February 21, 2023. Issue Twenty-one
Seven days after Saint Valentine’s Day, I ask, “How did it go?”
For me, it worked out well. The flowers arrived a few hours before our daughter arrived for the Super Bowl. She liked them. Then we went on with the regularly scheduled events. Our midwestern roots showed as we were jubilant with the Kansas City Chief’s victory. Rihanna’s halftime show was icing on the cake.
My wife and I make the best of it. Not always. Sometimes we descend into cynicism, contending that it exists only to stimulate the economy and not the relationship. But why not both/and?
We once looked into the history of February 14. We found and liked the idea that once upon a time, on that day, young people picked their dating partners for the year. It sounded like a neat idea. We’ve been practicing it ever since.
This year on Saint Valentine’s Day, after watching the latest episode of The Good Doctor, on the DVR, we again promised to stay together for another year. Part of the negotiating, over supper, was that I would cut back on the teleconferences now that I am retired.
I hope that things went well for you on Saint Valentine’s Day. For me, it really came down to expectations. My wife manages my expectations well. Lighten up is one of her best commandments. The other is the declaration, You don’t have it so bad. I tend to take myself too seriously. Lighten up is not something that I do well. Sometimes the play’s the thing. Comedy helps me become playful. Someday I am sure that with enough planning I can be spontaneous.
Here’s an example. For some reason, as I was writing this, the phrase, “No sex please, we’re English” popped into my mind. I searched for it online and discovered that I had not gotten it quite right. It was a play written by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott, No Sex Please, We’re British. http://www.filmreference.com/film/31/Anthony-Marriott.html
Coincidentally, it was on this day in 1979, that their play became the longest running comedy in the history of world theatre. I watched the movie over the weekend. My have times changed!
Now back to seriousness and somberness.
Wouldn’t it be something if love, sex, and marriage exist because one strand of DNA seeks to survive by actually hooking up with another strand of DNA? The former strand of DNA dies through the process of mitosis. The double helix splits and can only be made whole again by becoming mated to its counterpart, creating a strand of DNA that had never existed before.
So here I am, a strand of DNA, living with another strand of DNA, and as a result there are now five unique strands of DNA existing that would never have come into existence were it not for sexual congress. There, I’ve said it.
Here’s the deep question, at least for me. How is it possible that my unique DNA gets me to experience elation and despair on such a regular basis? As my biological clock winds down, I have fewer distractions. Here’s what I observe.
The Declaration of Independence, with its notion that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right, along with the “more perfect union” phrase of the U.S. Constitution (It is about Us, eh?) is in my DNA.
Therefore, I am able at one moment to sit back in self-satisfaction and look at a life well lived and then descend into a pit a despair at all the times things would have turned out much better if I had done y instead of x. This is followed by self incrimination about being so self-absorbed. Which brings me back to Saint Valentine’s Day.
My wife has the rare talent of listening to me and with a word or two is able to pull my head out of a place lacking daylight. Evidently, their exists one strand of DNA that has a propensity to help another get moving again.
As I said, it worked out well for me. I commit to managing my expectations to make room for a better life, a more excellent union. Grace also, may be part of our DNA. Grace to allow for the amendment of life. This issue among many things is a belated Valentine Card to my Wife.
Be well.