Every Day In Every Way

From the first light of dawn to the hazy hours of dusk and beyond, I am nurtured and enfolded in his love for me. We’ve been children together, emerging adults, a brace of married teens, young parents, and finally grandparents. From fresh-faced innocence of the world to experience-inspired knowledge of our place in this world, our lives have been partnered, an exquisite travel through time and unfolding of our twinned desires and destiny.

From the mundane experiences of coping with the irritations of everyday life and all its unexpected turns, to the sublime enlargement of our knowledge of one another, our appreciation of the splendour of our togetherness, we have travelled a lifetime together. We reveal our deepest selves, yet still there is that within us that remains mysterious, apart and unknown one to the other.

This is not a deliberate intent to veil ourselves from complete knowledge, an attempt to forestall any possibility of vulnerability, but rather an extension of the mystery of one’s self to one’s own understanding. As much as can be humanly known from one member of the human race to another, that is the extent of our knowledge of one another.

This man, whose curiosity of the world around him has never waned, whose tender solicitation on behalf of an errant spider, a sow bug, a bumble bee in distress, leads him to the act of rescue, resides deep in my soul. To gently lift a caterpillar off a trail to the safety of nearby scrub. To patiently and carefully rescue a bird or a squirrel from the deadly confines of a stovepipe or a fireplace.

This man whose urge to explore, to understand processes and who rejoices in revelations of the mind has been an inspiration and a joy to me, in sharing my life.

His daily attentions to my personal well-being overwhelm the onlooker, be it a child of our own or a stranger, wondering at the constant and ingrained consideration proffered on my behalf. Our daughter and sons construe this as stifling, interfering, manipulative and controlling, and so it could be, but it is not. There has never been a question of my individuality and my insistence on its recognition.

Our minds do not always meet in agreement on matters of external matters, but do on those of mutual concern. There is always the banter and discursive explanations of perspective and the possibility of one leading the other to a more rounded appreciation or understanding. Our political and social orientations don’t necessarily mesh, but our values, concerns and mode of behaviour in response to each do.

He is quick to judge yet amenable to reason, as am I. His initial impressions remain open to adjustment, mine less so. He is generous of spirit and kind in nature, but removed from a gregarious societal need to join, be a part of something, receive constant validation from the presence of others and their approval granted as a member of one’s group. He prefers the solace of privacy to that of constant social interaction, yet is appreciative of spirited conversations and debates of substance in public situations.

He is an omnivorous reader of books of every description, from autobiographical works, to history and exploration, and mystery novels. While I am also an avid reader, never without reading material, from newspapers to magazines, novels to biographies, I cannot match the manner in which he devours reading materials, his ongoing hunger for new works to consume.

There is our shared love of music, and his need to share the beauty that he hears with me. Music elevates our spirits, it ennobles our souls, it ushers us into a place of peace and security of the senses. If he is listening to something as pedestrian as a song that we danced to when we were young he will leap upstairs to join me. Because it's a tune from our childhood, he will insist on our briefly saluting its place in our memories by dancing to it, as we did once long ago.

We love the music of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and so many more brilliant composers of the past. When Gluck's "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" is aired, or Orpheus's lambently soulful lament on his loss of Eurydice is played, he leaps to action and brings the music to me, busy upstairs, not listening to the radio, while he is diverted in his basement workshop.

He is taken by the creative need to alter his surroundings in every possible way. From the creation of stained glass artworks, to oil paintings, the design, excavation and construction of outdoor hardscapes of stone and brick, to the interior laying of ceramic, marble, wood plank flooring, and the embellishment of fine mouldings and inset cabinetry. Nothing daunts him or dampens his spirit of curiosity and enterprise.

His innate creative spirit compels him to teach himself woodcraft and every artistic form of expression that appeals to him. He has collected original works of art for a half century, responding to the pull of originality and creative design comparable to what he considers the finest of creative integrity and human imagination. The scope of his interests and the knowledge he has acquired never fail to amaze me.

His knowledge of the arcane to the pedestrian, instills great admiration in me for the fineness of his mind. He often indulges in skepticism bordering heavily on cynicism that infuriates and befuddles me, its sharp contrast to his other attributes a quick reminder of just how complex the human mind and apprehension of the word about us, he personifies. He is able to swiftly disarm me by his proclivity to sly and witty observations that manage to encapsulate a situation, or a personality.

To be his constant companion, to be with him always, share the ordinary and the extraordinary in our lives together, is my gift from an unknown benefactor; chance, good fortune. To share his insights, his humour, his love of all things aesthetic, his appreciation of examples of humankind’s creative and imaginative constructs results in a rare and beautifully instructive bounty of life.

We share a keen appreciation for the out-of-doors and spend, together, as many hours as possible within green spaces. When we were busy canoe camping or alpine camping it was always one of his adopted duties to do the planning, the cooking and the clean-up detail. I loved his careful and conscientious ministrations toward these needed actions to each of the outdoor situations we found ourselves in.

As a child I was not exposed to the ordinary recreational opportunities that many children take for granted. As a young mother of three children, I caught up. He put together a two-wheeler for me from parts discarded by others; we bought bicycles for the children and while he taught our children to ride bicycles, he also taught me, in the very same way. Just as later he taught us all to cross-country ski, and to ice skate. And then came the acquisition of a canoe and we all learned together how to use it and enjoy it.

His enthusiasms become mine. His energies deflate mine. His determination is inexhaustible and exhausting to contemplate. His ongoing hunger for knowledge and understanding echoes through my own. His sharing of his opinions, of his perceptions, helps shape mine, just as mine shape his. His habit of sound-boarding me through the twists and turns of books he has recently read offer me the opportunity to ‘know’ the contents of volumes I would never myself read.

He is patient and slow to anger, forgiving much and swiftly; forgetting little. He does not suffer fools gladly, yet will be polite and surface-amenable, capable of pulling himself away from slight relationships which gain him nothing. He can be incautious in expressing his personal opinion to some whose receiving of it can be construed as critical. Is this honesty, or is it casual forgetfulness?

Nothing, absolutely nothing daunts his insistence on performing physically arduous tasks others his age would blanch at. And proving himself adept and capable of surmounting difficulties.

He will experiment and discover the where the why and the how of making his own wine, marmalade, or pickles for the joy of doing it and producing something decently potable, edible. His spirit of universal enterprise in art, the mastering of a myriad of small but necessary mechanical household tasks, his curiosity of the world about him has seeped into his children’s consciousness and rendered them accomplished.

From plumbing to electrical wiring, furniture construction to outdoor excavation nothing keeps him from accomplishing a purpose he has designed, devised and deemed required. 52 years of marriage have confirmed my good fortune in my life partner, as he continues to intrigue and amuse, instruct and entertain me, challenging my fortitude for new and demanding adventures.

While at the same time being cosseted and treasured, my every need and wish fulfilled. Our bedtime kiss for the night’s recess to our morning kiss in welcome of dawn. Hugs are a frequent day-time requirement. Solicitous questioning and offerings abound. Pre-breakfast morning-shared showers means a back scrub for each of us; his doling out of shampoo for me; post-shower anointing my back with moisturizing cream. Was ever a woman more spoiled?

Break off one of the earpieces of my eyeglasses? They’re repaired immediately. Snap off one end of a silver chain, carelessly wearing the bauble while doing the gardening? Not to fret, the chain has been reclaimed, made as good as new. Cut my cheek, just below the eye? His are the careful fingers that place the bandage in the just-right position, and that replaces it when required because I’m too impatient and feel queasy about in the process.

Sliver in the sole of my foot from the wood deck? He deftly removes it, just as he did when we looked after our grandchild for ten years, and earlier, when our children were young, tending to all the medical emergencies that inevitably erupted. Help in the garden to stake up something large, to dig a deep hole, to remove something truly recalcitrant? He’s my man.

Something puzzling happens to him when he’s behind the wheel of his car. He becomes an alpha male. Experience anything remotely resembling a challenge and I cannot recognize the transformation. And that’s when I swing into gear and tell him to cool down. Have I yet mentioned that he always asks my opinion about things? And then, all things considered, proceeds with his first intention, undeterred?

When he was a young boy he played hockey on the streets just like all the other little boys. It was his boyish passion. When we met at age 14 and he used to come over to my parents’ house to spend time with me, he sometimes brought with him his trusty old bulky wood hockey game. A novelty for me at first, I succumbed to playing games with him, before the freshness wore off.

When he was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, he played football for his school, Oakwood Collegiate Institute. He hasn’t, over the years, remained transfixed about sports, an avid watcher and cheerer-on. Something else for which I am grateful. He does enjoy talking; he is not a man of few ideas and fewer words. Many people who talk much are not, by their nature, also listeners. He is one such.

He is not much altered physically from the young boy I once knew, the adult with whom I grew up. It’s not the weight of his physical presence that has changed, as it has not. His mind, however, has matured and blossomed into what now completely captivates me, as it did incrementally throughout our years together, up to and including the present.

His hairline has receded; no big surprise since, as a genetic marker we should have known by his father’s example. He can be a little hot-headed at times, mostly confined to driving. He can be as obdurate as I am, but he is always first to submit to the possibility that there are more ways to interpret a situation than he was at first willing to admit. That’s progress.

His vocabulary has expanded greatly since that time, 56 years ago, when we first met. Even then he enthralled me with his ability to convey his impressions of his experiences, so unlike my own. Even so, “nice” generally suffices to describe his impression of how I look at any given time, even when I’ve taken great pains with my appearance and have dressed in a new and flattering garment.

I love his face, his mind, criticize his memory when it fails to recall in match-step with my own. His capably strong hands fascinate me. His often cynical and sly sense of humour amuses me in a way no one else can manage. Our older son has inherited that proclivity, among other traits. I sometimes doubt our daughter has a sense of humour at all. Our younger son has inherited his father’s indomitable will to do anything he feels he can, along with the talent to do just that.

This has been a remarkable half-century escapade.