Marriage and Moving

Last time

Nothing tests a marriage quite like moving.

Well, lots of other things do, but this is ours right now.

The cartoon reflects what it’s like at our house(s) today, the final day in the house where we’ve lived the past 43 years, and the coming one in which we will live considerably fewer years.

Not because we don’t expect to like it, but because at 79 and 84 we count every year as bonus.

We still find ways to underscore how differently, even after 45 years married, we perceive and respond to the world. The same thing looks different to each of us.

Moving to a place about one-third the size of our old Vermont farmhouse, has meant letting go of that proportion of our worldly goods. And many, maybe most, have become so deeply imbedded in our bones, that it is more like amputation than sensible downsizing.

That Zinnia, our 10 year old terrier, died suddenly a month ago, has etched even deeper our sense that this is more than simply the wise, late life move we both believe it to be.

But we do see a different view of that 800 pound gorilla that lurks over everything right now.

Grace, the outrageous claim that we are loved, despite the host of unlovable things about us, sustains us as we slog through this adventure.