Forty Four Years

What a long strange trip it has been. It all started here, in a 19th Victorian mansion turned cooperative living house in Providence, I from the West Coast and he from the East. We could have met at a Grateful Dead concert in the fall of 1977 but we did not (there were over 100,000 people there, so perhaps not surprising)--the first concert we saw together was Bob Marley in the fall of 1980, which was both a great concert and amongst the last that he performed--these two concerts did set the tone for many great shared musical experiences over the ensuing years. We loved much of the same music and we loved seeing it live. Our attendance at concerts dwindled over the years after we had children, and included more orquestral than modern music, but another truism of our early years was travel, and that has been a constant ever since. We love being on the road, talking with local people, exploring art,architecture, landscapes, and best of all, experiencing the local food. As of this very moment we have lived in surprisingly few houses--seven--had twelve dogs (one less than the 13 cars we have collectively owned, at least when you exclude the ones that were bought largely for offspring to drive), four children, three grandchilden and sadly, only three cats, the last of which we had to gift to my parents when it became clear that my spouse was allergic. It has been a bed of roses, with sweetness and thorns. We have weathered cancer in a child and my own cancer, the terrible losses they both wrecked, and the frightening reality that while we all die in the end, that that end might have come sooner rather than later for us. We have also had great strokes of luck and been able to recognize it as such and to savor it. I am so grateful for what we have built together, and hope for many more years to keep up the good work.