It was our 47th anniversary this week, and I had thought I might develop a post around this photo of an elastic-ball band I’ve been building over the last eighteen months or so. If I’d managed to do that, I would have begun by asking if any of you save the various elastics that come into your homes on bundles of produce or bouquets of flowers by forming them into a ball. I would have shared my vague memory of a similar ball that my maternal grandmother kept in the odds-n-ends drawer in her kitchen, the drawer which also held a ball of string, a pencil or two, used envelopes whose blank spaces could still serve for grocery lists. . . . (My grandma used to recite, with meaning, the admonitory verse “See a pin and pick it up / All that day you’ll have good luck. / See a pin and let it lie, / You’ll need that pin the day you die.)
I’m not sure what prompted me, sometime in 2020, to find a YouTube video showing how to make a ball out of elastics — I mean, surely we can’t blame everything on Covid-19, but . . . insert shoulder shrug here. . . However it began, though, I’ve created an actual bouncy ball with some integrity. It reminds me not just of my Grandma’s elastic-band balls, but also of the bouncing balls in various sizes that my dad collected at garage sales in his last decade or so, years when cancer was stripping flesh and appetite and energy — but never spirit! — from our patriarch. He filled cookie tins with them and then allowed — no, more than that, encouraged! exhorted! incited! his grandkids to take the lids off the tins and empty the contents vigorously, from a height, so that the kitchen would be crazily energized, like the inside of a pinball game, so many trajectories being executed at various decreasing velocities until all the balls rested on the floor in a deceptive peace, just waiting for a Four or a Six to gather them up and repeat the sanctioned chaos until boredom or fatigue set in. Never was it Poppa’s boredom, nor his fatigue. . .
So if I’d tried to write that post, I’d likely have found myself mired in a morass of memories. Instead, I’ve just come back from two days visiting good friends in my previous community (four friends, four one-on-one visits: a breakfast, a lunch, two dinners, and in between, I walked 14 kilometres one day, 10.5 the second, back and forth between motel and whichever restaurant I was meeting whichever friend) It was bliss, but I’m so tired today! 
So instead I’m going to send you back to a post I wrote 5 years ago, on our 42nd anniversary. I’m still sharing the elastic-band ball photo as I’d planned, but I’m not going to try very hard to elaborate the analogy I see between that ball and a marriage of some duration — “Oh!” you say, “Finally she’s going to tell us what that ball has to do with an anniversary.”
Briefly, I submit that both are built incrementally, band by band or dinner by dinner (argument by argument; resolution by resolution, loss by loss, celebration by celebration). Both depend on a certain tension which, if managed effectively, yields a surprising resilience — That Bounce! If not, there’s also the possibility of the whole thing coming apart, yes, but after a certain bulk or stability is achieved, this becomes less likely. Individual bands may break when you try to stretch them beyond their limits to add to the whole — Here, it might be usefully illustrative to tell you that when Pater dropped me at the ferry the morning of our anniversary, we hadn’t yet resolved an argument that erupted the evening before — but with good-will, humour, considerable patience and kindness, that resilience arrives. . .
Okay, for a post I’ve decided not to write because I’m guarding time and energy (we’ve blocked off the weekend to celebrate the beginning of our 48th year), I think this is enough. More of my thoughts on being married A Very Long Time back here, at 42 years.
While I mark my good fortune in the longevity of my marriage, I’d like to acknowledge and offer condolences to those of you who still grieve the loss of a partner. I know this is the case for a number of readers here, and I hope this post doesn’t trigger undue pain or sorrow for you, or that if it does, you may find some consolation in your memories. (In my friend Carol Matthews’ memoir, Minerva’s Owl: The Bereavement Phase of My Marriage she writes of the time after her husband’s death nine years ago as a continuation of their 47 married years together. The marriage is ongoing in that she draws strength to live without Mike by knowing that he is still, and always will be, part of her. More about that memoir in this post.)
So I’m off to gather strength for an anniversary weekend. Need to get my bounce back. Your comments always supply that, so if this post evoked memories for you or inspires a thought or two, feel free to share those in the Comments below. Thanks for reading!
xo,
f
Happy Anniversary Frances,to you and P. and many more happy years to come! Enjoy the weekend celebrations!
I can imagine how tired you could be (not of marriage :)) after your visits….
I have to find this video about elastics-I save them in a box
Dottoressa
Author
Thanks, K!
It’s pretty simple to get the ball started. Have fun! 😉
The sharing of your feelings about the longevity of your marriage is so honest and refreshing. We are entering our 44th year and find that it is still a dynamic process to say the least. Add in the factor of declining health of one partner and the marriage relationship gets reshuffled yet again. I remain thankful that we didn’t give up.
Today, I spent time with a longtime friend who wants to give up her marriage after forty plus years yet feels unable to leave financially. It hurts my heart to hear the bitterness, restlessness, hardness, and pain when she cries out, “Why am I so unhappy!?” We are both in our 70’s. We are both very comfortable, materially, with successful adult children who are married with beautiful children. To my knowledge in 30+ years of friendship, there is no physical abuse or addiction issues. From all sides, she appears to be living the dream. Yet, contentment eludes her or it is brief, at best. I try to sit with her as she wrestles with this internal beast. I pray for her and she knows my faith.
I don’t know how to end this writing. I certainly don’t want to raise comparison/contrast issues. I just found it timely that you wrote about marriage today, Frances. Thanks for giving me a space to share my sadness.
Author
I’m so sorry for your friend, Charlene, and for your sorrow as she wrestles.
I find this post (and the associated) very beautiful. It is nice to read about long, successful marriages. I was hesitating to comment only because I come from a completely different perspective, but hopefully no one reading will misinterpret or take offense.
As a child in the 1970s, with parents who married young and were ill-suited to each other, I admit that I grew up with a very dim view of marriage. My parents divorced in that wave of divorces in the 1980s, and my dad died soon after of a disease he had been suffering with. My grandmothers, with whom I was very close, were both in marriages that I didn’t feel supported them. Both were educated and capable and I felt oppressed. My paternal grandmother had graduated from U of T in the 1920s and was a bright, articulate, creative person who was in a dreadful marriage. I remember being horrified by the fact that she was referred to as “Mrs. Donald X” or “Mother.” She didn’t even have a name! Even my beloved godparents divorced in the 1970s when he left her for another man. I recall distinctly being on the playground at ten years old, listening to my friends chatting about how they would have a “husband and children” and thinking, “Why on earth would you want to do that?” The only marriage I observed that was one that seemed to be of respectful, good-humoured, supportive companionship was of my great-grandparents (born in the 1890s), who were married for more than sixty years. I concluded that marriages were clearly only intended for Victorians. When the opportunities arose to marry in my twenties, I knew my answer: a clear “No!”
And then I met my G in my late thirties and we have been together ever since. We have a profoundly supportive relationship that is girded by good humour. I couldn’t be more grateful or honoured to have such a person in my life. That said, do I regret my years of greater independence? The answer is no. I lived a privileged and passionate couple of decades (four degrees, work in nine countries, four languages, other studies of passionate interest, an international athletic “career”, unusual adventures and companions; and important for me, philosophically – financial independence). I developed a deep and abiding companionship with myself that has borne fruit during the lonely periods of separation during the pandemic. I imagine this will also serve me in old age. I’ve learned from the negative surprises of choosing a non-traditional path (the way that others can deride and exclude someone who has made different choices, even family; the abuse of our time when we are expected to have more time to work more and cover for those with spouses and children, perform elder care, etc.). I’ve learned openness to others’ experiences and am a confidant to younger people, who choose to be friends with me, rather that have a relationship with me because I am related to them. These are all good things.
I think we can learn from different types of relationships. I can admire others’ lives from the outside looking in, while also appreciating my own. One thing I’ve come to recognize in recent years is the degree to which our lives are shaped by social forces, the effects of which we only recognize later on. I sometimes wonder in a Sliding Doors sort of a way what my life would have been like had I made different choices, but we cannot ever live the counterfactual. We can appreciate and celebrate the counterfactual by appreciating others.
Happy Anniversary!
Author
Thanks, Stephanie! So good to hear these other perspectives, especially as I never, ever, mean to imply that marriage is for everyone. We had a decade or so where he worked in another city (for three years that was Ottawa, four provinces away!) and I’ll admit that I quite enjoyed most of the time I had on my own. . . 😉
Happy anniversary Frances and many more! And I do save elastics, in a small wicker basket which also contains some pencils and the collars and tags of deceased pets. It is stored in a cabinet above the sink. I have no idea why or how I originally started doing this , placing these items together and in this spot, but it has been that way for years. For some reason this post reminded me of my father’s box of buttons. It contained all sorts, some very old and beautiful. My mother hated any kind of needle work, perhaps because her relationship with her own mother was often contentions and my grandmother had been a seamstress. So my father did all the sewing and mending in the family, also most of the cooking. Their marriage was filled with arguments but lasted almost 60 years. I think there is a metaphor in there somewhere.
Author
Aw, I found that quick image of your wicker basket rather moving. Those collars and tags. . . And your father’s box of buttons. My grandma had one, and my mom, and I did for many years (is it too late to start another?) How lovely that your father did the sewing and the mending. That willingness to shift gender roles just a bit may well have contributed to a long-lasting marriage.
It adds to my understanding of life in general when you talk about a long marriage. Thank you.
Author
Thanks, Lisa! I really appreciate knowing this, because it’s all I really intend. (I worried a bit that celebrating my own marital status in a post could be misconstrued as advocating for something I don’t mean to do.)
Frances, thanks so much for this. It brought tears to my eyes and also brought me joy. Congratulations to you and Paul . You have much to celebrate in your well-lived, well-loved and productive life together.
Thanks for the kind reference to Minerva. (It has been a nightmare with Oolichan. The press was closed a. Oriole of years ago without notifying authors but fortunately I now have my rights back and Freehand Books is going to re-issue it). We have much to catch up on so I hope we can meet up when you are next back here. I admire all you are doing, including that elastic band ball!
But first, heartfelt congratulations to you and Paul. I wish you a happy day and many, many more joyful years together. With love and admiration,
Carol
Author
Carol! I was going to email to let you know I’d mentioned your book (again!). I’d forgotten that for you and Mike, as for my parents, 47 was the last anniversary you were able to celebrate together. Honestly, it feels a bit surreal — and at the same time absolutely normal, completely in keeping with the laws of time and space 😉 — that we’re at this stsage now.
I was happy to refer to Minerva again, and so sad to hear that Oolichan has wasted its legacy, but glad to hear your book will have a new edition. Looking forward to our next visit. (and thank you so much for all the kind words xoxo)
I saw this snd was going to write real mail, then email, then decided to phone. I’m hoping we can chat soon. A bientot, Carol
Author
I’m glad I prompted that chat, Carol! Enjoyed it very much. xo
Interesting post and comments.
From my observations, to be contented in a marriage, you have to genuinely like each other, as you would a friend. Kindness to each other, recognizing that each of you seem to take turns being complete idiots. My husband and I are opposites in so many ways, but, we make each other laugh….
The other, I think, really important thing in a marriage, is a woman needs to have her own money. In our culture, money is power. So many women stay in a relationship because they feel trapped. That would be terrifying.
Ali
Author
So true, Ali! Both these points — the liking and the financial security. Staying in a marriage only for that would be soul-destroying, I think.
Thank you for this post, and happy anniversary celebrations to you. Somehow it did not seem at all incongruous to read about a rubber band ball and a long marriage. It makes sense to me, and I somehow think that my G would have made some pithy statement on the subject. I was just reminiscing about his sense of humor with a friend, and thinking about the way my marriage, even though my husband has been gone for eight years now. All of this as a way of getting around to saying your words always help me see new possibilities in the world.
Hope you have recovered some energy and are having a lovely weekend.
Author
I was so moved reading your posts as you moved through the last stages of your marriage, caring for G., of whom you sketched such a clear image. I’m glad you find something in my words, in return, that let you see new possibilities.
Thanks for the kind words.
Happy Anniversary! Spring chickens on your wedding day, yes? I hope it’s a lovely weekend for you as you embark on Year 48.
Author
Babies, we were, truly!! 😉
Hope you’re having a wonderful anniversary weekend! I much appreciated your post as well as the very thoughtful comments that followed. Hubby and I are approaching our 45th anniversary. It hasn’t been an easy road, but we’re in a better place now than we were for most of those years and though it was pretty tenuous at times, I’m glad we stuck it out and grew together instead of apart.
Author
It’s not always easy, is it?! Luckily, we never faced anything insurmountable or intolerable. . . but I do appreciate the thoughtful comments you mention, for reminding us that a lifelong marriage is best as a happy outcome (not that we haven’t worked at that) rather than an injunction (or even a trap) to be suffered.
Lovely post, and many thoughts that resonate here too. We celebrated our 43 wedding anniversary this week, will be 46 years together this autumn. You don’t get to this point and still enjoy each other without weathering all sorts of ups and downs within and outside the relationship, and that’s no mean feat. We celebrate that as much as anything else. We know how privileged we we and have been to have had the tools and means to get this far without falling apart, and try as much as we can (without crossing the line into interfering) to share what we’ve learned along the way with our children.
Congratulations, and I hope you’re having a great weekend.
Author
Well said, Deborah! There’s so much privilege involved, and chance, all those resources.
I also appreciate your comment about sharing (without interfering) with our children. Example goes a long way here, I think, as Stephanie’s thoughtful comment suggests.
Thank you for the good wishes — we’re having a very good weekend indeed! 😉
Hope you have a lovely weekend. Time to reflect, remember and celebrate all the reasons why you chose each other those many decades ago.
Author
Thank you Mary! We did just that.
Before I even began reading your post, the photo took me right back to my grandmother’s kitchen and he own rubber band ball. I too save rubber bands, but just jumbled together in a container – perhaps it’s time I did something with them.
I hope you’re having a wonderful anniversary weekend, worthy of your relationship. I also appreciate your thoughtfulness for those of us who have lost their long-term partners. After I lost my husband a year ago I wanted nothing to do with grief counselling or therapy. It’s such a personal journey. But I did remember your post about Minerva’s Owl and managed to track it down and read it a month or so ago. I’m so glad I did and am grateful to you for recommending it, and of course to your friend the author for writing such a beautiful book.
Author
I’m tickled to know others remember grandmother’s kitchens and rubber-band balls.
And so sorry about your huge loss, Frances. Carol will be pleased to know that you found some consolation in reading her book. May you continue to find what you need in your personal journey through grief. Take care xo
I used to keep and add to a rubber band ball, and of course grab one off it when needed. Eventually, the discovery was made that after enough time goes by, they harden and snap. 😃
Thank you for the wonderful thoughts about a long marriage, and congratulations to both of you!
Author
Fair enough, I guess — we all snap eventually 😉
I’m glad you enjoyed the post and thanks for the good wishes.