I want more than three little words. I want to share specific positive reflections of each other. Tell the person something she surely doesn’t know: your favorite memories together and why they are so good.
“It seems that as we get older, that fact of not knowing what the future holds, instead of being full of intrigue, is an invitation to worry. In one’s mid fifties, ‘not knowing what is going to happen’ invites the thought, ‘One of us could have cancer or a heart attack any day.’ At 29, it was more like, ‘How much sex will we have,’ ‘Will we plan a vacation or have a heart-to-heart talk,’ ‘Will I meet a cute guy at this party,’ ‘Will I like this job.'”
I have notebooks full of this type of entry. Sometimes one seems especially evocative when I rediscover it. Here’s one from last April, in 2019, when we could go out and do whatever we wanted.
Maintaining that I hated boys, at twelve, gave me the space to puzzle my feelings out in private. I wouldn’t be some stupid idiot, babbling all day long about some mean boy who would only make fun of me. Instead, I had a big crush (endorsed by my two best friends) on…
I probably hadn’t gone 47 straight days of eating exclusively at home since I was in high school 40 years ago.
Bam! Dining out is prohibited.
When my husband brought home takeout barbecue last week — thank goodness restaurants can open for takeout — it was such a treat that I felt I should dress up for date night. I was already wearing my “better” sweatpants, so I didn’t bother. The next day, we were still crowing about our special meal: “Wasn’t that so much fun?” If you’d told me three months ago that I’d stop going to restaurants, I would have reacted with astonishment and, probably, petulance.
During the past week, the grassroots and then the CDC decided everybody should wear a mask when they go out. This caught on like wildfire! I had to go downtown briefly today and wanted to ride my bike. I almost decided to drive, because I didn’t want to be someone who flies by people less than six feet from them as if assuming one can’t be contagious when going fast.
My first mention, in my journal, of the COVID-19 pandemic, came on March 4, a Wednesday.
“Pike Place Market is fairly empty of tourists. Our dentist cancelled our teeth-cleaning appointments, saying that for staff and patient safety she will only see people for urgent needs. Tom is told to work from home for the rest of this week (tomorrow and Friday). … Lots of large organizations seem to be partially closing down….”
This morning I spent about 90 minutes reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
A marriage, compulsive infidelity, jealousy, pain, ambivalence; Russian takeover of the country, Czechoslovakia, betrayals to the secret police, twisted thoughts in the male and female characters who have to cope, along with their colleagues. It’s a slow and profound read, written in a layered structure in which events are revisited from different angles. I’m finding a lot of depth in it. At first, because it lingered on the Tomas character for a while, I found it too trapped in the male-philanderer perspective. I felt impatient with that and thought I might abandon the book, and I’m glad I changed my mind. I’ve ordered a copy — it’s not available for Kindle — because the copy I have (a 1985 paperback) is overdue at the library. I never saw the movie. I should watch it.
I pulled out my journals, which began when I was ten, and started typing them into a Google doc for each notebook. Typing my journals led me to read them very closely.