THE PLANETS ARE SOMEWHERE - 18 May 2011

18th, 2011  

It’s our 10th Anniversary today and we’ve sort of pretended it isn’t. The way we’re sort of pretending to be here in this house.

We realized 2 nights ago that in order to be in Boston at 8 tomorrow morning to give a talk to 1200 dentists, Joel would have to leave today. It threw us a bit. It seemed deeply wrong and yet we seem to feel it has to be done. It is precisely because of times like these that I long so much for us to be debt-free. To never again have to choose between money and a wedding anniversary.

The planets are somewhere.

This morning we walked to Liz’s, the grocery store. She calls it Angel Food, but we call it Liz’s. It was grey and damp and spitting rain but there were some tree sightings that were worth the walk. A lot of wild fruit trees crazy with petals. One, with deep pink/magenta plumage stood there vibrating, almost belligerent. It’s still early, early spring here – like the first week in Provence. Provence. Provincetown..

We bought Italian sausage, olive oil, organic eggs and a small serving each of cranberry/chicken and broccoli/carrot salad, for lunch by the fire. We had breakfasted in bed, looking out to the sad grey sea, bowls of porridge with honey, blueberries, pecans and cream. 

When we left Liz’s, another tree glared at us from in front of the Art Museum: a dead leafless thing, painted scarlet. So rude, I thought. But thinking about it now makes me want to do something rude myself. It’s 6 o’clock, the hour in which, 10 years ago Joel and I stood between a colonnade of cypress trees in Tuscany, surrounded by 50 of our friends and family and, thanking each other for the 10 years we’d already had, pledged our troth for eternity, after which we all danced back along the country lane accompanied by the local accordian player, until we reached the farmhouse where the wedding feast awaited, and the band from Milan was setting up. 

Now, 10 years later, Joel is on a bus to Boston, his flight having been cancelled due to fog and I am sitting by the home fire, keeping it burning.