The Power of idioms to help tell a story

Word phrases age and accumulate a kind of wisdom, just as people do.

Is life a crap shoot, good or bad fortune, without rhyme or reason? I don’t think so. Sometimes, stars align. This is the story of two ordinary people who experienced that in their golden years.

A Hair’s Breadth

We almost didn’t happen. Fifteen years ago, on Christmas morning, I was scrolling through saved eHarmony matches, deleting those outside my arbitrary 300-mile limit that the dating site had ignored. I had easily expunged a trio from Chicago, just a smidgen under my restriction.

MapQuest — remember that ancient mapping service — told me Rebecca lived a long way, most definitely not a stone’s throw, unless you’re Roberto Clemente.

Yet, she was different. There was a sparkle in her eye in the photo with the dog in her lap. I liked her face, hair, and smile. Today, she says there was no picture of her standing in the ocean with her grandson, Ilan. Maybe I imagined her legs, but I don’t think so.

All the profiles said their authors “enjoyed reading” because that was one of my “preferences.” Rebecca was specific, including what she was currently reading, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. Of course, I wasn’t reading Che, but I liked that she was. It was an intriguing tell.

However, her Clarinda home was 323 miles from my Decorah home. My right index finger moved the mouse cursor to the delete button…and I heard “Merry Christmas.”

My visiting mother had poked her head through the kitchen door. “How did you sleep?” I replied.

Later in the day, when the dust had settled, I wrote Rebecca a first email on the eHarmony secret highway. I wish I’d copied it. When I wrote it, I had no idea of its historical value. A week later, she replied with something along the lines of Let’s give this a try and see where it goes.

So, my mother’s intrusion into my musing helped bring Rebecca and me together. Who’d a thunk?

Eyes Wide Open

A couple of months later, our first date was in Ames, Iowa, roughly halfway between our homes, the orange circle on the map. I suggested Panera Bread, as they let people sip endless cups of coffee.

The second photo has been duplicated many times, from our first use of these large backpacks in Italy in 2018. Now they are our go-to suitcases, and they do fit in the airplane overhead compartment.

I’ve always thought the image represented what two sixty-year-olds carried into a relationship. “He comes with baggage” — a metaphor and NOT an idiom, you knew that, dear reader — about the issues someone brings with them. Maybe fear of commitment or some addiction.

However, baggage, to us, has always meant, well, what we carry with us that we need. For example, at that first meeting, not more than thirty minutes into our initial conversation, Rebecca said, “My former husband lives in my basement.” Someday, I’ll write the rest of that story. Rich died last October.

Below is a photo of the Wiese family in April this year at his burial. That’s me in the gray sweater in the middle. The rest are members of my partner’s extended family.

They all — three children, three spouses, seven grandchildren, Rich’s sister and spouse, one of Rebecca’s brothers and wife, fit comfortably inside her red backpack. As does Rebecca’s Clarinda home.

And friends. Who have become my buddies.

My black pack is complete as well, with my son, former wife (who lives four blocks from us in Decorah), friends, and house.

Today, we live most of the time in what has become our home in Decorah.We’ve traveled back and forth over the years, usually together, those 323 miles by my estimate, over 200 times.

Occasionally, when we’re packing for our next trip, one of us will ask if they can put a book, sweater, or pair of shoes in the other’s pack.

Of course, we say, we’ll need them for the journey.