“Last year,” said Ellen, “he was the guy who brought the cake. This year he is the cake.”
Four days in New York with Ragan. Each day was a renewal of an old friendship: Nancy, Mary, Molly, Gene. But coming back to Ashland was a relief, like walking into a spacious room after living in a broom closet. New York felt like home—Zabar’s, the Apthorp, gazing out of Nancy’s window onto the street full of nineteenth-century brownstones, the subways—but my sensibilities have shifted. Looking at Ragan in his Stetson, towering above the New Yorkers in a subway car rattling toward Union Square, made me smile.
Wedding plans unfold with news of who is coming. Why my journal seems to be so empty of meaning concerns me. This morning I picked up a news story about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s wardrobe and read it with interest. God, how the mind loves to constrict. The effort it takes to stretch either the mind or the body is so easy to avoid.
Last night as I lay in bed, I began to pray for myself as if it were an entirely new idea, never before thought of, as in Oh, here’s a possibility. Why not try this, not only for myself but my children, and anyone I love or care about, even the world? Why do I have such a feeling about prayer’s efficacy now? Is it because the weak efforts I’ve allowed myself to make have borne fruit? Is there a connection? What I felt as I lay there silently, wordlessly, asking for virtues I do not have, was hope.
This is an entirely new life I am leading, the life of a couple. My edges are being rounded, my sensibilities dulled or deepened. I can’t tell which.
Ragan just came into the living room to read me Mary Oliver’s poem, “When Death Comes.” (When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.) He had to read it slowly so his voice didn’t wobble with emotion. He is becoming “the bride married to amazement” in that poem.
The wedding invitations have arrived, in letter-perfect condition. I told the woman at Meade’s Office Supply where I ordered them that coming to pick them up was like calling the gynecologist to find out if I was pregnant. Ragan, during my two-day absence in Washington, had a bout of doubt, brooding over whether he would be able to fulfill his duties as a husband. He had righted his boat by the time we talked on the phone last night.
Two months from now we will be married. I see no turning back, although I do have concerns that will probably always be there about the rightness of it. Ragan is clear that it is my decision. “You know what you’re getting,” he said yesterday, meaning that he is a country-bred, unclassically educated, small-town man.
I asked him to tell his life story from the standpoint of his evolving consciousness. “Well, I guess you could say I had my head in the sand until I was sixty. Then I began to wake up.” This is what I see as so positive, that he is a man committed to change. But am I somehow making more of this than it warrants?
My mind and emotions are being pulled like taffy between different considerations that revolve around house and finances. But when I put my mind in a higher place and think about what I hope to be to Ragan as his wife, the aperture widens.
The first real morning of spring. The air is cool; the light fills up the grass, which is soft and bright green. Yesterday afternoon, I put the wedding invitations in the mail. Now they’re flying across the country, around the neighborhood, creating a web of connections between my life and Ragan’s. Great happiness is being created by this union, apart from our own. It gives both my sons a feeling of stability. Eliza is glad her mother is being taken care of. My friends are semi-incredulous that I have found such a loving man at such a late date.
This feeling of doubt, that I am doing something I will regret, washes over me, makes me scared. How can I know which of my many feelings I should follow? Could I be choosing security over truth at this late stage? I am, in many ways, too much influenced by others’ opinions. “He’s a catch,” said Dolo. “Do you know how hard it is to find a presentable man like that?” exclaimed Edie. “What’s not to love?” asked Debbie. But more importantly, it is I who gradually felt his absence when we were separated and felt joy when he returned. Yet, and yet ... just now I am less sure than I want to be.
One other connection that discomfits me—the relationship between love and loss. When I sense ambivalence in Ragan, my own doubts are replaced with the fear of losing him. So I am mystified. Could the conventions of society, wanting to be like the others, be at the bottom of my decision? Can I be someone’s partner and still be free? I don’t think there are any easy answers, but I do know that the commitment to love someone must go deeper than the easy decision to care for someone when the emotional tide is high.
Once again the ocean is calm and I can see serenely to the bottom. The feeling of good fortune, of being gently held, not clutched, returns. Justin, ever vigilant, phones me daily to take my emotional temperature, calling my fears the result of a horrendous first marriage. He so wants me to be with Ragan, a feeling universally shared. I will be glad when we are on the other side.
Some thoughts too intimate to be put on paper, the sense of being cherished as I sleep against his side at night. This is a man who is never too tired to kiss me tenderly on my head as he is going off to sleep. Thirty-five years ago, I longed for that kind of easy exchange between a husband and wife. Now, in far different circumstances, it has come to me.
Yesterday all my fears and apprehensions came to a head when I was sitting in my kitchen with my friend Carol. Just as she was about to leave, I grabbed her hands and asked if she would pray for me. She sat back down and prayed out loud while I listened, tears leaking from my eyes. Then we sat together and talked.
Carol told me how terrified she had been six weeks before her marriage. “I didn’t want to go through with it,” she said. Up in her parents’ attic, she burst into tears and dropped to her knees and prayed for guidance. At one point, she heard a voice inside her say quietly, “Love him. Trust in me.” She felt momentarily at peace. But then her worries came back, along with fresh tears. Once more, the inner voice repeated, “Love him. Trust in me.” Again, peace was replaced by fear. Finally, the third time this happened she stopped crying, said “all right,” and let her fears go.
Until now I have never thought about what it really means to let go of one’s fears, as if they were reins on a horse that was running away with me. My fears have not gone away but I am trying to deal with them honestly.
AT THE BISHOP’S RANCH IN HEALDSBURG, CALIFORNIA, FOR MY WRITING SEMINAR
The beauty of this place fills me: a bright swath of fog lying upon the fields in the early morning, the sun brushing the wisteria-hung arbor, turning the purple flowers gold, the gentle layering of hills and mountain range. As the heat increases, so does the smell of lavender. I think of my mother, how she loved what I am looking at and how much I miss having her with me.
The earnest desire and serious work of the writers here bring tears to my eyes at times. There is such beauty in their stories; as they read them aloud I can see an invisible cord wrapping itself around each listener, making one heart out of many, beating in the same sympathetic rhythm as each story draws to an end.
My premarriage mood of doom has lifted. Perhaps, as one student observed, this is because Mercury had been retrograde and only went out of it two days ago. Whatever the reason, my belief in my marriage to Ragan has returned. It did not happen without his help. A deeper than usual letter from him, enclosing another Mary Oliver poem about rowing toward life, made the difference.
IN NORTH BEACH AT THE CAFÉ TRIESTE
This is the San Francisco that is unglazed and unfazed by the tidal wave of wealth that has rolled over the rest of the city. Even the cappuccino is cheaper. The customers are scruffier and more thoughtful-looking than most San Franciscans you see.
Upon returning home, I told Ragan that I still had doubts about the rightness of getting married, never mind that the wedding itself was only a few weeks away. Ragan reassured me that, whatever happened, he would understand and survive. His loving kindness stunned m
e. On the brink of losing him, I saw the depth of loss it would entail.
The way truth emerges like an involuntary sob surprises me. The heart, knowing what the intellect cannot come to on its own, had chosen Ragan long before the rest of me assented. After an anxious twenty-four hours, during which time I worried that my endless vacillations had finally worn him out, I emerged into the sun. Save for a now-diagnosed case of shingles. I am determined to keep my joy separate from my distress. My doubts about marriage have been replaced with gratitude. The thought of losing Ragan so horrified me that I came, albeit at the last minute, to my senses. Fortunately, R had the room in him to let me go through the process. As the days count down to the wedding, I am at last having a bridal time of it, feeling anticipatory. My life once more looks like my own, only larger.
Such happiness! I am blessed to have Ragan as the man I love, who loves me. It is early, 5 A.M., and I have come downstairs to be with the quiet. But knowing that such a deeply loving man, soon to be my husband, sleeps upstairs, fills me with gratitude and astonishment. At sixty-six to be me!
My friend Valerie called, saying that she and Michael want to give me his mother’s piano, that gleaming black beauty I surreptitiously played when I visited them last year, as a wedding present. I cannot remember a better gift in my entire life. I told her that this means we will be friends for life. “We have to be. It’s like giving me your child.”
The small RSVP envelopes are still coming in. The circle is defining itself. Almost everybody who is or has been important in my life will be here. An image of ships laden with gold slowly approaching the harbor is how I feel about them.
How to handle money matters continues to be unresolved on an emotional level. My fear is that I may feel like a pauper in my own house once we’re married. When one spouse has considerably more money than the other, money is power. I don’t see any good solution except to change one’s view of money itself.
Both Ragan and I are moving beyond the need to think about bowing out. “Let’s not talk this way anymore,” I said yesterday. He agreed. We continue to work away at the details of the prenuptial agreement, yet I am, I told him last night, beyond that, too. I am inwardly assured that the essentials are there.
Looking for something Mom might have written to put into the wedding program, I came across so many letters of mine, including eulogies I’d written, that reminded me of how short life is: a note to Paul Sigmund after his mother died, tributes for Ann Buchwald and Rita Wall. Rehearsing for the wedding at Saint James the Less, I thought of the church filling for Nina’s and Jay’s funerals. Lying in Ragan’s arms, I know this comfort will end, too.
It occurs to me that there are false emotional safety nets that should not be used. R’s desire to make our marriage work and his fear of failure is one of them. My knowledge of this fear could cause me to rely on it as a form of protection that has nothing to do with our love for each other.
Eight days to the wedding! I have gone from terror to delight. All my children are coming. I am going to be seeing all three of them under one tent along with so many cherished friends from my whole life that it may be a bit overwhelming.
Last night Ragan said he thought we should stay apart from now until our wedding. I agreed. It seems appropriate and, given the family members pouring in soon, practical. Ragan put his arms around me at the door and said, “I love you so much and I want to take care of you”—this after admitting that it would be simpler to be single with his dog and books.
Ragan is as peaceful as I am about the wedding. I am aware that he is not a young man. The way he walks is slower than a man twenty years younger. But I am so in love with his mien and manner. There is something particularly endearing about the way he strides purposefully across a street, his elbows rowing the air, eyes gazing at the road ahead. After being alone for most of my life, I cannot quite believe that I’m being given a companion with whom to end my days.
Up early to work on the liturgy for the wedding ceremony. Our decision to live in our separate houses is a wise one. Yet the longing to be in one place together increases. Last night he came in and said, “Only ninety-three hours left.” Spoken like an engineer, but it shows his eagerness. How miraculous that my own certainty has held firm.
One way or another, the house and garden are getting ready for the wedding. Porch doors have been painted, flowers planted. The lawn was just cut and is a velvety green, the envy of the neighborhood. Who is this person I’m becoming?
The wedding festivities roll toward us, but we are unperturbed. Sitting here, with the dearness of this house still unchanged, I am aware of the imminent transformation—of myself, of the garden (soon to be covered with white tents) and in a few weeks the house itself, when remodeling begins. At yoga class last night I looked at my feet. They seemed older. This morning, looking at my hands resting in my lap, I saw how elderly they were, too. And yet we are about to be newlyweds. Our age only intensifies the joy.
We are married! The prewedding party on Thursday night brought so many loved people together. Friday was the wedding—for family and a few close friends—followed by dinner in the garden at Ragan’s house. Rain forced us inside, but being under one roof only intensified the experience. Saturday was a blow-out neighborhood wedding party under a big white tent with a dance floor on the lawn behind my house. It was everything I had hoped it would be—a warm, full house with such happiness in the eyes of everyone there. The three toasts I’ll remember: my cousin Johnny’s words about our relationship being one of two souls, Jill’s acerbic toast about this being a warm-up for the eulogy I’d asked her to deliver, and Chris Clark’s a capella singing of “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.” It was an artless act of generosity and he caught the whole room in his hands.
Ragan’s daughter Meg read from a hanging quilt she had embroidered with advice from our grandchildren about how to have a happy marriage. (“Hug and cuddle a lot,” said five-year-old Rhys. “Don’t fight, and love each other—just a friendly suggestion,” said seven-year-old Bennett. “Never let your spouse start the day without a cup of coffee,” said eleven-year-old Matthew.) But mostly it was Ragan, whose love was a bright beacon throughout it all.
Now, on a Monday morning, the house is quiet, rooms of flowers everywhere, and a husband is in the kitchen reading the paper. We exchanged letters just before we walked down the aisle. His was so radiant with feeling and joy. “I have never loved so deeply or wisely before,” it began. His ring to me is inscribed Te semper amo et adoro. Ragan. Mine, To Ragan, with all my heart, Phyllis. His is more unique.
We are in Bermuda, in a pink two-room villa overlooking a harbor, most of which belongs to Cambridge Beaches, where we are staying. The air is soft, the sun bright, and the Bermudians almost without exception a happy, friendly people. On the bus into Hamilton yesterday, the driver danced in his seat to some salsa on the radio. He honked at every other bus driver and embraced old women coming up the steps. The passengers were equally friendly. Bermuda itself seems far less British. One still sees men in knee socks and shorts, but huge sky-blocking cruise ships rest in Hamilton Harbor. Trimingham’s sells the same cashmere sweaters you can get in Macy’s. This alters the character of the town.
Being a married woman seems so easy because of Ragan. Everywhere I look there are other ring-wearing couples eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, playing croquet. Am I feeling relief at being like everyone else? Certainly I feel more protected. But I don’t feel less free. That is the difference between marrying early and remarrying late. In between one and the other I found my life.
On the “morning beach” with bright sun, calm water, and soft sand. The couples aspect of this place is beginning to seem overdone. So many gold bands, like ducks who have been tagged for identification. Yet I do feel supported in a way I never thought would happen by a man who really does seem to have my interests at heart. It is so different to live with a man, to see his shaving gear, his shirts, his pipe next to my things. I think, be
cause of the long years alone, it will always feel a little thrilling, like becoming famous or rich late in life.
R’s sixty-ninth birthday. We both agreed that sixty-nine sounds older than seventy. Went to the Cambridge Beach library this rainy morning, gathered up a half dozen books, everything from Balzac to Stephen Spender, with some Thornton Wilder and Ian Trevor as well. The Spender journals immerse me in another life I cannot lead except vicariously. The black-and-white photos of Sartre, Eliot, Auden, and Isherwood are from a family album not my own. But I can snoop and identify parts of their lives and ideas as being like my own.
During this week, Ragan has experienced a bit of insecurity with me, the result of my being quieter than usual, which he interprets as being a withdrawal from him. “No,” I countered, “it is a withdrawal into myself.” I do not think the same need exists in him. Quiet can be the two of us reading silently. But he prefers that I be nearby. I need regular time without anybody else around in order to feel restored. Now, as I sit in our pretty living room with the rain gone and the room to myself, I feel such peace, which is all the greater because of Ragan being my husband and being away at the gym, simultaneously.
One of the benefits of getting married so late is that certain life lessons are already very firmly established. One of them, that you are responsible for your own happiness, comes to mind now. In an earlier time I would have taken responsibility for my husband’s happiness, too. But the wiser, truer course is to create one’s own and then share it. Otherwise, one winds up trying to track down every shadow that passes across your husband’s face, as if it belonged to you instead of him.
We took a ferry to Hamilton, which is a dingy town with cheap souvenirs and bad coffee. We had no reason to go, other than to give ourselves a ferry ride and do something besides take naps and wait for the next meal. But coming back on the island bus from the dockyards to Mangrove Bay, we sat across from a young teenage boy, fair-skinned, dark-eyed, and wiry, who reminded me of something important.
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