We Will Always Help One Another: by Harry

Thank You, Sally. I know you would do it for me. I feel a kind of boundless caring in our relationship, and also with caring, and dealing with the day-to-day, and helping you get through a hard time, I feel the depth of my love for you. One could say, "Well, you might do something similar for a friend," and that is true, but friends aren't together 7x24, and I do feel a deep friendship for you too, that's part of what we have. But we also share having come through rough (or at times, rough) marriages and break ups and disappointments, and then finding each other on the other side of divorce, and suddenly feeling incredibly blessed in our love.

And we've never quite decided whether it would have been this way for us three decades ago if we had met back then, or whether we have gained an appreciation of one another because of our experience. I know I am extremely physically attracted to Sally, and that certainly would have been a factor in our 20s and 30s, but I'm not sure if either of us would have had the wisdom? the understanding? at that time to manage all the vagaries, and the ups and downs of a relationship, or perhaps fully appreciate the love we have. We may never know the answer, but we have NOW, and NOW is the best....

PS by Sally

My last post (about my (ENDLESS) period of being unemployed) was VERY hard for me to write.

But I can't excuse a major omission.

All the time I was biting my nails, scanning craigslist and generally going mad - my darling Harry was not only footing the entire bill for our existence, he was also making my car payments, buying me festive dinners, books, underpants, bracelets, shampoo; whatever I said I needed.

He pretended that this was no big deal. (I know he has his fears a about his own job/career) But still he gazed at me lovingly every morning, greeted me with enthusiasm whenever we were parted for an hour or more, kissed me passionately at intervals - and never once blamed me or asked me to account for, or promise, anything.
I'd leave go on interviews, and he always held me tightly, kissed my ear and said "I want you to get this job. I am praying for you. I will love you no matter what happens."

He wasn't just keeping me from living in a cardboard box, he singlehandedly supported my life for me. No one, not even my mother, has ever in my life taken such good,trusting and loving care of me.


I love you, Harry.

(Posted by Sally)

Back to Work

I've mostly avoided writing about this but now it can be told: I was unemployed from the end of April until the beginning of October. Probably not a startling fact given that we all know unemployment is rampant and not getting better yadda yadda: But it was a profound & prolonged shock to me, within hailing distance of traditional retirement age, to discover that paying work is not something I can count on.

Never since high school had I failed to get a job fairly quickly when I wanted one. I stayed at home with each of my daughters for what might be considered a long time but as soon as each of them entered daycare a job materialized. Even freelancing in my carefree thirties didn't leave me idle often. Much as I hated the process of finding writing gigs I was usually over-, rather than under-employed. Not all of my jobs have been great but I always managed to find something that paid the rent and kept me occupied during the so-called business day.

But not this time.

Call me over-entitled but not stupid; when the social services position I had was downsized last summer, I did see the writing on the wall. (Funding disappeared entirely six months later) I began sending out resumes in a somewhat desultory fashion. I was so sure that I would find something comparable - or better!- than the job I had had that I didn't even bother to respond to many ads.I applied for a few that were a stretch, reasoning If Not Now, When? And I got flat-out ignored or passed over closely - what difference?

I did luck out, as it turns out. I found something I like that pays, if not as well as my old job, nearly so and five months of LOOKING have made me grateful.

Now I'm crossing my fingers that the 90-day trial period passes without incident and I KEEP this job. Another thing it never before occurred to me to worry about.

How the over-entitled have fallen!

Posted by Harry: Sally, Kisses Sweeter than.... Everything

Sally, darling, I know we are like ships passing in the night these days, what with work and work, and chores, BUT even those few kisses in the morning are a miracle to me. There is something in the touch of your lips on mine that surpasses most of the sexual experiences of my life, and that's not to denigrate those experiences by any means, it's just that your/our kissing is utterly amazing. And this is only our kissing, mind you. What follows (when we have a chance and the energy for it to follow) is sublime, a plateau or peak of beautiful passion and eroticism that's beyond anything I had ever hoped or wished for.

Sally, You are the best kisser in this end of the galaxy --- maybe even the entire galaxy, honestly. I can't adequately express what kissing is like with you, and I think I'm doing a halfway decent job by way of metaphor and allusion.

I'd like to know more about why you feel this is not what you'd imagined. If somehow different, then I hope what we have right now is as good or better than you'd imagined. One thing I know for sure: it is deeply loving in every possible way.

I Love You So Much Dear One.... My Baby......

Working. ..

Harry and I both work many hours these days. The kids, his and mine; are on trajectories of their own.

While we strive to keep up with both them and our own (putative) CAREERS.

My own recent five months of unemployment drives me: while Harry's recent changes to his work week beguile and (I think) charm him into (kinda, sorta) liking a job he has long hated.

Anyway, both of us work long hours now - we get up at 6 am and return to the fold at 8 or 9 pm. Then we kiss,talk and drink wine: but are both too tired to do much else.

What does that mean for our romantic (initiative, imperative) to lie in one another's others' arms in the dawn; to wake, recount dreams; & to fuck in the morning?

Just what you might expect.

We wake in the morning and we kiss and then we get up and do what we need to do.

I adore Harry & know he adores me.

This is not the life I imagined, but - I can't imagine life without Harry.

Sleeping

Harry, Dear. Sometimes I don't sleep well.

I so love that you sleep, mumble and just get on with your night: even when I am having a bad night.

So reassuring.

Last night - I don't even want to tell you what a bad dream I dreamed. But - when I woke & gasped & recovered & and then curled into your warm (& still sound-asleep) chest - you turned around me, murmured "Baby" sleepily, smiling with your eyes closed.

I didn't go back to sleep for a while (it was five am: soon time to get up anyway) but I wasn't thinking about my nightmare; I was luxuriating in the blessing of your warmth and your arms.

Thank you.

(posted by Sally)

Thursday

I never know when Harry will read my posts or post to our blog. Our deal is: we post whenever we want to. I tend to lapse into thinking about this as a singular activity, in periods when I'm obsessively posting and he is Doing Other Things. I am always thrilled to find his postings. . .

Need to stop here to say how much I adore the (my) Boyo in question. He always takes me seriously, cares for me tenderly, and never EVER sells me or himself short. He is the best. I want only to to live up to the standard he sets. And of course, to keep sleeping cuddled together - every night.

(Posted By Sallie)

Wednesday Dinner - Posted by Harry

I needed to get out of the house last night. Sallie and I had dinner at our favorite (or one of our favorite) Thai restaurants. The restaurant has a "neighborhood" feel and we love dining there, the dinners are almost always good, and it's a BYOB. But the main reason this local restaurant is near and dear to mine and Sallie's heart is because it's the scene of our first date, or Date 1. I remember how it felt dining there on Date 1, almost two years ago, how I felt such ease and happiness with Sallie, and all the possibilities. I still feel that way. The Thai restaurant --- our small table, our talk, the bottle of wine --- reinforces the magic of who we are together. In fact magic, or brilliant, or wonderful is how I would characterize my life with Sallie.

The Dust Seems a Must - Posted by Harry

I agree with Sallie. I just wish we could have extended moments when everything was worry free, or where there wasn't a problem to deal with. I know that's naive of me, but at present are not experiencing the kind of major dust storm as we did in Spring-Summer of 2008 with the house moves and changes with kids, and with my mother dying. I felt that time had the potential to be a real challenge in our relationship, because after all, during that period we'd only been together several months. And yet somehow I never doubted the strength of our love. Maybe I'm a perennial optimist (was never called that!) but still hoping for easier times, especially on the career front. Sallie started a new full-time job and has some interesting part-time jobs. She is working so hard. I pray we end up OK, and yet I know that we will as long as we can see the forest for the trees.

Mr Tambourine Man

Today driving to work (something I haven't done much of lately, but more on that later) I discovered that after the approximately a million or so years since I first heard & revered it, I STILL know all the words to that Bob Dylan oldie.

"To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
silhouetted by the sea. . . yadda yadda yadda"

To my ear now it's such a (young!) paean to - what? teenage angst? frustrated intellectual pretensions? Drug use?

Still, so many nicely turned phrases; apt, slick and singable. Dear Zimmerman.

When I was thirteen or so, in the period when my boyfriend John A and his sister Linnea were the important people in my emotional universe - Bobby Z and his lyrics were the final word on everything for the three of us. . I remember Linnea saying once, as we waited for her brother who was supposed to be taking me to the movies at some point,

"I learn more by listening to a single Dylan song for the fortieth time than by sitting in any class." L was in eighth grade at the time and I was much in awe of her sophistication. . .

I was older than L but much less confidant of my views. I went to all my classes and took notes - but I couldn't help wondering how one acquired L's confidence or the mysterious ability to DECIDE that a Dylan lyric was somehow more important, interesting or relevant.

In his senior year (a short year after I had decamped to a local liberal arts college, not (I hasten to assure you) exactly breaking his heart) John got a scholarship to an engineering school. After he graduated brilliantly, I heard he got a fellowship to a prestigious program at Yale. His ability to fix ,build and repair cars (he built from spare parts the car he took my on my first date to the movies) turnedout to be his way out of the rural backwater he, his sister and I found ourselves trying to grow up in, those lazy summers we spent listening to Dylan songs.

I hear about John A sometimes from long-ago friends and connections, but I have no idea what Linnea did after high school. I so wish I did.


(by Sally)