Plant Trees Under Whose Shade You Do Not Expect to Sit

It all started with stand-up comedian Marc Maron.

Personally, I only find Maron occasionally funny, only sometimes as good as he wants to be. Mostly, his overblown ego and need for attention quash any shot at charm.

You may have dated someone like this in high school. Although painful at the time, it was for the best that you guys broke up the week before graduation while sitting on the hood of his Dodge Omni in the McDonald’s parking lot; had that relationship continued as a long-distance affair into the first semester of college, he absolutely would have cheated on you with a girl from Michigan named Heather and then called you to confess his misdeed right as you were walking out the door to take your final exam in Poli Sci 101. What’s worse, he would have made you feel that his straying was somehow your fault–because you were, selfishly, too far away, too not there for him, too busy studying the Swedish model of government to fulfill his needs.

Fortunately, although you would have sobbed your way up the hill as you walked to your final exam and then found yourself so distraught you could hardly write out even bare-bones responses about highly-developed individualism in socialistic countries (here’s a direct quote from your exam, as I recently pawed through your recycling bin in The Universe of Parallel Realities and retrieved that tear-blotched Blue Book from 1984: “It’s okay for there to be an I in the midst of a we; why is that so hard for the democracies of the world and asshat cheating bastards to get???”), being freed from that relationship would have meant you were able to move on and really commit to the joys of college life without constantly pining for the half of your heart you’d checked into a dorm at the state university. Post break-up, you would have reclaimed that half of your heart and then, years later, tried not to chuckle too evilly when your cheating ex and Heather got divorced because she’d been caught with lipstick on her collar as a result of steppin’ out with–gasp!–Sharon Garrison after a Pampered Chef party one night.

Other bonuses from this young-adultian angst would have been the fact that your abysmal score on the poli sci final exam helped to convince you that you didn’t actually want to major in politics or become a lawyer. Rather, you would have taken the memories of the nausea you felt when writing about Swedish socialism and wiping broken-heart snot onto the sleeve of your hoodie and decided to make it your life’s work to figure out why stomachs sometimes roil uncontrollably.

All of this is why you would have become a research scientist, specializing in the study of lipids, making three times the income of your cheating ex who, satisfyingly, would be living in a dark one-bedroom apartment with only a couch, a universal remote, and a stack of yearbooks in the living room to keep him company.

But none of this actually happened, Silly, since you guys broke up a week before graduation. That’s why you had your damn act together for your first final exam, and you rocked the poli sci and did become a lawyer. It took a decade, though, for you to realize wholly how propitious that break-up was; only as a fully-realized adult did you have the capacity to register rampant relief at not being yoked to a partner whose contributions to the relationship were limited to (1) ego and (2) need for attention. Your life’s edges had to harden before you could apprehend the exponential happinesses that derive from Not Being Romantically Partnered to A Petulant Child (or A Pampered Chef!), but along the way, you made yourself economically independent and met a good guy–the right guy–someone who doesn’t feel diminished by scrubbing toilets, who doesn’t call spending time with his own children “babysitting,” who watches you when you cry and admires the strength it takes to express emotion.

So now, some decades later, you’re a happy lawyer with an iPod, and you love to listen to Marc Maron’s podcast a few times a week. Every time Maron launches into one of his self-obsessed monologues, it’s not so much annoying as it is a welcome reminder of bullets dodged and final exams well written. You listen to the anger and the anxiety that he’s still trying to tame in his late forties, and hearing his biweekly rants makes you smile, makes you sigh with something resembling bliss, makes you think, “Praise the hood of that Dodge Omni that I’m not committed to life in which a voice like that sets the tone.”

The all-too-real phantom woman in this scenario is not me, incidentally, so save yourself the energy of trying to connect fictional dots into a profile of my face. Yes, I drove a Dodge Omni in the 1980s. Yes, we hung out in the McDonald’s parking lot in high school. Yes, I took political science my first semester of college, a class in which we studied the Swedish model (having only skimmed the course description in the catalog, I was stunned when I was the only student who showed up the first day toting a poster of catwalkerย Vendela Kirsebom). Let’s see, what else can I give you? I know a guy who’s a research scientist whose work focuses on lipids. Although I never asked him directly, I don’t think he’s ever bawled his way through a final exam. I feel pretty certain of this because he’s Algerian, and male college students in Algeria generally don’t come out the other side of their degree programs if they have a track record of public weeping. Oh, also: because I’d rocked the Original Oratory event and the odd Lincoln-Douglas debate during my forensics career in high school, I did want to be a lawyer when I started college, a dream that lasted approximately two weeks, until the night I found myself sitting in a fountain, clutching a half-drunk bottle of Peachy Riunite, wondering where my shoes had gone, and it occurred to me shortly before I dropped my flushed cheek onto the cool, cool stone of the fountain that I might do better to pursue a career not predicated on ration, logic or getting my mind from Point A to Point B without taking a U-turn at the letter K.

As well, I do listen to Marc Maron’s biweekly podcasts, and I do enjoy them heartily–but not because I successfully dodged a relationship with someone like him. Rather, I listen to his podcasts because Maron overcomes his personal limitations by being one helluvan interviewer, particularly when he manages to keep the conversation focused on the guest and not his own history of interpersonal tensions, eating issues, and parental resentment. That noted, I do have to say that when Maron interviewed Conan O’Brien, he received a valuable therapy session from the late-night host thanks to O’Brien’s skills as an active listener.

Then again, if you have Conan O’Brien sitting in your garage, letting you interview him, shouldn’t you maybe shut up about how you can’t stop gorging on ice cream and then reeling from the resultant self-loathing?

In his best moments, however, Maron achieves something wonderful with the comedians, actors, and writers he interviews: he connects; he illuminates; he creates moments that remind listeners that there is power in two voices bouncing back and forth against a backdrop of silence. Of course he’s able to do something wonderful–even self-obsessed egotists have appeal. Why do you think you hooked up with your high school boyfriend in the first place? Remember it? It happened the hour after that dramatic hair-flipper Mindy Fassenberger lobbed a pointed comment your direction, hissing “Cowsย shouldn’t be allowed in the schools.” Still oozing hurt, you were sitting in trigonometry class, attempting to staunch the flow of liquid pain, when the soon-to-be boyfriend applied balm to your savaged self-esteem by catching your gaze and rolling his eyes while Mr. Norak joked, “I wear glasses because it improves division.” As you and your soon-to-be boyfriend shuffled out of the room towards seventh period, he leaned over and whispered to you, “What a dork. We should call him Mr. Dork-ak,”

and in that moment you were that much less alone in a world churning with cruelty and sneak attacks.

Soon-to-be boyfriend had connected, illuminated, created a moment. Soon-to-be boyfriend had seen you, and that validation created an ingress to your pneuma (Ingress to Her Pneuma, coincidentally, was the working title of Freud’s book about his mother’s loss of virginity; ultimately, however, just before the proofs went to the printer, he changed his mind and went with She Had a Hole in More Than Her Heart).

Maron, at his best, achieves what your boyfriend did that day in trigonometry class: he sees people and helps them move their stories forward.

What’s more, Maron identifies with his guests because he is so conscious–obsessively conscious–of his own vulnerabilities. In addition to ice cream binges, for example, Maron often monologues about how (when his primary companion, Anger, is absent) he is given to weeping at life’s small moments,

such as those portrayed in the reality television cooking program called Chopped.

Each week on this show, four chefs compete in three rounds (appetizer, entree, dessert), submitting to judging after each round, until only one chef remains. Distilling as it does all the hopes and stresses of humanity, this simple cooking show brings Maron to tears.

Having heard of this show through Maron’s podcast, I was itching to see it. All my iPod-toting lawyer friends already watched it with regularity, thanks to earning salaries that could accommodate cable television. However, since I’d had my Peachy Riunite night in the fountain and subsequently decided not to become a lawyer, I had taken a different route, one that has led to the less-robust salary of an English teacher, a salary which cannot rationalize $65 a month just to have access to 150 television channels, only 3 of which are worth watching. If, though, when I was 18, I had realized Peachy Riunite was directing me to a life without cable television and therefore limiting future opportunities to watch Chopped, I might have steered myself towards the apple schnapps.

As you learned on the hood of the Dodge Omni in the McDonald’s parking lot, however, we can’t go back and undo our choices, nor should we care to.

For me, it’s a good thing that I became an English teacher and not a lawyer and, consequently, can’t afford cable. Not only does a cable-free life save me from staring frequently, aghast, at the hair of that guy who hosts Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, it also gives me ample free hours in which to run the trails of my city and nurture seeds into seedlings.

It also gives me the opportunity to be over-the-moon excited when I am in the presence of cable. When I stay in a hotel for a conference, often times I scan the agenda of break-out sessions while muttering, “Okay, which of these can I skip? Because–HELLO, PEOPLE– THERE ARE HOUSES BEING FLIPPED AND BRIDESMAID DRESSES BEING CHOSEN INSIDE THE ELECTRONIC BOX THAT LIVES UP IN MY ROOM ON THE FIFTH FLOOR. PLUS, ALSO, THERE’S AN ICE MACHINE UP THERE, AND THAT’S SOMETHING ELSE I REALLY GET EXCITED ABOUT, AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE WAY I CAN DROP MY TOWELS ON THE FLOOR, AND THEN THEY DISAPPEAR THE NEXT DAY.”

In addition to hotel rooms, I also encounter cable tv at my in-laws’ house. They aren’t huge television watchers, as a rule, but since they live in the country, they get no tv reception at all without a satellite boost. So they have cable.

And that means I get very little sleep when we visit the in-laws.

Especially when I discover at midnight that back-to-back episodes of Chopped are airing and I will, at long last, have the chance to see what’s been making Mark Maron snivel.

That’s what happened when we were visiting last month, and by the time 2 a.m. rolled around, I was sated and happy. I’d seen people cooking with caul fat, fer holy smashes! Even though I hadn’t cried, Chopped had delivered.

Not nearly enough hours later, my mood was distinctly less upbeat. Because we were having a family birthday party that day, my only chance to go for a run was before the party. As not-a-morning person in general, but particularly not-a-morning person when I’d watched cable and then read my book until after 3 a.m., my mood was dark.

Enter the anti-Maron, the not-your-high-school boyfriend: Byron.

The shorthand of our relationship allowed me to communicate that I was feeling vewy, vewy tiwed and that I feared that having to head out of the bedroom and play nice with his friendly parents might put me over the edge.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

A minute later, he returned with a banana and a cup of coffee, doctored to perfection. “Once you’re done with these, you should slip out the basement door and not go upstairs at all. Just avoid the morning pleasantries altogether, and go run.”

As if he didn’t already own me.

While I was out running, he puttered around his parents’ kitchen and made all the food for the birthday party.

A few hours later, in the midst of the festivities, my semi-perkified head was starting to droop. “Crikey, but I need the mid-afternoon pick-me-up that is a huge cup of coffee,” I noted out loud.

“Me, too,” agreed Byron, which spurred on coffee orders from his uncle and dad.

We walked to the coffee pot, four mugs in hand,

and discovered a mere inch of coffee pooling in the bottom.

Laying my cheek on the kitchen counter, fleetingly imagining it was the stone of a fountain, I moaned, “How long will it take to make a new pot? I have a serious case of The Whinies today, and only coffee can drown them.”

Byron, a man who would never call time with his own children “babysitting,” a man who scrubs the toilet and admires my tears, lowered his voice and murmured, “You take this coffee now. I’ll make a new pot. The others can wait five minutes for theirs.”

Some time later, the party over, we were in the car driving the three hours back to Duluth when Byron announced, “Here’s my plan. When we pull over for a bathroom break, we’ll dump you at the Panera so that you can grab a quick hour of wireless access since my parents’ Internet was out all weekend. I know you’re frantic inside about all the student work that’s been submitted this weekend and itching to answer all the questions that have flooded the class and your email. So you sit and work, and the kids and I will drive around and figure out what we’re all having for dinner. I’ll also distract them at Target for a bit to buy you more time.”

An hour later, full of chicken and burritos, my work stress considerably attenuated, we were back on the road. Since the weather was looking forbidding the further North we got, Byron insisted on driving. His knuckles were white the last 90 miles, as high winds pushed the car towards the shoulder, and lashing rains obscured the road.

He got us home safely. Naturally.

As we unpacked that night, I looked ahead to the work week that would have me on campus, participating in job interviews for a new dean. Standing next to a huge pile of dirty laundry, I peered into my closet and wondered aloud, “What should I wear tomorrow? I have to look professional, but I just want to be comfy.”

Not missing a beat, Byron suggested, “You can never go wrong with jeggings tucked into boots.”

Fortunately, he survived my enthusiastic response to his suggestion (a full-body tackle punctuated by a firm smooch) and was functional enough a few hours later to crack a beer made by a brewery called 21st Amendment, pour it into a frosty glass, and hand it to me while explaining, “It’s called ‘Allies Win the War!’; it’s brewed with dates. Enjoy.”

We sat togetherย on our Turkish kilim-covered couch, alternately sipping our beers and holding hands. When the bottom of the glass appeared, he began yawning. “I’m not even going to try to stay up longer. If I go to bed now, you can get to your Sunday night grading sooner, which means you can get to bed earlier, too. What with being kept up so late by Chopped last night, I know you’re whupped. That damn Maron.”

 

There is this thing about Byron.

Actually, there are about seven-eleventy things about him.

That day, though, the thing about him was that he was–as he always is–positively Wordsworthian. Although it was some two hundred years ago that Wordsworth observed “The best portion of a good man’s life [is] his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love,” Byron breathes new life into the sentiment.

Effortlessly, easily, happily–Byron carries out his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. He discusses with the kids what foods might work best in their lunch bags. He helps nervous wannabe-gardeners at the green house where he works, directing them to low-maintenance plants that will lead them to feelings of success. He speaks to me of jeggings. He stops to chat with the lonely neighborhood dog-walker who spends hours each day trolling the alleys and sidewalks, looking for conversation. He offers our old patio chairs to the college students across the way. He sits down with our Girl and helps her prioritize her choices of volunteerism sites for a summer program. He reads the newspaper aloud on a radio station for the sight-impaired. He cuddles the hell out of Paco, our most-tactile resident. He retreats to the basement to draw, knowing that, to be capable of kindnesses to others, he must tend to his own needs.

Lacking the ego and passive/aggressiveness of your high school boyfriend, free of the anger and neediness of Mark Maron, Byron demonstrates a less-fraught way of moving through the world.

I like to think I meet him halfway in all he does: by providing endless occasions for his thoughtfulness.

Perhaps I do one other thing, too:

I take the Dodge Omni and political science final exam moments of my personal history–

in their many forms–

and turn them into the basis of an enduring gratitude.

I went through much before Byron, which makes it infinitely pleasurable now to note

and remember

his many unremembered acts of kindness and love.

 

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37 responses to “Plant Trees Under Whose Shade You Do Not Expect to Sit”

  1. Chantal Avatar

    phew, I got through it. I wasn’t sure I would ๐Ÿ˜‰
    you are a lucky lady and I will admit that I am feeling more and more like that with my DH. He is not quite up to Byron’s standards, but he isn’t far off. And I love him all the more for it.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      At least your efforts at reading were rewarded with talk of jeggings and burritos, though, right?

      Congrats on having a great guy, too. I firmly believe that we are incapable of properly vetting our partners when we’re dating them, as, at that time in life, we have no idea of what all we’ll need from them. Thus, there’s a fair bit of luck in ending up with the right person.

  2. Pearl Avatar

    You’re a goofy bastard and I love you.

    And Byron.

    Pearl

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      This goofy bastard loves you right back.

      Takes one to know one.

  3. Lil Avatar

    I love your amazingly convoluted way of getting to a point. Love. It.

    As for DD&D – the wonderful thing about that show is that they’ve visited Duluth and I have decided I must eat where they went.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      They visited–not that I’ve seen the show–both the Duluth Grill and At Sara’s Table, I do believe. One of my students was the cook at the Duluth Grill when they were coming and gave me a sneaky heads-up that I SHOULD EAT THERE THAT NIGHT. Unfortunately, something else was on the schedule…

      Anyhow, thanks for understanding that convoluted can be fun. And I’ll totally take you out to eat when you come here.

  4. Secret Agent Woman Avatar

    Jeggings. Huh. This surprises me.

    I have the same reaction to cable TV when I’m in a hotel, now that my house in television-free.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      The jeggings thing surprises me, too. I had a public Facebook question-and-answer session about them, in fact, before proceeding with the purchase. They are amazing, and I adore them: http://athleta.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=818620002&userSearchText=jeggings&searchCID=44995

      1. Secret Agent Woman Avatar

        So, believe it or not, the local paper here had a big “Denim Do’s and Don’t’s” article on the front page of the living section today. They said jeggings were never the answer. I kid you not.

        1. Secret Agent Woman Avatar

          Ooh, but I do love Athleta. I have a dress and some workout clothes from them. This may call for some re-thinking.

          1. Jocelyn Avatar

            Their jeggings have transformed my last nine months.

        2. Jocelyn Avatar

          Oh, yes, people do love to hate the jeggings. They’re essentially a super-skinny pant, though, and what’s better to tuck into knee-high boots? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing. Too much fabric in other kinds of pants.

  5. C-leen Avatar
    C-leen

    You got a good one there.

    I, too, binge on CHOPPED whenever I’m in a hotel room. In fact, T and I spent last Xmas morning in a hotel room in Ann Arbor watching a CHOPPED marathon and gorging on sundries from Zingerman’s before we had to go to my Aunt Kathy’s house for the full-on family fryup. It was perfect.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      Just had to google Zingerman’s. NUM.

      Did you see that cheating harlot, Heather, while in Michigan?

  6. kmkat Avatar

    Love it! Your winding narrative reminds me something my husband says occasionally, in explanation of a winding narrative: I told you all that to tell you this. And then he makes his point. (I like that, too.)

  7. Jocelyn Avatar

    Your husband ROCKS. Sure, I could just have typed “My husband is so awesome” and hit publish, but where’s the richness in that?

  8. chlost Avatar

    Well, I now feel completely inadequate in at least three ways….I have no idea of who this Maron guy is…..I do not appreciate nearly enough the small kindnesses of my husband, who is right up there with your Byron……and Dang, I wish I could write like you write.

    You two are so cute!

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      Forget Maron; use your energy to stroke your lovely husband–say, by bringing him a cuppa when he’s tired.

      Oh, and for the third? Huge thank you. That means quite a lot to me.

  9. Deborah Avatar

    Jocelyn, you should be writing for a bigger audience, in another medium. I can see a book (two, at least) with your name writ large on the cover. A female Minnesotan Douglas Coupland, perhaps, although I haven’t the faintest idea of what I’m comparing you to because I’ve only ever heard second-hand of his stuff, albeit in glowing terms.
    Or maybe a more accessible Joyce Carol Oates. Or, closer to my heart, Anne Tyler. (And only slightly off-topic, if you can ever find ‘Stunt’ by Claudia Dey, grab it. I want to know what you think of it.)

    I wouldn’t have dreamt that this post would end up as an ode to your heart’s desire, but once I realized that it was, in fact, that, I began to wonder how he would write about you. If he were ever to do such a thing. The only problem with writing so complimentarily about him, and about all he does for you, is that the reader begins to wonder what it is you do for him. This is venturing a little into ‘rough neighbourhood’ territory, as Friko calls it, and I’ve wrestled overnight with the thought that my wondering might be misconstrued. I do hope not.
    So then I was thinking that it could be interesting to write from the other perspective, as in, what do YOU think you bring him. Because this isn’t Byron’s space, and I have a feeling he wouldn’t be wanting to write about anything so personal anyway. You remember, surely, reading an instrcution in some magazine somwhere about how we (women, since it would have been a magazine for women..) need to love ourselves, and support ourselves, and that standing in front of a mirror and telling yourself all the things you think are good about yourself is a way to start that process? How squirmy it feels? But what if you took it seriously? And what if this was your mirror?

    Is there any point to this, or am I just rattling around uselessly while on my coffee break from cleaning kitchen cupboards?

    Gad, I feel uncomfortable already, just thinking about doing such a thing.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      There’s no “rough neighborhood” territory for me at all on this subject, Dearie, so never fear. I bring quite a lot to Byron, and I think it would be fun to lay it out. One thing, for example, is my closing sentiment, that I bring “remembering” of things usually gone unremembered. I absolutely bring that to both of us. On the same note, I bring active gratitude. His would lie low and just be, but I dig it up and make him look it in the face.

      I’ll mull on this more and see if I can’t get a post out of it. Interestingly, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, to contemplate my gifts. To be worthy of how great Byron is, I’d have to be pretty awesome myself, and I’m definitely worthy. However, my gifts differ so dramatically from his–in some ways, they’re easier to see, but in other ways, they’re not, as he’s the guy who “does stuff,” and I’m the one who “says and feels stuff.” The world has different ways of seeing these things, indeed.

  10. lime Avatar

    the wordsworth quote will be his epitaph as he has clearly lived it so very well. you guys are blessed and oh so wise to recognize it. this makes my heart feel like you must feel when you are full of bananas and coffee (though if i were full of the same i’d not be feeling well at all since i hate coffee and i am violently allergic to bananas, but you know, i am trying to speak your language).

  11. lime Avatar

    i hope we can still be friends in spite of the whole coffee/banana thing. i think the swedes would approve.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      Every banana you don’t eat is one for me. Every cup of coffee you don’t drink is more for me. So we’re all good.

      Now, we just need to figure out what I dislike and you love, so I can give it all to you. Too bad I like Hugh Jackman. You can have all my tomatoes, though.

      1. lime Avatar

        i am a great fan of tomatoes. i love me a nice ripe, homegrown mater, sliced up and sprinkled with pepper. mmmmm….i will take all yours in swap for all my bananas. and sorry, i have dibs on hugh since we share the exact same birthday.

  12. Jenn @ Juggling Life Avatar

    You do have the most delightfully convoluted way of making the most excellent points. This was a particular delight to read. It truly is the little things.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      You are kind to find “convoluted” to be delightful. The little things, indeed–the things that fill our days without note–are the most worthy of notice.

  13. magpie Avatar

    This showed up in my reader and I skimmed it. It demanded more, so I clicked to the site. It really wanted to be printed out, so I did that and read it on my way home yesterday. It’s just wonderful. I love where you start and where you finish and how you get there and does your husband teach other husbands? Because, man, he sounds like a peach.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      The same way I get excited about an ice machine in a hotel, I just got excited that you actually printed this thing out.

      Byron’s the biggest peach ever. It would be good if he could pass on what he does, but actually a huge part of his charm is how unaware and non-planned his way of being is.

  14. pam Avatar

    Love, love, LOVE the photo!! The best thing anyone can do for their children is to have the kind of relationship you two have….and yes, I think we all know those self-absorbed young men we fell in love with – or is that ‘with whom we fell in love’ Jocelyn?? , and left us heartbroken and flat. I saw mine in a newspaper 15 years later , fat, bald and heading up a local price-war on milk as dairy manager in a supermarket. Not that there is anything wrong with bald,(or dairy actually…and I have a lot of time for supermarkets generally speaking) but he was always combing his hair looking in the mirror, in fact, ANY reflective surface – left profile, right profile.
    They have those long reflective glass doors in the refrigerated dairy section – hope that kept him happy – or now miserable as they case may be!

  15. unmitigated me Avatar

    Hubs and I are wild about Maron’s podcast, and we both enjoy Kevin Pollack’s interview show. Much lower-key, but still a great interviewer. HE likes Elvis Mitchell’s The Treatment which is film-oriented, but I can’t bear listening to a guy speak with what sounds like a mouthful of marbles. Until he learns to ennunciate, I won’t listen, even though his questions are awesome.

    I am married to just such an awesome man, but could never express it so beautifully as you do. Another amazing piece of writing.
    Bee-Tee-Dubs…I live in Michigan and that Heather still dresses like a tramp.

  16. Friko Avatar

    I was hoping this post would become more than an in-depth exploration of a person I’ve never heard of; when you mentioned another one – forgot the name already and can’t be bothered to go back – my heart sank. How silly of me! Trust Jocelyn never to stick to the initial subject, although you, in a way, did, by comparing snivelling broadcaster with steadfast, reliable, sensitive, in tune with his feminine side, sexy Byron, a peach of a man.

    The one I myself finally ended up with is a slightly older (slightly? blimey!) version of Byron, who has probably been the blueprint for all subsequent Byrons on this earth. There is a fair age difference between me and my Byron; now I am the mainstay of his journey through life. If you are lucky then perhaps you too will be able to repay some of those kindnesses you so gratefully and appreciatively receive.

    As Deborah says, it might be an idea to explore the other side of the picture. I can tell you, giving is as sweet as receiving and just as exhilarating.

  17. Patois Avatar

    I’m totally lost on what jeggings are. But I couldn’t be pulled away from the post to actually go look. That’s how fun it was to read.

    1. Jocelyn Avatar

      Many would argue that anything keeping you away from thoughts of jeggings can’t be bad.

  18. Mother Theresa Avatar

    I am reminded of The Professor by this, he’s one of those Wordsworthian kind of men too. Somehow, I think he and Byron would hit it off if they ever met. We are lucky women, Jocelyn.

  19. Bone Avatar

    to be capable of kindnesses to others, he must tend to his own needs.

    A wonderfully woven story. I found that line to be particularly astute, and a good reminder. And love how excited you get about cable and hotel rooms. I think I still have a bit of a childlike joy at staying in a hotel for a night or two.

    Oh! And Riunite! I forgot about those commercials! “Riunite on ice, Riunite so nice…”

  20. Green Girl in Wisconsin Avatar
    Green Girl in Wisconsin

    Oh, I’m so glad for the hood of that Dodge.
    From the opening paragraph to the caption on that last photo you had me enthralled.
    And now I’ve got a teensy crush (okay, a HUGE crush) on your husband. Isn’t it grand to know you’ve got it GOOD?

  21. Jess Avatar

    Every girl should have a Byron. Mine is named Todd. He’s a little rough around the edges still, but I expect him to improve with age, like a fine cheese. I’m glad Byron’s got YOU!

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