What we see depends mainly on what we look for. – Sir John Lubbock.
It’s easy, in a blog about rebooting a marriage after 20 years, to focus on the not-so-hot to the detriment of all the good. When I first told R about my desire to blog the Reboot, that’s the very concern he aired. It’s too easy to discount the good stuff, as though it’s expected and therefore of less import than the stuff that needs “fixing.”
So this is a post about celebrating the joys we want to hang onto during the Reboot. And it’s a post about my Midwestern guy who has more romance left in him than I give him credit for sometimes.
R and I decided to go back for a visit to Burlington, Vermont, where we met 20 years ago, as part of the celebration of two decades together.
But R took it one step further, closet romantic that he is: He proposed we recreate our first four dates.
Those dates happened in quick proximity to one another: Our first was breakfast at his house (He cooks! I thought to myself as I drove over there) followed by a hike up Mt. Hunger. We enjoyed each other’s company so much we decided we didn’t want the day to end when we got back down the mountain. So that evening we went on Date 2: Dinner at the Champlain Mill followed by theatre at the Saint Michael’s Playhouse.
It was the 4th of July weekend, so we decided we’d spend the next day together, too. We hung out at the Burlington Waterfront for much of the day and evening, dipping our toes in the water while we talked for hours on the Boathouse dock and later watched the fireworks light the skies over Lake Champlain.
Our last date was a trip up to Burton Island, where we rented a rowboat to get over to the island and then a canoe to spend the day circling the island with frequent stops to swim, picnic and hang out. (Aside: If you’re a reader who knows R, ask him sometime how he felt about the long row back to shore! It’s a story for another time.)
Well, we almost pulled off a perfect replication of those dates. You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. The weather was awful, with torrential rain and car-denting hail keeping us off any serious mountaintop and off the water.
We couldn’t do Mt. Hunger without risking lighting strikes, but we did manage to get to the top of Mt. Philo between rainstorms. We spent time at the waterfront. We made it to the Playhouse for a romantic production, and while the restaurant at the Mill is no more, we dined very happily at A Single Pebble.
Of all the things we did and old haunts we visited, one was most special to me: We walked from our hotel in downtown Burlington to North Beach, where we’d met at the Discover Jazz Festival. I remember Rod was wearing a white t-shirt with an image of the globe on it; superimposed on the globe was the peace sign and one word: Imagine.
At North Beach this summer, R and I figured out approximately where we were standing when we met. We had a lovely long smooch and then stood hand in hand, looking out over the water.
Until the pools of groundwater soaked through our sneakers and the guy on the huge mowing machine made it clear we were in his way.
© 2009 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved. Posted at The Year 20 Reboot.
