40

My parents will be married forty years tomorrow. At first glance, that number reminds me that I'm only a year away from turning forty myself...but that's not what inspires me to write today. I'll save that post for next year, when I'm feeling sorry for my old self.

A couple of years ago, I was looking ahead to their fortieth anniversary and talked with my brother about maybe planning some kind of party for them, but it really isn't their style. My parents are more reserved and prefer attention to be centered squarely on others for big parties. One year I forgot their anniversary and when I asked mom why she didn't remind me, she said "Well, it's not really an occasion for you to remember - it's for your dad and I to celebrate." I've thought about that a lot actually, and I think that I have to disagree.

Forty years of marriage, especially in this day and age, is definitely an accomplishment. And while I know my parents feel like their marriage is their own private occasion to celebrate, the truth is that the life they built these last forty years has had a profound effect on me, and it has been a direct influence in the life I am building for my own family. I have learned so many things from being raised in the environment they made for me, and while I didn't plan some blow-out party, I hope that I can at least celebrate this milestone by doing what I do best - writing about it. I made a list of some of the things I have learned from them.

It Doesn't Matter Where You Live
We moved a lot. A lot. When you are a young teacher, you are the first cut to make when budgets are slashed, and my dad had to deal with that quite a bit in the early years. We went from Salem, SD to Wells, MN to Herreid, SD to Brookings, SD to Blue Earth, MN before I was 10 years old. We lived in every kind of dwelling from mobile home to small house to farm house to apartment and back to house again. I can remember parts and pieces from almost all of them, and the funny thing is, they were all perfectly perfect in my young eyes. I can't remember a single negative thing about ANY of them.
If you ask my mother, she will probably not share that opinion. She absolutely hated the farm house outside of Wells; all I can remember about that house is playing on the tire swing in the yard, wrapping yarn around beautifully colored balls with her in the living room, and that I lost my two front teeth that summer and had to eat sweet corn cut off the cob and I thought that it was pretty special that she would cut it off for me. I only have good memories of that place, and of every other place we lived in - isn't that remarkable? We only lived in that house for a summer before they found us a "better" place, but for the life of me I cannot remember what was wrong with it. Why not? I know why - because when it came to making a HOME for me, my parents took that very seriously.
My dad was working in the Del Monte factory that summer - as an adult I can appreciate that must have been an awful thing, to give up the summer off to make enough money to keep us going. I never felt any kind of financial strain, and to talk with them now I understand there definitely was some financial strain in those years. I just remember that my dad used to sing the opening bars of a particular song to me, and I remember that summer that I asked him to sing the rest of the song so I could hear all of it. What a small memory, perhaps, but the point is that I never felt the hard parts, whatever they were.
As a parent myself, I will occasionally find myself wishing for a bigger/nicer/fancier home - it's important for me to remember that the structure of the home we live in has very little impact on my kids. I would do far more for them to focus on the life I make for them inside.

Give To Others Whenever You Can
Considering now that my parents were by no means wealthy in the monetary sense, it might seem unusual that the idea of giving was so celebrated in our house. Whenever I gave something of myself to someone, whether it be my time, my energy, my hard work, or my talents, my parents quietly praised that action, and slowly over the years I've found that I take real joy in what I can contribute to the people around me. If I were to list all the ways my parents found to better the lives of our friends and neighbors, they would be embarrassed that I called attention to it, so I will refrain from doing so. But my mother loves thinking up ways to do something unexpected for someone, and my dad will shovel out the neighbor before he shovels out his own walk. Those are just small examples, but I lived under that model my whole life and I find that by continuing on that journey, I'm not just enriching the lives of the people around me, I'm giving something to myself as well. I don't believe I'm on this Earth purely to better my own experience here, but also to make it a little bit better for the people around me. (This probably contributes to that Can't Say No condition I suffer from, but at the end of the day I'd rather be accused of doing too much for others than the alternative.)

When You Don't Agree, Do So Respectfully
Everyone fights, everyone argues. There have likely been lots of times in forty years that my parents didn't see eye to eye on things. To their eternal credit, I have never seen my parents have a knock-down drag-out good old-fashioned yelling match ever, in the almost forty years I've been on this Earth. I've seen them disagree; retreat to their respective corners to think it over, then come back together to talk it out. They listen to each other, and while sometimes one or another might "win" the argument, they don't hold grudges and they never let a disagreement affect their bond.
I can't tell you how much this has shaped my own life. I've learned how to fully think through a problem before I try to solve it. I've learned that however valid I think my argument is, the other side is also perfectly valid, and that my own wishes do not out weigh the wishes of others. I have learned that an argument should never cross the line into being personal, and not to let one bad day color any of the others.
If they've ever had it out, they've done it out of my presence, and I'm so grateful for that. I've never seen them be ugly to each other, and it has taught me to have that expectation in my own relationships. I hope I can continue to model that for my kids.

Communicate Your Needs
My parents are very good at letting each other know what they need. From the mundane to the essential, I've listened to them talk to each other and watched them go out of their way for each other for so long, that it's almost like a beautiful dance. There are so many examples to choose from here...my dad is a creature of habit and mom will go to great lengths to keep routines running smoothly for him. My dad makes sure that anytime my mom needs anything, he makes it happen. From stopping at the store on the way home to making sure the car is warmed up and gassed up any time she needs it, there are so many small ways they take care of each other. They can anticipate what the other is needing, without words, and that is no small accomplishment. It isn't always convenient, but they make the effort anyway.

Family First
We have a large extended family, but we live quite a ways away from most of them. With all the moving we did over the years, the four of us became a very tight central unit. Life is full of both highs and lows, and our family has been no stranger to hard times. Through all of it, we had one simple philosophy, and that was to take care of each other. The needs of our family far outweighed any outside influence, and my brother and I often talk about how rare a thing it is to have parents like ours. Every single thing we have ever wanted or tried to do, was met with enthusiastic support from both of our parents. I wonder how many people out there enjoyed that kind of upbringing? We had only to mention a whim or a thought or a wish, and our parents got right behind it. They made so many of our adventures a possibility, not by paying for it, but by helping us figure out how to get it for ourselves.
I wanted to go to Scotland and live for a little while. "Okay,  no problem, let's start a savings account this summer." Hey, I changed my major and now I want to be an English teacher, so I need to go to school for another year. "All right, make an appointment with your advisor, I'll call the financial aid office, and let's make it happen." I want to move 14 hours away and risk life and limb to live in the mountains. "Let me help you pack."
Truly, our happiness was ours to make. My parents, if they had an opinion, rarely voiced it unless there was some concern for our health and well-being. (I wish they had warned me about Missouri, but they probably didn't know what a fiasco that would be!) And my brother and I both have led the lives we have truly wanted to live, with no strings or ties to hold us back.

Laugh A Lot
Our family has a dry, dark, and sometimes strange sense of humor. I think it comes from all those years of close togetherness. We don't get a chance to be a foursome all that often anymore, but when we do, we laugh. And laugh. At ourselves, at each other, at our choices and our lives. I can remember so many family game nights, and games in the car on trips, and 2 hour phone conversations filled with inside joke after inside joke. There is something magical that happens when the four of us are sitting around the table playing cards, and it will be the legacy they leave behind that I would miss the most. I only have to mention the Spanish Armadillo, and the entire tone of the conversation changes. Get a few drinks in us, and then it gets really interesting. I love those nights more than anything, and I hope I can build that for my own kids as they grow.

Love Each Other
No matter what we say or do or think or feel, we love each other no matter what. It would be so easy to hold on to hurt feelings, much easier than letting them go, but at the root of every thought and action in our lives is love. I know without question that may parents love me desperately. I have always known it, and never doubted it, even when I was making some poor decisions in my teenage years. I can catalog every time I ever let them down, and even when I knew they weren't always happy with me, I never once doubted how much they loved me.
As a parent, I aspire to this and have a great fear of not being able to do it as well as they did. I want my children to walk around in the world with  my love for them at the very center of their beings. You can navigate life with such confidence, knowing that in the hard times and the failures, you have a soft place to fall, and someone who loves you even if you royally screw up. They are just a phone call away, and I call them far too often, probably. They celebrate my successes, share in my frustrations, listen quietly to my failures and guide me tirelessly in my uncertainty.

These things, among others, are the legacy of your forty years together, at least as they apply to me. Thank you for making our houses homes, for teaching me to laugh and how to love. Thank you for the strong sense of self and confidence you instilled in me, and thank you for showing me what compromise and a happy marriage should look like. Happy Anniversary...Love, Sara

Vintage

Yesterday it was Emma's turn to get the mail; when she brought it into the house she held up a catalog from some mail-order department store of sorts, where Everything Is Affordable (In Only 10 Easy Payments of $19.99!)
The kids were kind of amazed at the idea that we could order by mail an entire household of brand-new items. They had a great time poring over the pages and pointing out all kinds of things we should probably have. I think the shine and polish of brand-new appliances and furniture must seem thrilling to my kids, whose house is filled with furnishings of exactly the opposite nature.

I will freely admit that my obsession with vintage might be bordering on pathological. It would be unusual to find a single significant piece that was purchased in the last 10 years. Heck, I am not sure there are very many pieces that were even purchased by ME.
Most of the things that surround me in my home are hand-me-downs from the people we have loved. And every item has a story attached in some significant way. It gives me great comfort to run my hand across my grandmother's table; to wrap myself in an afghan my mother hand-knitted; to put butter in Grandma Dee's butter dish, to drink water out of colored aluminum tumblers from my great-grandma's farm house.
Part of it is a return to my childhood, I think. I used to sit at my Grandma Bartscher's dressing table, delighted at her matching brush and hand mirror, charmed by the silver turtle pincushion that sat on the corner. I remember the crystal bowl she used to serve red jello with bananas, and the green glass lamp with a big brass key that sat on the end table next to the couch where I slept. When you turned the key, the light in the glass threw a ghostly green glow on the floor. One more turn and the brighter bulb above in the shade clicked to life. Grandma always left the green light on in case I needed to get a drink or go to the bathroom. She would check on me in the middle of the night without fail, and in the glow of that green lamp she would tuck the pink velour blanket down around my feet.
I loved that lamp passionately, because I associated it with my grandmother who I loved passionately and lost far too early. And when it was time to clean out my Grandpa's house, I made sure I brought that lamp home. I think a modern designer would shudder at the look of that lamp, but I could never part with it.

I am lucky that I married a man who not only understands this about me, but shares my passion for staying connected to the past. When we go fishing, he brings Grandpa Ted's fishing tackle on every trip. Ted's fishing bifocals are still in the box, and Emma loves to put them on when she is tying tackle. I know that when Aaron smiles at his daughter outfitted in those goofy glasses, he doesn't just see a goofy 9-year old. He's looking through her, like a window to the past where his grandpa sat in the boat with him, tying tackle and teaching him the ins and outs of catching fish. How could I ever replace them with a pair of plastic store-bought glasses, made from a mold, pressed in some factory somewhere and labeled with a bright yellow $9.99 sticker?

I see so much more value in the depression-era quilt that I picked up at an estate auction for five bucks than I do in the down comforter I purchased online for $59.99. I don't even know who made the quilt in this case, but someone somewhere spent hours upon hours hand stitching a scrap quilt, likely created from pieces of their life: a torn dress, an old work shirt, a sheet or a tablecloth. That quilt is batted with real wool, shorn from a sheep - not pressed and filled in a factory in China. That quilt is hanging on a wooden quilt rack my husband made for me himself during our first year of dating. On top of the shelf are three glass bells that came from his grandmother's house and offer a quiet reminder of that great lady who loved him.

What do my children see when they look around our home? Do they see the worn edges of the buffet in the dining room? Do they see the chip out of the edge of that serving bowl? Do they see a stack of blankets that are certainly used, definitely faded, and unraveling a little at the edges? Maybe so. It shouldn't surprise me when they come home from someone else's house and ooh and ahh over their "really nice house." We probably don't have the same "really nice house" that lots of other people have.
I wish they could see what I see. When I get out that serving bowl, I see the hundreds of meals I ate at my grandparent's table. That buffet has traveled through three different family homes, the most recent being my own parents, and has survived many dramatic adventures. And those blankets - well, if you've never made an afghan or a quilt by hand, then you probably have no idea what those mean. I don't see the faded colors, I see my mother sitting wrapped up on the couch, crochet hook in hand,  talking about her day with my dad and trying to finish one last row before she heads to bed.

Even my own wedding ring has a story. (Actually, I have 2 wedding rings, and they BOTH have a story.) When I went to look at rings with Aaron so he could get some idea of what I liked, I just never had that pull toward those gigantic sparkly rings that so many women are fond of. They seemed so out-of-place on my hand; like they weren't real, even though the price tag certainly said otherwise.
We went to several jewelers, and finally we stumbled on a small private shop in nearby Salida, Colorado. I just had a feeling when we went in there, and I walked over to a case filled with vintage estate jewelry. My eyes were immediately drawn to a small white gold ring with a square-cut diamond surrounded by intricate engraved scroll work. The jeweler explained he got it from a local woman who had passed away and he purchased her jewelry from the sale of her estate. He knew her personally; it was her wedding ring, and she and her husband had been married 60 years. They had no children to inherit her pieces; he had considered her a great personal friend, and was pleased to be able to pass on her jewelry. I will never forget what he said to me: "she lived her life with great integrity. It was an honor for me to know her." And I knew right then that that ring was meant for me. I knew that the simple, vintage piece with a meaningful history was so much more suited to me than the flashier rings that I had previously seen. Aaron seemed incredulous that this was what I picked out at first, and actually tried to dissuade me. (I think there must be some kind of pride factor involved with what kind of a ring a man puts on a girl's finger, but THIS girl ain't buying that line.) I insisted this was the ring for me, and that is the ring he gave me.

What about the other ring? Well. Outside of Buena Vista is a beautiful mountain called Mt. Antero. It is a mountain with many veins of precious metals and gems lining its interior, and most of it has been privately sectioned off into mining claims. Aaron had gotten friendly with a couple of locals who had mining claims, and he spent some time mining up on Antero with them. It just so happens that my favorite gemstone is aquamarine. And it just so happens that Antero is full of uncut aquamarine. As a surprise wedding gift to me, he gave me a matching aqua ring, necklace, and earrings set in white gold.
The aqua ring is the first spontaneous piece of jewelry he's ever given me; it was mined from the mountain I looked at every morning in the backyard of our first home, in the town I still love desperately. I wear the aqua ring daily, as a reminder of his unexpected thoughtfulness and of our connection to that place.

I watched the kids pore over the pages of that catalog with great amusement, but I felt little pensive at the same time. I want them to understand the value of things that stand the test of time; I don't want them to feel the pressure of "keeping up" with the neighbors or trying to out-shop or out-decorate or out-accessorize their friends. I also don't want them to feel like they live in a thrift store. (ha ha) So I think I need to tell the stories and let them know that these older pieces are pieces of lives that were lived in a time long past. They are threads to the people who made us and reminders of our history.

I will say, that the Kitchenaid Stand Mixer my parents gave me as an early-Christmas present definitely kicks butt over the Black and Decker Dinosaur I'd been using for the last 10 years. So not EVERYTHING has to be old. (I did order it in Vintage Blue, circa 1950, because I still have an image to maintain.) And I've been eyeing a beautiful microsuede sofa sectional for the family room, but so far I just don't have it in me to trade out the white leather sofa we bought in Missouri. The stories from Missouri are of a completely different nature, and while we don't mention those 8 months all that often, the couch is maybe one of the better memories from that crazy adventure. I'm saving that story, though, for another day.