If it is said that a woman will marry a man who is like her Father, Then this could not be more true than in my marriage. In the sixteen years under my Father's care, only a single vacation was ever taken. In the 32 years of my marriage, I have only taken one vacation 32 times!
I have traveled the exact same roads to Northern Michigan, to the exact same destination nearly all of my life. There isn't a Welcome Center along the way that we do not stop at to collect brochures to use in planning the next year's exact vacation. In all these years they have never changed.
When I ask my husband why it is that he can't use the previous year's
brochures, his reply is always the same, "There might be something new!"
May I tell you if there is something new, I haven't seen it in the last
32 years! Everything is exactly as I found it the year before.
Each year as the spring sun draws closer to the earth and vacation days
near, I will say to my husband, "But I just want to go to the beach. I
want to go to Florida!" My husband's reply is exactly the same year
after year, "But I do take you to the beach. Lake Michigan!"
Before you should jump on my "Florida or Bust" bandwagon and think
unkind things of my husband who takes me on
exactly the same vacation for 32 years, please know that at each
destination we rest our travel weary bodies, we find the love of a family
member who I would not know so well had I not visited them every year
for 32 years.
I love Emily Post. I love manners. When I was a young teen I discovered a copy of "Emily Posts Book of Ettiquite" tucked in with my mother's hundreds of mystery books that lined the bookshelves in our home.
I loved it's faded blue cover and thin as could be pages. I loved the little drawings of place settings and calling cards. I loved the pages of examples of proper greetings. "Mrs. Smith may I introduce you to Mary.", "Mary, May I introduce you to Mrs. Smith."
Right next to Emily on the bookcase was a copy of "Marjorie Morningstar". The story of a young girl's journey from summers at camp to the heartache of first love, the discovery of self.
As all girls do, I would dream of the future and the woman I would become romanticizing that I would be Marjorie complete with manners to move about in polite society.
My husband will tell you about falling in love with me, that I didn't seem to be a young woman of my own times. I seemed to have my own code of behavior that set me apart from my peers.
I giggle now to think who I might have become had two books on a bookshelf not become my bedside companions.
But they were, and they shaped the woman I would become, and I am so grateful for this because I was just the person my true love was looking for.
