Kathy and I got married almost 30 years until his breast cancer ended things on my birthday in 2018. It is strange how life happens.
We were blessed with a beautiful daughter, now 25 years old. Our family was largely formed by the “Hollywood Eclectic” house of 1926, with its steep roof and turret, which we occupy in a picturesque mountain street on Mount Washington. It was the type of children in the neighborhood of the house called the “house” of the witch around Halloween.
I lived in that house restlessly after Kathy died and Laura went to University in Tulane in New Orleans. The house was full of memories, which comforted me as much as chopped by critical absences.
At some point, I went through Match.com. I met good women, all intelligent, friendly, loving and wise. There was one in particular of Santa Monica whom I thought that after two years of appointments it was my forever. But finally he decided that I needed freedom and space, so I picked up my hearts chipted and moved on.
I was surprised during a silent endless night alone on the couch that there was no good reason for myself to live in this great old house. So I sold it about a year ago and I moved to a room of 8 feet per 12 feet on the fourth floor of the Glendale Ymca without elevator. I was trying to live at a low price. I wanted to get a position with an organization like the body of peace, something abroad, as I did with Kathy in the 80s.
After three months at the Y, I walked home from dinner one night when I stumbled upon a crack on a sidewalk and fractured my kneecap. I called Laura the next morning. She impressed me that I could no longer live in the Y.
So he found a place for me in Glendale, which was announced as “life of the elderly.” It was a good place, directed by decent and well -intentioned people, but the average age of the people who lived there was 85. I am 69 years old. The reference frames were, in retrospect, incompatible. I really appreciated some people there, but it could not be my home in the long term.
One day, I arrived at the dining room of my kind place, and sitting in front of me there was a woman who immediately caught my attention. His attentive hair was white to white. He had blue eyes and a soft voice, and how he would learn later, a affectionate ingenuity. She was there to close the affairs of her 103 -year -old mother, who had died when I hurt my leg. I learned that I was an architect, like me.
Gail asked me to come to his mother's burial at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. We sat next to each other with a small group. Gail got up at some point and launched a dove, which was woven and finally disappeared.
Gail describes herself as an agnostic. I am a practicing Catholic. I always thought it was important that couples had a common faith: to link better. But in our time together, I changed. It is good to have your own convictions, and it is good to share them. But I realize that sharing can happen without turning.
Often, Gail seems to be frowning, but it is only that he has poor vision and strives to see through his prescription lenses. He often sees difficulties as bigger than I see them. A permanent joke among us is Gail saying: “And there is another problem.” What could answer, “is that a problem or a possibility?”
Then I would frow my frown (I think, but I can't be sure), so, in response, I would make a pumping movement up and down with my arms, imitating the common lizards of Florida. Or it would growl like a wild dog. She laughed, and kissed her behind her ears as she growled more as she closed her eyes and smiled. I am very happy sometimes like that.
Gail and I have grown so close.
But then he had to go home, back to Gainesville, Florida. So I went to visit her for a month. Then I went to visit her for two months.
A few weeks ago, Gail flew to Los Angeles, we filled my belongings to my little fiat 500 and conducted a naughty field. We saw the Frank Lloyd Wright complex, Taliesin West on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona; Amazing White Sands National Park in New Mexico; and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.
With every thing seen and shared, we have approached. Thorn Post Office in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was, I think our blessing. There was more, but the chapel did.
As for the angels, I will always love. I did not go due to lack of affection for the city. I left because I met a woman who loved that she was not willing to move and wanted to be with her. Life is a change, and you change with circumstances or break.
Gail and I now live together in Gainesville. But I must consider: What was the mysterious confluence that made my knee break at the moment when Gail's mother died, bringing Gail to a table, in a place, at the same time? I do not intend to understand it. But for us, our delight, laughs and shared gratitude are enough.
A famous architect once said: “God is in details.” Maybe that applies to relationships. When I arrived at Gail's house, I sat in a dining chair with a wicker cane seat. I did it two or three times.
Then, one day, while I sat, the seat broke and my fleshy cheek seemed to have immersed himself in the abyss. Gail asked: “Could you sit more softly in my chairs?” I did not think I sat stronger in his chair than ever sitting in a chair before in my life. But I said “well”, because, in retrospect, maybe I was too hard.
Perhaps the mystery of love is found in that wicker hole.
The author is an architect. Recently he left Los Angeles and now lives in Gainesville, Fla.
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