Years ago, like decades, I heard Jesse talking to Geoff after a break-up. They were on the phone, so I only heard half of the conversation, but here’s how it went:
Jesse, because his nickname that he doesn’t know about until just now is “Mr. Facts,” likes to move forward from an event by assessing with the emotion of a serial killer why something doesn’t work, asked Geoff, “Well, what’d ya like about her?”
There was silence for a minute and then I heard Jesse blurt out, “Fun? Of course you had fun! You’re in Chicago! You wanna know if a relationship works? Move to South Bend!”
This is not marriage advice. Hadley and Harper, don’t you dare come home and say, “But I must go to South Bend to see if this is true love!” Unless of course you’re on scholarship, then by all means.
I do think though, that having fun with the person you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life with is important, if not vital, and while I know it took work, I also know – and I am grateful – that my parents had fun together.
Of course I don’t have many – or any – specific examples of my mom and dad having fun without me or Geoff in the picture and this has to do in large part with the fact that up until probably our teens, Geoff and I suffered from (or maybe it was that we relished in) separation anxiety. So I would like to also add on to Jesse’s advice and say, “If you want to know if a relationship works – have kids that have velcro for skin.”
But fun we did have: There was Hilton Head Island and Disneyworld. We went to Colonial Williamsburg, Colorado, Door County, Stratford, and Niagara Falls. But there were fun moments – lots of them – at home, too. Sitting around the dinner table laughing and talking well after the meal was over, or heading to Annie’s Santa Fe for brunch every Sunday after church. Once, on a Saturday afternoon we heard on the radio that Spiderman was climbing the Sears Tower, so we threw ourselves in the car and drove downtown to see if we could catch a glimpse. I think Spiderman got arrested, and we ended up getting ice-cream, but still. FUN.
I was 17 and it was a bit after midnight on the first day of 1993. Geoff and I had started the evening together, or maybe we ended it together. I can’t remember. I know there was a baritone involved, and I don’t mean a man with a low voice, I mean Geoff and I brought the musical instrument that is a baritone out with us. On New Years’ Eve. To this day, I do not understand why we weren’t invited into any of the parties that night.
Anyway, the night was over and all four of us were in the living room talking with each other, sharing stories from the night (turns out you can scare a LOT of people playing the theme from “Jaws” from the backseat of a minivan that is driving in a speed parallel to the increasing volume and pace as the song). It was a moment of quiet and sweet rowdiness and we were never a family of yellers or fighting or extreme drama, so this moment didn’t feel like a reprieve so much as it felt solidly definitive of who we were, and how we live.
This is one of my favorite memories because it’s a nothing moment, and I love nothing moments. They are, perhaps, the South Bend of making things fun: the kind of gritty, kind of depressed industrial town with a kayak race where Jesse took me one day to watch the kayakers while we ate powdered sugar donuts fresh from Marci’s bakery, and a library where, one December Jesse found some books on writing and gave them to me because “you seem to like to write a lot, and maybe you’d like these.” They are the, “I’m gonna quit teaching and become an aerobics instructor,” and the “OK, cool. Let’s get season tickets to the football games then since this will probably be my last year at Notre Dame.” They are the Saturday walks along the St. Joseph River to the Farmer’s Market, or the “I made you a mixtape for when you drive to Goshen and watch out for black ice.” They are $2 pitchers of beer and ten cent wing nights at BW3s, and kitchen sink salads and bottles of red wine at The Vine.
Geoff and Jesse were both right that day years and years ago. Having fun with someone might be the first part of falling in love, and I think the outcome is wanting to take all of what you have and all that you are and join it with that other person to see how this will work in whatever part of the world or whatever moment you two happen to find yourselves in. For 50 years, and the story goes even before that, my parents have done just that. Over and over again.
So, cheers to my mom and dad who’ve shown us how to work, how to attend, how to pray, and not most of all, but what is sewn through this mosaic of a love story, is the thread of fun. Thank you for showing us how fun love is.
Absolutely lovely. ♥