bent over changing the siphons in his ditch. B leaned out the window. "Are you Mr. X?"
The guy straightened up, obviously trying to place our stranger's faces. "Yes I am."
"Do you know where your wallet is?" B said. The expression on the guy's face as he patted his hip pocket reflexively and it dawned on him that it wasn't where he expected it was tragic. He looked at B as if he'd done a magic trick as B handed his wallet and belongings out the window of the car.
"I tried to pick up all the bills, but there was a breeze." I said. "I hope it's all there."
He was absolutely poleaxed, and very thankful. We left feeling pretty good. I was just glad we came by when we did, because right behind us on the road was a carload of kids who had stopped to pick up some spilled onions on the shoulder, and would have been along next. Who knows if the man would have recovered the wallet. He was missing his cell phone too, and we told him where we found things so he could go back to look. All in all, a pretty good (and very lucky) day.
When we got home the girl and I decided to make apple crisp, so she hopped up on the counter in the kitchen and put her cast up on a stool. While we peeled and measured, we watched "Dirty Dancing". It's always been a classic movie, but the loss of Patrick Swayze has made it even more poignant. We watched it through to the end (complete with prerequisite snifflies), and as my hands sliced apples, I thought about how strongly it resonated.
I have always been Baby, big nose, awkwardly clumsy, needy and never socially graceful. Even today, some days I get up and get ready for work and catch sight of myself in the mirror on the way out the door and think "Good heavens, who is that little girl playing dress-up?" I can buy the same clothes as the other women and shop at the same stores, and what looks polished and sophisticated on other women simply makes me look like a teenager at Halloween. I am missing, and always have been, that 'something' that makes me lack the elegance and poise that I crave. Baby, with her pushed out tummy and big frizzy hair, makes me think of the me that looks back at me from the mirror. Just like her, I am idealistic, optimistic, and want to save the world.
While I watched Patrick move across the dance floor as Johnny, I remembered that it must have been easy for him to make this film, having been a dancer prior to becoming an actor. You can tell it; it shows in his grace and in that lean, dancer's build. B is the same way. I saw the same curves and lean sinewy grace in Patrick that I see in B every day. B was a wrestler, but I think he must have been born with that build. He's grown older, and softer with age, but you can still read it in his movements; in the shapely calves and strong legs. PD has not been able to claim that from him. Even with the disease, he is still more graceful than I. Like Johnny, he has much more worldly knowledge, and life has left him discouraged and somewhat jaded. He's honest, faithful, and will fight for those he loves.
The change that Johnny brings about in Baby is huge, but equal to the change she brings about in him. They work in symbiosis, each potentiating the other's faith, confidence, and self-awareness. And that is what B and I have done for each other. I have no doubts but that we would not be where we are if we had not found each other. We have grown, together, as we have grown together.
It was hard to see that parallel last night in the movie, and then to see the reminder, flashed at the end of the film by ABC Family network, of condolences to the family and friends of Patrick Swayze on his loss. The disease that took Patrick was cruel, slow, and degrading. There comes a point where parallels are too painful to contemplate. I went to bed with two thoughts foremost in mind.
- Nobody puts B in a corner.
- This dance is not over yet.
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