A TALE OF TWO ANNIVERSARIES

My son Jeff and his lovely wife Susan

just celebrated their 12^th anniversary

this past weekend 

at a very top-rated Chicago restaurant ALINEA.  

You can only make a reservation

 a few months ahead of the date,

and must prepay your dinner.

The dinner was half taste sensation,

half theatrical presentation, 

and totally unlike anything

they had ever witnessed or experienced before!

       When Jeff described

the large amount of staff employed

 to serve and present this meal, 

I had a lovely flashback to the best anniversary dinner

 that my husband Dave and I ever enjoyed. 

It was either March 1974 or 1975...

just look at us young things:

We were driving downtown

 to the chichi Pump Room

 (our version of Alinea then),

 in our newly leased Cadillac sedan…

no future pickup trucks

 or family van crowding our garage yet! 

We had our beautiful babes Matt and Niki 

tucked in their suburban beds

 in our brand new Schaumburg home. 

I thought—and probably said—

that we were now at THE TOP!  

Supreme luxury and success for us!

   

  The famous Pump Room in the Ambassador East Hotel

 welcomed us at their lavishly decorated entryway. 

We observed some famous diners

when we looked around us. 

The celebrated “Booth One”

was reserved for this In Crowd.

  (Plebeians like us sat at ordinary tables.)

And so we savored our supreme meal

at the Pump Room

with all that hovering wait staff.

 I ironically observed

that we even had a special waiter

dedicated to just keeping

our butter pats intact!

       Back to our contemporary couple, Susan and Jeff.  

The entrance to Alinea 

(unlike that showy Pump Room entrance)

is so understated, 

that most people have trouble finding it. 

Only the numerical address 

appears on the plain brick storefront,

 with nary a restaurant sign in sight--

 The diners wander through 

dramatically lit hallways....

around and around.....

(Like Alice in Wonderland falling through the rabbit hole!)

until finally the cozy dining rooms appear! 

       While the Pump Room specialized 

in their signature Flaming Skewers,

 Susan and Jeff saw their centerpiece of orange

 fired up during one course

 so that the aroma of the oranges 

could waft gently over their taste buds. 

 Susan described another course

 on her Facebook page: 

“All I remember is a bed of burning evergreen

 with 2 balls of fried dough 

filled with pork and a bunch of other stuff on top. 

It was delicious!”

       While Dave and I had 

some kind of ordinary dessert (maybe Cherries Jubilee?)

Jeff and Susan were served,

 along with a plated finale,

 GREEN APPLE FLAVORED HELIUM BALLOONS!

  

I asked Jeff how they (ahem) “ate” the balloons.

They were instructed to “kiss” the balloon gently.  

After their voices were comically altered by the helium,

they then tasted the spun sugar.

       So each celebrating couple, 

in their high-end dining,

 separated by forty-three years,

 shared a loving memory 

they will never forget.

THE TIME OF MY LIFE

            Today is a “Robe Day” for me…

no need to go outside for anything,

 so I’m staying in my robe, and loving it. 

Every day swishes by with sweetness:

“But at my back I always hear

 Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;”

            I always remembered 

that line

 from Andrew Marvell’s poem,

 “To His Coy Mistress”, 

wherein he was, well, seducing her!  

I was a twenty-something, 

studying English poetry, 

and while the phrases resonated, 

they didn’t reach down into my core, 

my heart and soul.

            I had to be this age, this appalling age of 76, 

to understand the sound 

of that chariot in my ear.

But I can also take some consolation

 in Marvell’s closing stanza:

"Let us roll all our strength and all 

Our sweetness up into one ball,

.......... 

Thus, though we cannot make our sun 

Stand still, yet we will make him run."

            I don’t take those closing lines

 to mean that I should mindlessly rush

 through my remaining days.

 I like to feel that they mean 

we will blaze through our race with the sun, 

keeping that sun hopping, 

as we “tear our pleasures”. 

Funny how these words

 popped up in my subconscious, 

and how their context, 

my “advanced” age, 

enhances their meaning.

            Most studies declare

 that the happiest part of our lives 

is usually our last years.

 Despite the encroaching physical insults 

rendered by age

 (arthritis, canes, incontinence, blah, blah, blah.), 

our mental state 

remains serene and blooming. 

More than at any other time in my life, 

I am really at peace. 

I don’t experience the explosive love

 I felt for my infant and toddler children….

that was a joy never to be equaled. 

But I no longer chase after that joy

(I couldn't run or chase 

on these aging legs anyway)

           But  I WILL “make much of my time”,

 as another poet, Robert Herrick, 

blatantly seduced poetically in

 “To Virgins, To Make Much of Time”

He proudly advertises his lechery in the title:

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

   Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

   Tomorrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

    The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

   And nearer he’s to setting. 

............

  Then be not coy, but use your time,

   And while ye may, go marry;

 For having lost but once your prime,

   You may forever tarry.”

            Oh, those leering 17^th Century British poets—

what sly cunning charmers they were!

            They were the proponents of the

 “Carpe diem” philosophy, 

to “Seize the day” 

(THIS day, this young day, 

when all the world 

is fresh and bright and possible).  

How interesting to me now 

that I still remember these poems so well, 

            William Wordsworth

 also struck me with these words:

“Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

            So, THAT can be my comfort and my strength:  

“What remains behind.”???

 That is indeed 

why 

this time of life is sweet

….and bittersweet…

We can look back on a life

 full of everything….

and still savor not just

 these memories, 

but the flavor and joy

 that still lingers in our heart.

     

Huh....

 I do believe that I AM 

having “the time of my life” 

right now!