Wise and Lucky

Today on our walk through the dog park, my husband turned to me and asked if I agreed that this was the best year of our marriage. I was dumbfounded.

In a week, we will have been married thirty-eight years. Actually, today, February 21st, is the day we got “engaged,” such as it was, sitting in front of my upper flat in his old, oversized black Buick, and having indulged in that old dare double dare game of ‘let’s get married.’ I said it first. No, you did. And so it goes for all the the ensuing years.

Maybe because the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be finally shining on us, it does seem as though this – the year of the great pandemic – has been a precious year. And because I am one to almost always think that the time I am living at this moment is the best time of all, I may have to agree with my beloved partner giving the ‘best year of our marriage’ award to the profoundly challenging year of the pandemic.

This was the year we learned to live in the present.

We don’t worry about the future. We just live the day.

It doesn’t take great courage or tremendous ingenuity. It just requires appreciating each day for its own self, not comparing days, not shortchanging today’s day because of yearning for days in the future. A day driving down US 1 over the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys will be a glorious day when we can do it again but no more glorious than a day finding Milton, our wild pet bunny, huddled next to the house in his sit spot, eyeing us walking down the driveway, or watching our two retired sled dogs knee deep in snow at the dog park, galloping like kids having recess after math class. Each day is its own sweetness. I don’t tally the days up to make something bigger. What each day is is enough.

When the pandemic surprised us last year, my husband and I decided, once again and maybe for the thousandth time, to be a team. And once we decided that, we decided to live the day. It was hard at first, the threat of the pandemic so overwhelming, but then it became reflex. And that reflex has protected us. It is both a wise thing and a very lucky one. And, perhaps, that wise and lucky thing has made this the best year of our marriage.