So What Does A Man Know About Romance?

You may be surprised to see me here. I have guest commented before, but Shellie has asked me to contribute on a semi-regular basis. She is currently reviewing the galleys for her second book (Love Under A Dark Sky), working on her third book, writing book reviews for the librarians' website, all while continuing with her career change. Yet this blog is dear to her heart and she doesn't wish to see it sit dormant for long stretches. So it's husband to the rescue. Well, maybe. I am, after all, only a man. And what does a man know about romance?

Every blog begins with a certain amount of audacity in that we feel we have something worthwhile to say. I'll be honest up front, that may or may not be true in this case. But I do love my wife and feel we have a strong, healthy, love-filled marriage. Also, I've worked surrounded by women in my thirty-one years in an elementary school. I've listened and hopefully learned from all their viewpoints of husbands, boyfriends, and men in general. So rather than an authority, advice, or even tips, my postings are much more likely to be random musings from the vantage point of a happily married middle-aged man. But for today, this is a poem by Amy Lowell I believe she sums up the way I, and many other men, feel about romance.

The Bungler

You glow in my heart

Like the flames of uncounted candles.

But when I go to warm my hands,

My clumsiness overturns the light

And then I stumble

Against the tables and chairs.

(Sound familiar, guys?)

Driving

Yesterday we traveled to St. Louis to watch the Blues play hockey.  It was one of those times when things were looking great.  We got away half an hour earlier than we'd planned and thought that would give us plenty of time to wander around the Central West End before having lunch at one of our favorite places and then on to the game.

A bit of history about our trips to St. Louis.  It seems that at least seven out of ten times we set off for St. Louis it rains.  Not such a big deal if we're going for the Art Museum or a hockey game, but trips to the Muny, Busch Stadium, the botanical gardens, the Loop. . . rain matters.  Yesterday, it was misty.  Too misty for intermittent wipers, but not misty enough for full-on swish-swish.  And then, it misted a bit more.  Soon we were driving in a rain.  As I say, not so unusual for us.  Bruce, my eternal optimist of a husband always says, "We'll drive out of it."  We rarely do.

We arrived at the Central West End and it was raining but good.  And cold.  We were a little too early for lunch, but Bruce found a parking spot just across the street from the restaurant and right next to Subterranean Books.  So, I hopped out and dashed in while he fed the meter.  We wandered around a bit and decided to go ahead and walk up the street to Coffee Cartel for a warming cup of coffee before we ate.  It was still raining.  And quite cold.

As we passed our parking meter, Bruce stopped to see how much time was left on it.  I ducked under an awning and heard him say:  "Out of order?"  No problem.  The space behind us was open.  I shivered under the awning while he backed up, fed a new meter and we hurried on toward the now much needed coffee.

On the way, Bruce's cell phone rang.  Some unhappy news from home, but nothing that was urgent so as to call us back right then; although, the conversation was difficult on a cell phone on a street suddenly alive with large trucks heading up and down through rain puddles.

We decided to check the hours on our restaurant's door just to be sure we would have the time we needed.  I heard Bruce again, this time rather incredulous:  "Closed on Mondays?"  Of course.

The coffee was wonderful, though.  And, there was another restaurant just up the way that would be fine. In fact, we recalled having eaten there once before.  The more we thought about it, the more we became convinced that the reason we had eaten there once before was that we had come up on a Monday and found the other one closed.  Note to self!

Duff's aside, Dressel's was great.  The vegetarian menu was dinky (salads, pretty much), but one of the staff offered to light the fireplace beside me.  Call me grateful!  My hair, previously nice and smooth from a great morning with the flat iron (remember, I started by telling you how things were looking great for our day?) was now curlier than I've seen it in decades, as wet as if I'd just shampooed, and cold.  


We got to Scottrade and found our seats.  On the top row.  That's the top row - no more rows above us.  And my seat was next to a bit of wall that jutted out.  Oh, and the Blues lost.  To the Blackhawks.  It was just sad.

We drove toward home, the sun now peeking through and no evidence at all that it had rained earlier in the day.  We listened to Chris Botti and, even though the day wasn't anything like we'd planned and we knew once we got back home there would be some not-so-great family / health things to deal with, we found ourselves talking about how blessed we are.  How sad we find it that other couples can't or don't or won't make time (yes, make time) to date each other.  How we are so glad that we're friends, that we enjoy each others' company, that our marriage is romantic every single day because it's important to us to cultivate that.  How good it was to be together just. . . driving.

It Blizzarded

With hype hypier than the hype for this Sunday's Super Bowl, our local newscasters ushered in the Blizzard of 2011.  It snowed.  A lot.  And I'm sure it was pretty bad right out in it.  But, from the comfort of my living room it was just pretty.  There's something charming about being "stuck" with no choices about where to go or, for us over several days, whether or not to go online, because the car is behind a fort-sized mound of white and the Internet is down.  The power stayed on, so we weren't relegated to temporary pallets on the floor for sleeping by the fire and eating peanut butter.  We got to make chili and brew coffee and read by lamplight instead of candlelight.  We rediscovered some of our favorite c.d.s since we couldn't stream North Shore Radio or MPR.

Had I not been under the weather (sorry, it had to be done), I might have written.  But, fever and general ickiness made my focus too . . . unfocused for anything important like plot development.  I looked at magazines and snuggled with my dog under a favorite old blanket fresh from the dryer.  Today when the sun came out I shook myself out of the mental cobwebs and attacked the real ones attached to my windows upstairs.  The beautiful sun on the brilliant snow showed up a multitude of sins in regard to my housekeeping and the days of being confined to the house along with Puxatony Phil's prediction of an early spring gave me the strength and stamina I needed to embrace the Shark Vac like Snow White did the broom and sweep / suck away the dust of a thousand days (okay, not a thousand, but it may as well have been for how dirty everything seemed).

Yes, indeedy.  It blizzarded.

What is it About Sunday Mornings?

I often mention Michael Franks as one of the most romantic singers.  His lyrics evoke so many emotions.  They are a celebration of married life as far as I'm concerned.  A common theme seems to be Sunday morning.  Sleeping in, breakfast in bed, sunlight streaming through gauzy curtains, favorite music.  Stuff like that.

Recently Bruce and I watched the Diane Lane and John Cusak movie Must Love Dogs.  With the exception of one particularly weird and out of place scene that's just too sexual for the rest of the film, it's a charming story.  Diane Lane plays a jilted wife.  One of the things she misses most about married life is Sunday mornings.  Pajamas, the newspaper, being lazy together.

What is it about Sunday mornings?

Today we didn't have our fairly regular Sunday morning family breakfast out.  It was just me and Bruce at home with plenty of time before we needed to get ready for second service.  The autumn beckoned.  We poured steaming mugs of coffee, pulled on hats over our messy hair and went for a walk.  We zig-zagged all the streets in our neighborhood.  Saw the bright and thrilling contrast of the top branches illuminated by the sunrise with the lower branches still in shadow below.  Picked out the prettiest trees to point out to one another.  Stopped to notice a green caterpillar making his way toward the curb.

When we got home, I realized that was the most conversation Bruce and I had enjoyed in what seems like several weeks.  We've gotten busy.  Distracted.  Tired.  But this morning we were us again and it was good.

What is it about Sunday mornings?  I don't know.  They just feel different.  The whole world seems to move more slowly.  There is a general sense of no need to hurry.  People smile more.  Of course, for us, Sunday means significantly more than that as we set aside time specifically to worship with our church family; that aside, I guess Sunday is just a day for lingering.  Lingering over conversations, mugs of coffee, neighborhood walks, books, music.  Lingering long enough to notice the one you love.

And suddenly, "a month of Sundays" sounds quite appealing.

Louis Three-Hearts

Louis (as in St. Louis) is a teddy bear who sits atop the throw pillows on our guest bed.  Louis has presided over various rooms in our home since some of the earliest days of our marriage.  Louis has three hearts and that makes him one special bear.  


Bruce and I met when I was 28 and he was 38.  Our first home was one he'd established with his son.  My being there full-time was quite a transition for all of us.  Louis is our "love child" - the three of us.  He reminds me of all the hopes I had for our lives.  He reminds me that Bruce and Lucas each had their own hopes as well.  How many of their private wishes were realized or how many were squashed along our rocky way I don't know.  I don't allow myself to keep records of that sort and hope they don't either.  We are all three much better people now than we were then and have far better hopes and dreams for our futures than we could possibly have imagined then because we know why we love each other now, not just that we do.


You can't really force intimacy, though if other step-families are like ours, it's almost a compulsion to try.  Louis was one such attempt on our part.  Imagine a 13-year-old boy, his nearing 40 father and new stepmother standing in line to build a bear.  I'm sure the high school-aged girl working that day had no idea when she held out her basket of little heart-shaped pillows to us and told us we could each put one in that she was helping us make not just a bear, but a reminder of our promises to each other.  


I don't really think about Louis very often, though I notice that he sits there and I'm glad of it.  Yet, when I do take time to consider what he means and to take into account the fact that other lives besides my own are bound up in the heart(s) of him, he becomes quite precious to me.  


As I said, I don't allow myself to keep records of things lost along the way; but I do keep records of things gained. Blessings.  I could count forever, I think, and never finish.  But right at the top would be Bruce and Lucas.  They helped me become who I am and, painful though it was at times, I'm very grateful.  Life as I imagined it for the us might have been prettier, but it certainly wouldn't have produced as much character in any of us.  Like Louis, we each had to make a place for three hearts and that gave room for a whole lot of love to grow.  

from Guest Blogger, Bruce Foltz

     When my nephew was little, he would describe large amounts by using a measurement he could understand. He would explain size by how many bathtubs it would contain, such as it was 16 bathtubs big. He would also use this same measurement to show affection as  in "I love you 100 bathtubs full." I'm sure that now, as a PhD and professor at a Tennessee university, he has moved on to different, perhaps more precise measurements. But at the time it was his way of expressing an amount that would otherwise be beyond his understanding.
     I still sometimes think that way about love. It can be so powerful and overwhelming that I'm at a loss for words without falling into trite cliches or catch phrases. But the other night I experienced a perfect, for me, remedy for my tongue-tied muteness. Please let me share.
    It was the first game of the new NFL season and my Vikings were playing. I don't watch a lot of football but this one I wanted to see. Shellie is not a football fan. Hockey yes, but not much else. She planned our dinner around the game and prepared treats to fit the occasion. Since we both watch our weight, we're very careful about some delicacies and often share to save the calories. But on this night, my wife carefully planned the menu to include a WHOLE chocolate covered glazed donut! It was a little taste of heaven in my mouth. What made it sweeter still, as if it needed help, was the fact she arranged it for me, as a surprise, without causing any guilt over exceeding my caloric goal. Not a small task, but one performed with much love.
     So now when I need to express an amount of love beyond simple understanding, I'll use this heart-felt expression of endearment, " I love you a chocolate covered glazed donut, or maybe even two."
                                                                                           Who Loves Ya, Baby?        Bruce

September

I've been waiting for today.  Just to say, "It is September" is a relief.  Though we would be fooling ourselves to say it is fall now, it is fall enough for now.  After all, it is September.

September is poetry and it is soup in crockery bowls; it is dog-eared novels we've read so many times the edges of the pages are thick and it is homemade bread.  September is a bouquet of bliss and blessings, a bundle of bright hopes tied with the ribbons of sentimentality.  September is being in the moment, standing in the sun and breathing in deep.  It is sneaking in a tiny thought of the holidays that are coming and then hurrying back to today before you're lost in tomorrow.

September is a time for love and romance.  If you haven't anyone to woo in your life, then by all means, let September woo you!  Give in to it.  It feels great.  There's no guilt in the guilty pleasures of September.  Set the table with real dishes, lay a cloth napkin in your lap, light a candle on your table and invite Cyrus Chestnut, Vince Guaraldi, Michael Franks, or even Garrison Keillor to dine with you.  I can promise you will feel warmed on the inside for having been in their company.  There's simply no excuse for not being in love in September.

Now Playing

Theme dinner anyone?

For me, cooking is a less than desirable chore at the end of the work day.  Thus, weekday dinners tend to fall into one of three categories:  cheap eat-outs, frozen, or quick mix.  In the fall and winter I'm more likely to whip up a soup or try my hand at something with a few more ingredients and steps during the week, but I burn out quickly.  Weekends, then?  Restaurants.  Failing that, cereal.  Cold cereal.  Sometimes an antipasto platter or bread with pesto and cheeses if I'm feeling really daring.

Last school year, though, I got my gumption up and tried to plan for more home cooked (thank you, Sandra-Lee Semi-Homemade) weeknight dinners and even some at-home date night suppers for the weekend.  I can be creative when I want to be and one of my favorites was the Verona Night - a theme dinner.  I spent snatches of time online all week looking up the traditional foods of Verona and planned a not-too-complicated menu including a traditional dessert of Juliet's Kisses (again, semi-homemade).  We supped by candlelight and then went out to see Letters to Juliet.  It was fun.  I wanted to try it again.

A couple of months passed and Bruce's birthday was on the horizon.  A local business supporter and semi-green person, he likes the challenge of shopping for all of our gifts locally.  We have fun doing Christmas at flea markets and used bookstores.  He had mentioned wanting to reread some of M.C. Beaton's Hammish Macbeth books.  I found a few at the used bookstores and supplemented with a couple of new copies, wrapped them in green and blue plaid fabric and tied them with a green satin ribbon.  I purchased a c.d. of bagpipe music (yes, I really did) and planned a Highland breakfast.  Scotch Eggs (using vegetarian sausage), oat scones, carandash (I think that's how it was spelled - layers of real whipped cream with brandy - or in my case brandy extract - raspberries and toasted oats), and Scottish breakfast tea.  It was so yummy and so very fun.  I want to try it again.

As the school year gets started, I'm looking forward to the entertainments of the season:  high school football games, school dances, ice hockey, band concerts, theatre, and the return of all the best autumn has to offer by way of cuddling opportunities with one's Honey.  I'm also thinking that another Theme dinner might be on the menu soon.  So, I'll be perusing the offerings at our local independent movie theater, the stage plays coming up, and all the free things our nearby university has to offer (thank you, Missouri State!), and even dvds we haven't watched in so long I've forgotten we have them.  With a little invention, a little investigation, and a little investment of time and effort, our table will be set with a thematic flair once again.

Eat Your Heart Out Fraulein Maria!

These are a few of my favorite things:

Holding hands with my honey while we stroll around the neighborhood.

Strolling around the neighborhood with my honey and liking that he notices that when I walk I tend to be looking up and around while he tends to look down and around - I keep him from missing gorgeous cloud formations or the first colored leaf on the block; he keeps me from tripping on the uneven sidewalk or stepping on a caterpillar.

He always makes sure he has a quarter in his pocket when we go to the mall because he knows I'm a bubble gum junkie.

He sings a lot.  Sometimes I know the song.  Many times I don't.  I've learned some silly songs from him that are mine now, too.  And, sometimes when he sings I join in and he stops and says:  "Did I say this was a duet?"  Silly man.

He will watch It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown with me in the middle of summer if I ask him to.

We can be in different parts of a store and both zero in on a stupid song lyric playing overhead.  When we meet up again, we almost inevitably ask, "Did you hear that song?"

He is a genius at making up jokes.  I mean a real genius.  I almost always know when he's setting one up, but it's not very often I figure it out.  I groan LOUDLY when he tells me the punchline and he laughs that he can still "get" me.

Dancing in the living room.

Dancing in the kitchen.

Including the dog in a "group hug".

He tells me I look pretty and I believe he thinks I do.

He knows I'm going to cry at the same parts of the same old movies and he waits for it.  He also knows when I'm going to cry in a movie we've not seen before and I catch him glancing at me in the dark theatre to see if he's right.  He doesn't cry, but he doesn't make me feel funny about the fact that I do.

He likes that I'm tenderhearted.

He believes that if I had to I could survive without him, but he still does things for me that I could do myself just out of niceness.  I don't remember the last time I pumped gas myself, but I do remember how.

He never lets me open my own car door.  Never.

He stacks the clean towels so that he gets the rattier ones.

He makes the bed.

People who know us expect us to be together.  When they see one of us in public they look around to find the other.  Usually, they succeed.

We can go to the Library on a weekend night and joke about what losers we are.  We don't really believe it, though.  Well, not for that reason anyway.

He likes how I've decorated our home.  He says it's our sanctuary.  When he arrives home from work, he says, "Welcome to civility."  I can't think of a higher compliment he could give me.

He lets me say, "I love you," to him a hundred times a day.

He tells me he loves me, too.

Thanks, Bruce.

Witness to Your Life

One of my favorite movies is Shall We Dance with Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon.  It is the story of a middle-aged man who has become a bit bored with his routines.  There are many things I like about the story, the first being that infidelity does not enter into it.  The man loves his wife and family and he doesn't betray them. However, in his secret pursuit of dance, his wife has reason to become suspicious.  She hires a private investigator to follow her husband.  When ultimately she decides that he is not pursuing an extramarital affair, she terminates the investigation.  Her conversation with the much-enamored PI leads to the question of why do people marry.  His answer is the obvious one:  for love.  She refutes that and says rather it is because we all want a witness to our lives.  In marrying, in making that commitment, we promise to notice.  I like that.

The reason I thought of it tonight is that I was engaged in one of my favorite weekly routines with my husband:  Sunday evening at Mudhouse with a bottomless and a book.  I've been shamefully unable to engage with a book all summer.  Inexplicably unable to engage.  However, I picked up a memoir I purchased several weeks ago with a gift certificate given me by a couple of teachers in congratulations and goodbyes as I moved to a new school.  It is called Here If You Need Me and it is the story of Kate Braestrup.  I've never heard of Kate Braestrup.  What made me pick up the book in the first place was the gorgeous cover.  A tree branch all alight with autumn colors stretched over a lake reflecting a colorful hillside, an abandoned canoe at the shore and a single unoccupied Adirondack chair facing out toward the water and the distant shore on which you can  see the white trunks of birch.  I had to pick it up.  Had to.  When I discovered the true story was set in Maine, I was sold.

I started reading the memoir several weeks ago when I first purchased it.  Unfortunately, the first time I picked it up was in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.  Not really the time to start reading a memoir.  (More the time for reading The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog  - see a December post.)  I was too tired to focus and lay it aside, forgetting it until today.  I'm glad I remembered it.

Half-way through it now, I am considering the fortitude of this woman who, because of her conviction that genuine love means you take care of your family even in death, determined to honor her husband by taking care of his corpse herself.  He was an officer killed in a car crash.  She asked that he not be embalmed and that she personally take care of bathing and dressing him.  She also asked to be present at his cremation from start to finish (which, according to what she was told by the funeral home would take four to five hours or more for a young and fit man such as he was).  Her courage is unfathomable to me.  She writes:

"I wanted to do it not because it would help me heal - healing was both indefinable and unimaginable - but because it was the authoritative command of an authentic love."  The idea of caring for the bodies of your deceased loved ones is described as an "intimate privilege" that has been taken away from us by professionals.

I don't share these things out of horrified fascination or morbidity.  I don't say this is anything I would even consider or be able to do myself.  I'm not that strong and don't really want to be.  But, I do find the depth of commitment extraordinary and remarkable.  There's so much to be considered in regard to the link between physical and spiritual realms, the expressions of love, God's love, that is evident in creation, in emotion, and in spirit.  How far reaching His love is.  How far could my own reach if I would stretch it?