Approximately 5:00 a.m. I was in the zone where I am uncertain if I am awake or asleep. I am not completely either, but I am tossing some ideas around about a story that I am writing about my experience with the exhausted and weary lady that answered the phone for the Social Security office. This is the sentence that I was trying to remember until I woke up:
“I switched from my own narrative to her story and all at once I became guileless.”
Phyllis was stirring and I sensed that slumber time was ending.
I rolled over and asked, “What time is it?”
With great gusto, she said, “Coffee time!”
I slipped on some warm clothes, went downstairs and started Dan Fogelberg’s 1972 song “To the Morning”, a song that we used to play on my turntable in 1977, when we first started dating.
I dug out the Stanley 40-ounce French press from the cabinet, boiled some water and ground some Speedy Miguel’s porch-roast that I had made the day before.
Morning traditions.
The smell of grinding freshly roasted coffee combined with the pure nostalgic simplicity of ‘To the Morning.’ Dan’s words made me smile. I agreed with him. “Yes, it is going to be a day where there’s really nothing left to say but, ‘Come on, morning.’”
While the water was boiling, I reminisced about the sweet time that we had around the table last night with three couples from our eight-year-old marriage life group.
We had a heart-weaving conversation reminiscing about this quote from the book Partnering:
“The most important decision you’re ever going to make is who you choose to spend your life with, personal or professional.”
We tossed around our thoughts and explored our answers to the question:
“How are our eight lives different as a result of knowing each other?”
My sweet wife set the tone for the night with, “This group is where I learned how to drink.”
When the laughter subsided, Michelle reflected: “This group transformed our marriage.” She shared the reason why. Steve said that one of the most important things that he learned was, “If it is important to Michelle, it’s important to me.” That was a sweet moment for me, because I remember the early morning conversation that Steve and I shared over breakfast, when we talked about that idea.
Sarah shared poignantly: “Our marriage was formed by this group. We had only been married for 10 months in 2018, so this group formed our marriage. It is all we have known. There was not a before and after.” She talked about learning how to repair the inevitable conflicts by expressing the deeper emotions beneath the strong feelings that were present.
Clint was characteristically quiet. He was writing down a lot of the interactions and observations about the night with his thumbs. I would not be surprised if he writes a book someday about the escapades of our group.
Jerry added some characteristic levity with, “Being a part of this group has deformed our marriage.” That was fun.
Bo added, “I just like being with my best friends. Outside of my family, you all are the people that I am closest to.”
The goodness of that conversation was still resonating this morning.
Then I played my other early morning song, Joni Mitchell’s Chelsea Morning.
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey
And a bowl of oranges too
And the light poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses
Oh, won’t you stay? We’ll put on the day
And we’ll talk in present tenses.
I like that line, “We’ll talk in present tenses.”
I suspect that has to do with being very present with each other and talking about what is happening right now, not the past or the future.
Then I heard Phyllis’s cute little feet padding down the stairs.
She walked into the kitchen and began playfully singing along:
“Woke up, it was a French press morning!”
She is darling. There is still a delightful and fun little girl inside of the woman I will love with my whole heart for all of my life.
We hugged for a very long time to the vintage Loggins and Messina song, “The Love Song.”
Then we strolled into the living room, started the fireplace, and settled into an easy, comforting conversation.