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Celebrations of love JULY 20, 2017 ● ULSTER PUBLISHING ● WWW.HUDSONVALLEYONE.COM

Oh, how love and marriage keep changing Writing letters Melancholic stories Shrink’s advice Legal matters First-house love

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First house love There are similarities between real estate and amour

by Susan Barnett

T

he reasons we fall in love aren’t all that different from the reasons we choose a home.

Maybe you’ve never thought of it that way. I’ve seen it happen so often I feel like I’m observing Okay Cupid connections as they happen.

The outside gets your attention. The joy of discovering more entangles you further. But in the end the person you pick is the one with quirks that you can live with.

In love, we call that attraction, fascination and, finally compatibility. With a house, it’s called curb appeal, flow and finally “home” versus “house.”

If you’ve ever loved a house, you understand. If you haven’t, just wait.

Others may question your choice.

“Are you sure? Don’t you worry about ...?”

“Wouldn’t you rather ....?”

“I’d think long and hard about this.”

But you’re smitten. This is your house, the one that’s just right for you.

M

y first house love was the ugliest house on a Lady and The Tramp-pretty tree-lined street. It was an old farmhouse someone had lovingly destroyed with bilious blue paint on the outside, replacement windows, paneling in every room, and shag carpeting.

The dining room sported a jaunty wagon-wheel chandelier.

My parents, very sensible people, were stunned.

There wasn’t a square inch of that house I didn’t have to work on. But the truth is, I loved every second of it. My house glowed in response to all that care and attention. It became one of the loveliest houses on that pretty street. I still miss it.

It’s trickier when you’re buying a house as a couple. That’s two sets of preferences to consider, and an interesting way to discover how your relationship works, or doesn’t work.

Someone’s going to have to compromise. It’s inevitable.

Does anyone think Melania Trump was jumping up and down with joy at the prospect of moving into that big white elephant in Washington, DC? She put it off as long as she could, but in the end she went. What are you going to do when the guy you married is absolutely determined that he wants to leave his gold-plated penthouse for an antique mixed-use building in a city built on a swamp?

At least she has the consolation of knowing her move was not permanent.

I

t is the rare couple that is on exactly the same page when it comes to houses. They’re the lucky ones.

Maybe they agree on a style. Or maybe they agree that style doesn’t matter if the location is right.

I have known many couples who are nowhere near agreement. Both sides have to give more than a little.

One couple had an historic home in the mountains. It was a beauty. Everyone who saw it envied them. But it was also a beast to maintain, it had huge gardens, and the location was isolated. The one who originally bought it traveled. The other one, who arrived when the house was a done deal, stayed at home and kept the place going. The housebound half of that couple finally made it clear: time to compromise.

They found a sleek mid-century modern home within a couple of miles of a busy town, handy to culture, activities and people. The grounds were large but manageable. The house was simple and accommodating. Relationship saved.

Another couple was searching for their first home. She was an interior designer, he’s color-

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All deals include elements of hope and fear, be they involving property or that fickle organ, the heart. blind. She’s quite tiny. He’s a lanky six-and-a-halffeet tall. You can imagine.

They both loved enormous high-ceilinged houses that needed extensive work, each for their own reasons. She embraced the decorating challenge, while he was just happy to find a house that didn’t make him feel like a giant in Hobbit-town.

They found a house that he thought had promise. She turned around and walked out. “No way,” she said.

“That’s that,” he said.

They found another that she saw lots of potential in. We found him in the back yard, his jaw set.

“I hate it.”

“Next,” she said.

What they chose, in the end, was a compromise.

It’s not a big house, but it’s in a good location for their needs. The few rooms are spacious, the ceilings are high, and there are some really interesting design elements.

“It’s not our forever house,” he admitted, “but it’s good for now.”

She’s busy planning color schemes.

Many couples have different relationship styles.

That’s a challenge. One of them falls in love at first sight, while the other cannot commit. One gets nauseated by old houses with walls that aren’t perfectly plumb. The other glazes over at the lack of character in newer houses and sees modern construction as “junk.”

It’s hard to find a true compromise when tastes and styles are very different. That’s when someone has to say, “Okay, sweetie. You get this one.” Hopefully, Melania gets to pick the next one.

W

ant a bit of help navigating the perilous rapids of relationship compromise on the house hunt?

Talk. A lot. Start before you look at a single house. What did you love about houses you’ve loved? What are non-starters for you?

Listen to each other. Don’t just wax poetic about a house you think is perfect. Listen to what your partner has to say. Maybe there are things that can be done to make your partner love this place as much as you do. But maybe there aren’t.

Think creatively. If one of you can’t see past ugly paint, old wallpaper and ugly furniture, be patient.

Explain, in detail, what could be created, and how.

Ask your agent. Your agent has seen it all. And lots of agents have a pretty good eye. Yours might not, but chances are that’s a great resource you’re working with. Ask. Give. Give a little or give a lot, but give. If you refuse to bend at all, you’re not partnering. You’re dictating. And nobody likes to live with a dictator.

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20, 2017 4 | July Celebrations of Love

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Love is eternal Learning from our kids’ first letters

By Paul Smart

I

know an eleven-year-old who fell in love with a nine-year-old. Actually, he was ten and she was eight when his realization first hit him. It was immediate, he said.

It took over a year for him to follow up on his crush.

The eleven-year-old started talking to all his friends in school about the girl he liked. He spoke with her twin sister, who’d become one of his best friends, and to her mother, who taught at their school. He shared his thoughts and worries about love with his mother and father. It was suggested that he start writing a love letter.

I recall my own first-love letters, scrawled out in rough drafts, rewritten in my best handwriting.

Eventually handwriting was succeeded by typing, since I didn’t think my beloveds would be able to decipher my chicken scratch. My letters were never sent. I suspect some of them may be in one of the boxes of mementos I’ve been carrying around over the years.

My later missives, written after my dating life had started, overreached beyond the lyrical into near obsession. They were often accompanied by mix tapes, collages and Robert Lowell-inspired jabs at soul-scorching poetry.

In my forties, I got hired by an older artist who’d won a Jayne Mansfield lookalike contest 40 years earlier, to answer love letters from a purported Ukrainian prince-inventor from Tuxedo. He in turn engaged me to take over his own letterwriting. I was playing both sides of the proverbial amatory fence.

My short and intense courtship of my wife, mostly undertaken in emails during their early days, was later augmented by years of more careful handwritten letters as our relationship matured.

The eleven-year-old, bless him, took his time writing his beloved. He told her how much he admired her, from her looks and intelligence to her caring for pets and her kind ways with younger

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Writing about love may be the key to all writing, at least when it comes to harnessing emotions into argument. And getting things right. kids at their school. He said he’d liked her from the moment he first met her. He even used the word “love.”

He shared his process with parents, friends, that beloved’s twin and mom, and eventually his teacher, who suggested he lead a class about writing love letters. The teacher said that what’s written should be handwritten, that it be thought out and that it be not too “gushy.” He taught that short was okay, and that the most important thing was to be “true.”

Eventually, the eleven-year-old brought up his “project” with a 13-year-old girl at a shared Passover dinner. She said that what he had done was “mature.” The eleven-year-old then asked the old-

er woman what she thought about “mood rings,” since he’d heard from her twin that his beloved really wanted one. “Fake,” the 13-year-old replied matter-of-factly. She told him all about a test she and her friends had done with several mood rings.

They’d change colors in a pattern no matter one’s mood.

Fortified with this wisdom, he instead bought a heart ring from Walmart, where he had it placed in a colorful shiny bag with tissue paper. The whole thing was delivered with his letter.

After school that day, I asked the eleven-yearold how it went when he gave the nine-year old his gifts of the heart. He told me he had to chase her around the school. But then she said thank you and smiled. Later, after lunch, she said she wanted

for Woodstock Times.

John McInerney is a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist specializing in couples work who maintains private practices in Catskill and New York City. His website if www.loveandwork.com.

Paul Smart is an editor of regional publications, as well as a writer and parent to an eleven year old.

Melanie Zerah is editor of the SUNY New Paltz student newspaper, The Oracle.

Celebrations of Love

Contributors Susan Barnett is a former radio journalist who now works in real estate while writing fiction, memoirs, and insightful stories for Ulster Publishing.

Elisabeth Henry is a very special writer for these sections and other publications, as well as a very special actor doing local theater, film and commercial work.

Lissa Harris is founder and editor of the regional news source, Watershed Post, and a columnist

July 20, 2017 An Ulster Publishing publication Editorial WRITERS: Susan Barnett, Lissa Harris, Elisabeth Henry, John McInerney, Paul Smart, Melanie Zerah Cover photo by Nicholas Padron, of a Gina Maloney Events wedding at The Emerson in Mt. Tremper EDITOR: Paul Smart LAYOUT: Joe Morgan Ulster Publishing PUBLISHER: Geddy Sveikauskas ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: Genia Wickwire DISPLAY ADS: Lynn Coraza, Pam Courselle,

Pamela Geskie, Elizabeth Jackson, Ralph Longendyke, Sue Rogers, Linda Saccoman PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joe Morgan PRODUCTION: Diane Congello-Brandes, Josh Gilligan, Rick Holland CLASSIFIED ADS: Amy Murphy, Tobi Watson CIRCULATION: Dominic Labate Celebrations of Love: Summer Edition is an annual publication produced by Ulster Publishing.

It is distributed in the company’s four weekly newspapers and separately at select locations, reaching an estimated readership of over 50,000.

For more info on upcoming special sections, including how to place an ad, call 845-334-8200, fax 845-334-8202 or email: info@ulsterpublishing.com.

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PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO

Whether a simple token of one’s crush or an attempt to reach something deeper, parents will always swoon at their kids attempts at early wooing.

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to be his friend, and no more.

Her mom later texted the boy’s dad to say how sweet the boy had been, but how traumatized her girl had been by the process.

That week the entire school got together for a talk about feelings and truthfulness. For a day or two the eleven-year-old wanted to change schools.

He complained of constant stomach aches.

By the weekend, he was all better. And the following week he went for a play date with both twins, who will be accompanying his family’s trip to Cape Cod the week this story gets published.

Will love letters ever become a thing of the past?

Have they ever not existed? There is ample evidence of the history of love from the ancient days through the age of chivalry, through the Renaissance and Reformation, and beyond the era of the homespun into the present age of social media, texting and emails. One could argue that a cave drawing of fleet animals running across a wall was a cultural testament to what one could provide for an intended.

The personal touch still matters. All partnering involves evolution. The act of sharing something deeply personal to another with that other’s viewpoint in mind, no matter how poorly constructed the message and mistakenly construed the intention, is inseparable from human culture.

The form may change, but the need for unique personal connection remains. It’s about handwriting, even when it’s typed.

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Anything goes Marriage has entered into a new age of real choices

By Melanie Zerah

A

bride, a groom, a cake, a lovely hotel, a wedding ceremony in a lovely stained-glass church. The groom saves up for an expensive ring. The families save up for an even grander reception and wedding dress. The betrothed are constantly reminded that the most important part of the wedding should not be forgotten: Vowing to a higher power that your marriage is bullet-proof and cannot be torn apart by anything except death.

That’s so yesterday. Hey, it’s 2017. For many participants the whole ‘til-death-do-us-part’ bit is over the top. Not only are these matrimonious hipsters rewriting their vows, but they are also changing the rules of marriage.

Weddings are now an opportunity to meddle with gender. It isn’t a question of who should wear the dress, but who wants to. These events are opportunities to renew intimacy between family members in more inclusive ceremonies or to cut ties with those who don’t support the engaged.

As we are quickly learning, reality is today what we make of it. In America we now have the opportunity to choose our roles in marriage, whether economic, sexual or religious. The second marriage does not have to be preceded by the pope nullifying the previous one. Free to express love as we choose, we can still say our vows in a beautiful church or we can stand barefoot in the woods with a best friend ordaining the union.

DION OGUST

The key elements to big to-dos never change; you have to feed people, get them dancing, and elicit lasting memories from all.

T

he fashion of modern weddings is charmingly rebellious in and of itself. Atop a silver engagement band may sit a precious gem rather than four-months’-salary worth of carats. Mermaid opals, garnets, ruby, sapphires, peridot — the list becomes more colorful. These rings may prove to be more meaningful to the receiver because the gem may be their favorite color or birthstone. Many of these gorgeous rings, unless accompanied by diamonds, can be under $2500.

I would consider this one of the most valuable changes in the traditional engagement setting — a ring that is a testament of love and not status.

Bridesmaid dresses may be the same color, but more modern brides let their ladies choose dresses of a shape most flattering for their body types.

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Even traditional weddings have gone whimsical in recent years. The only thing that may stay the same are the expenses. And memories.

The wedding is no longer the central celebratory event in a bridezilla universe.

Modern weddings emphasize the personality and character of the couple, expressed directly to the guests through the facets of the ceremony and reception. Couples are increasingly embracing the ability to customize and personalize one of the happiest days of their lives with what speaks to their souls.

Although we still see heterosexual traditional weddings in most marital magazines and movie screens, there are shifts in our culture. The norm is becoming blurred, as we enter into an arena where anything goes.

T

he familial pressures after the wedding day are diminishing as well. Goodbye to the idea that couples must procreate in

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order to be happy and healthy. Couples may find something different to devote their life to — travel, business or art, or simply the pursuit of happiness.

This is a positive twist to what it means to be married. Not everyone is fit to raise a child and to devote their entire being to ensuring a child’s wellness. We are facing a shifting sociopolitical and international climate. The world may not be as safe as it was.

As a 21-year-old college student, I am constantly wondering about my future. What lies ahead?

Marriage and conception are not expected of me any time soon, or maybe ever. I want to learn, travel, get into trouble, get out of trouble, try new things, dance and deal with the responsibilities I choose.

Paradoxically, I believe marriages now have a better chance of survival. A marriage based on honesty is the best predictor of its success.

As the product of now-divorced parents, it is clear to me that even a clean divorce can cause turmoil.

What is expected of the lives of aging millennials?

I’d like to think it is simply what we choose it to be.

I’d like to give a shout-out to the feminist movement of the 1960s for shaking the foundations of marriage by rejecting the role of “little housewife.” These women paved the way for the bending and stretching of gender roles in a union, setting down the first stone leading to the legalization of same-sex marriage in America.

Same-sex marriage forced the world to confront worthy marriages that weren’t religious and heteronormative.

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advertising world; Samsung picked Topher and Rosenberg for an international campaign just before the big day. People magazine was there for the wedding, and ran a piece on it the week after.

The marrying couple both adored animals of all kinds.

Plus, they wanted to accommodate lots of dogs for their wedding, which they knew should be upstate, because of the Hudson Valley’s and Catskills’ enduring hipness.

“It took me two months to find the right farm to supply the animals,” Maloney said.

“I looked from here to Connecticut and Massachusetts.

I didn’t want to mix animals that didn’t know each other since there would be people petting them in a relatively small space. I ended up asking everyone I knew.”

She ended up working with Michael’s Farm in Saugerties, a private animal-rescue entity owned and operated by Tammy Drost, who welcomes kids and other visitors by appointment (Drost keeps a busy Facebook page). The place is located not far from where Mahoney lives between Saugerties and Woodstock.

“She had everything we had been given on a list, from goats and a miniature horse to bunnies and a fox,” Maloney said.

“We have her farm a donation.”

The wedding took place at the Emerson Inn in Mount Pleasant, near Phoenicia. Because of the numbers of animals involved in the event, Maloney said, once Michael’s Farm was lined up much of her preparations involved “a lot of lawyering and insurance work.”

Yes, she added, insurance is always a consideration for big weddings.

“The animals all did pretty well,” she reported several weeks after the event. “They were even part of the bridal party, plus we had 15 dogs.”

Maloney got her start doing weddings after helping out with events at the Center for Photog-

Ulster Publishing Co.

PHOTOS BY DION OGUST AND NICOLAS PADRON

raphy at Woodstock.

Her first wedding was between a Parisian designer and an up-and-coming video director. The event she put together on a large local estate made up of fields and forest featured three-story balloon installations and an elegant but rustic outdoor meal.

“I thought afterwards, Oh, my god, I think I’ve found my new career,” Maloney said. “I love doing things that are colorful and unexpected.”

Those are the key qualities many want in their weddings these days, especially the bigger ones. “I

find the majority of people I’m working with want an experience. It’s all about couples coming here as a destination,” she said. “People want a threeday event, something that will be remembered forever. We’ve worked in glamping, teepees. You name it.”

Did Maloney think the box she’d jumped out of with Topher and The Dog Stylist’s wedding might be topped any time soon?

She laughed. “I enjoy working with out-of-thebox-type clients,” she responded. “I don’t know.

But we’ll see.”

July 20, 2017 Celebrations of Love

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 11

An imperfect plaintiff’s view of love and the law Marriage is more than the law’s protection of family

By Lissa Harris

I

t was a cold, damp November in Boston when the decision in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health came down, directing the Massachusetts state legislature in no uncertain terms to extend civil-marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Every newspaper, every street corner, every twobit contrarian radio talk show was suddenly full of constant chatter about same-sex marriage. Falling just a month after the Red Sox’s tragic whomping by the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, the state court ruling gave Bostonians of all stripes something to do besides mutter darkly about Babe Ruth and cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes. Yelling about gay marriage was suddenly a game, and everyone could play.

For me, it was spectacularly bad timing. I had just arrived in Boston to make a fresh start of things, leaving behind the smoldering wreckage of the household I’d shared with my ex-wife since college. The breakup of my (not legal, but all too real) marriage had busted me right back down to private: no house, no career, no direction. I was working a string of catering gigs and writing local news stories in exchange for El Pelon Bucks, redeemable at the local taqueria.

When I think back to that time in my life, I am overcome with an almost physical sensation of trudging around in black pants and a button-down shirt, smelling faintly of chicken satay, trying valiantly to avoid eye contact with some Bostonian loudly expressing an opinion on the proper role of the state vis-à-vis human familial relations.

I did not, at the time, feel like much of a threat to traditional marriage. I certainly felt like a threat to same-sex marriage. “See,” I imagined people saying. “Gays can’t be trusted with marriage. Look at this wretched specimen right here.”

Maybe it was just the inevitable bitterness, given my situation, but I was almost as pained by the pro-same-sexmarriage crowd as by the antis. They were so full of vague, high-minded talk about love and justice. There was just way too much Vaseline on the lens.

“You’re making the wrong arguments,” I said irritably to my car radio, which was tuned to an interview with some activist spouting paeans to hope and love and tolerance and respect.

Marriage isn’t about love. You don’t need legal marriage for love. You need it to keep the grubby paws of the state off your family.

DION OGUST

Where does our heart take us? Do we really need a lawyers’ opinion, or the guidance of state and federal legislation? In the end it’s all a learning pass... and as much about what comes next as whatever it is we’re attempting to define and make real.

I hope — and watched over the years as my legal marriage license morphed, from a flimsy thing whose legal force ended at the Massachusetts border to a binding contract backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Constitution in all 50 states. It’s been four years since United States v.

Windsor came down, and two since Obergefell v.

Hodges, but it still boggles my mind that my wife and I don’t have to draw up three separate sets of tax returns any more: married at the state level, throwaway set of single at the state level to calculate federal taxes, single at the federal level.

I

PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO

I

t’s a bitter irony that through- A kiss is just a kiss... out the history of marriage law most of the people who have been allowed to marry 2004, with a constitutional convention looming each other by default don’t need that piece of that threatened to undercut the Goodridge ruling paper nearly as much as the rest of us. Straight through legislative amendment to state marriage couples of the same race don’t tend to have their law, I got out my debating knives for the cause. relationship challenged by hospitals. Parental One argument I’m particularly proud of was a rights? Afforded, in most cases, by biological relatwo-hour knock-down, drag-out session with an tion, a tie the courts are often reluctant to sever. old and very dear friend from high school who is The people who need marriage the most are those a conservative atheist with an air of William F. who are already at greatest risk of having their Buckley about him, and not terribly susceptible to families interfered with, by private industry and high-minded rhetoric. He hadn’t heard the kinds the government alike. of arguments I was making from LGBT activists I steered clear of getting into arguments about before. At the end of it, he wrote his legislator in same-sex marriage for months — a feat, for anysupport of same-sex marriage. one living in Boston at the time. But finally, in Since then, I’ve remarried — more successfully,

’ve taken other legal steps to draw protective circles around my family, some of them downright Kafkaesque. A few months after giving birth to my child in 2008, I brought her before a Massachusetts judge and adopted her. She was issued a brand-new birth certificate, exactly the same as the one she got when she was born.

Adopting your own biological child seems like taking the belt-and-suspenders principle a little too far. But it was, my lawyer advised me, the only way to reliably sever the parental rights of her biological father, a thing both of us wanted. He was fully willing to sign over his rights. We drew up an agreement on that front before my daughter was ever conceived. But we were operating on the wild frontier of reproductive law, where everything turns on the interpretation of the court.

A signed statement from a parent surrendering their rights is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on, my lawyer told me. An adoption is practically bulletproof.

To me, the legal framework of my family isn’t a given, and it isn’t a testament to the victory of love over hate. It’s a jerry-rigged fence I’ve built out of spit and duct tape around my family, hoping it will keep the wolves out. With every new legal victory for LGBT civil rights, that fence has gotten a little stronger. But I don’t quite trust it to hold up to the elements. I expect I never will.

Perhaps that sounds overly paranoid. My friend Mike certainly thinks so. Shortly after last November’s election, in the midst of a bout of extreme pessimism, I bet him $500 that within a decade I’d lose my federal marriage rights.

If I win, he can make the check out to LGBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, the fine folks who brought you Goodridge back in 2003. If he wins, he’s going to buy a huge gun.

Either way, if you think about it, I win.

20, 2017 12 | July Celebrations of Love

Ulster Publishing Co.

Larry loved Lorraine A short story of mountainous romance

by Elisabeth Henry

A

ll over this vast land there are small towns like this. The base population remains largely unchanged, in number and demeanor, from what it was decades ago.

The young may leave. Some do, but enough stay and produce children. Life here goes on. Simple. Stable. Ordinary.

Every once in a while there is the return of a prodigal son or daughter. And every once in a while there’s somebody new in town, whose chances of success are much higher if a useable skill is involved. Unless they’re a girl. The bachelors and the married men alike welcome the diversion of a new female form to consider. And ponder.

Larry was a prodigal son. He was the third-born son in a passel of ten children. In his early days he was what you might call a rambler. He quit high school, despite a deep love for reading about American History (particularly tales of the Olde West). He took a job building fence for a guy down the mountain. Then he got his CDL and hauled hay to Long Island. That led to long-distanceover-the-road employment and nights in truckers’ bars. He acquired a bad Jameson habit, and lost his license.

Because much, but not all, of this happened in Florida, he developed a hatred for the entire state.

He hated the heat. He hated the humidity. He hated the goddamn gardenias. Nonetheless, he spent about eight years there, walking to work to shovel horse manure at a dressage barn.

He met an Amish man who taught him how to drive a team of horses. It turned out that Larry was a natural. He could work those reins with sensitivity and dexterity, so much so that the horses appeared to love working with him. However, times being what they are, there’s not much work for a reins man, and Larry was not attracted to Amish life.

Good thing. The Amish were not so enamored of Larry’s boozing and slovenly dress. The Amish man tried to teach Larry to shoe horses. That would at least bring in some money. But Larry didn’t like the forge, the smell of the trimmed hooves, or what felt like violence, nailing on those shoes.

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How much of our attitude towards love is shaped by outside forces, or whimsy? Sometimes it’s the real that’s most sublime, and heartbreaking.

Once his friendship with the Amish man dissolved, Larry quit Florida for good. He got the chance to hitch to Texas to work on an oil rig, but that was hot and humid, too, and apparently nobody there much liked his drinking. Nobody found any value in him at all.

It was only after falling into a drunken stupor on a Gulf Coast beach one night and waking up to deep-fried skin and gull guano all over his back and legs that Larry discovered there really is a bottom, and he had hit it flat out splat and final. As he squinted his burning, aching eyes at the blazing blue sky, amid the sound of the squawking gulls, Larry had a vision of a cool and mist-covered mountain. Larry was going home.

D

ecades had passed since Larry had last heard the slam of his mother’s screen door behind him, but not much had changed.

The front lawn was neat and tidy. The front door was unlocked. However, once inside, Larry stood in a house completely empty. Empty of furniture.

Empty of appliances. Empty of everything except memories like “there’s where we took off our boots so’s not to dirty the house” and “there’s the corner where we always put the Christmas tree.”

Larry heard a pick-up screech to a halt outside.

He looked out. There was his brother Jerry.

At first Jerry didn’t recognize Larry, and he approached quick and tense. When at last he recognized his brother, the one who always shared food with him, who taught him to fish, who read The Virginian to him at night when they were supposed to be sleeping, he sagged. Could this bedraggled, lined, stooped and filthy creature be that brother?

It was. “Shit,” whispered Jerry.

It turned out that Larry’s mother had been put in a home, and the house was for sale. Jerry and the others decided to just about gut it so as to make it more modern. No one in that family had much talent for construction, so the project was taking much longer than expected.

News of his mother, and what his siblings had in store for his ancestral home (a cape with a dormer

on a quarter-acre off County Route 17) pulled out of Larry a measure of resolve he had never felt before in all his life. He begged them to delay ripping down the walls. He swore he’d quit the drink.

He went to visit his mother.

Larry stood outside his mother’s room, watching her. She sat up in bed, a quilt made by hand by one of the ladies at The Methodist Church tucked around her tiny, frail frame. The tv was on, but she ignored it, glancing quietly out the sunlit window or at her folded hands, which she turned this way and that. She became aware of Larry’s presence, and no matter the years and the drink and the neglect she saw her son. She beamed, hoping it wasn’t a product of her reverie. She held out her arms. Larry pulled a chair beside the bed, lay his head on her lap, and wept.

L

arry quit booze with the help of the AA meetings at the Methodist Church. He visited his mother almost every day, and that helped, too. He got a job at the village hardware store and grew a handle-bar mustache. He cemented his relationship with the volunteer fire department -- a lifelong ambition. At the chicken barbecue held every summer, the ladies teased him that he’d better choose himself a wife before one chose him. But Larry was still tender, new in this clean and sober life. He got lots of gratification teaching his many nieces and nephews to swim and fish and grow pumpkins.

One nephew in particular, Benny, grew very fond of him. Benny’s mother had fled a bad marriage in Jersey. Larry became a surrogate father figure. He slowly made minor repairs to his mother’s house, bought second-hand furniture for it, and settled in happily. Add to which, he discovered that he was exceptionally good at business. He was more than decent at accounting and inventory, and was surprisingly adept at matters of business law.

This had endeared him to old Milly and her husband, owners of the village hardware. Life was good. No need to rock the boat with something so tricky as romance.

Then Larry’s mother died. Despite her age, her infirmities, her frailty, the loss stunned him. The siblings held a collective breath, fearing the worst.

But the worst never came. Larry was sustained.

His tiny, loving mother had left him the house.

Thank God! said the siblings. Let him pay the taxes!

But then Milly’s husband had a stroke, and the stress of that gave Milly a heart attack. They both soon died. That would’ve been a lot of loss for anyone, and Larry was so raw.

Miracle of miracles, Milly left the store to him!

It was as if fate was not fickle at all, but was, instead, as carefully measured and calculable as the

July 20, 2017 Celebrations of Love

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 13

in that someone had gone off the mountain road. That alone was not unusual. Hikers in inadequate footwear, drunks at night, or kids on a dare -- these were common scenarios in life up here. But this was different. “That car was going about 60 miles per, which is real fast for that road,� said the lady on Eyewitness News. “It’s like he knew just where to aim,� said her husband. He gestured with his hand to a gap between the guardrail on the road and the fence to the rest stop. “He sailed, airborne, right off!�

Larry died instantly. No one knew what happened. Why would a man, albeit very flawed, but essentially very good, do such violence to himself and worse, bring such attention to it? And to his beloved town?

We’ll never know. It was long before that film Thelma and Louise was in the pictures, so it wasn’t that.

It wasn’t that. Maybe he had a stroke or a heart attack like old Milly.

Larry left everything to Lorraine, who immediately cashed in, left town with some guy nobody knew, and bought a farm in Canada on PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO Melancholia was once considered one of the precepts of great art. Now it’s often seen as simply a disorder, something some crackpot notion that she knew something about dairy cows. We in need of therapy... or medication. heard she lost everything.

Years later, when Benny was working on the figures Larry printed so carefully in the green colittle dim, certainly blank, but just the sort of gal power lines that ran along the gorge, one of lumnar pads at the store. to be content to sit on that stool at the cash registhe guys found a necklace dangling from a tree The coda to this dramatic sequence came quiter and process Larry’s sales. You couldn’t really branch. The guy reached for it. etly late one afternoon. The little brass bell above ask for more. “Leave it,� Benny hissed. The guy knew betthe door to the shop tinkled and Larry looked up.

But Benny, now 15, harbored other thoughts. ter than to fool with Benny, whose fury was rare, There she was.

Once Lorraine caught him looking at her neckbut famous. Benny spat at the ground. “Leave it “Somebody said you need help,� she said. lace. He was trying to figure out what it was (it alone.� was a pendant, a hummingbird with its bill probndeed. ing a rose). But he also could not help but notice In all his life, Larry had never been in love.

Lorraine’s ample bosom. Aside from her large There had been furtive fumblings in a summer paps, no 15-year-old boy would admire Lorraine’s long ago, when Larry was out with all the other kids figure. Barrel belly, skinny legs. catching fireflies. At one or two of the bars Larry But that humming bird almost disappeared in Style of Dreams frequented, a soft-hearted waitress might take him her deep cleavage. For once, for Benny, Lorraine’s home, but he rarely remembered the kindness. eyes stared into someone else’s eyes. Then she CUSTOM DRESSMAKING That fog was lifted now. Lorraine was punctual, sucked her teeth and licked her upper lip. It was • bridal & special occasion gowns practically silent, and not at all bored by the derevolting. Lorraine giggled almost imperceptibly • mother-of-the bride/groom mands of hardware. Most of all, she was willing. as Benny hurried away. • bridal alterations Larry discovered this when his hand brushed hers Nothing like that ever happened again, but Ben• restyling of vintage gowns at the cash register. She didn’t move. She didn’t ny worried about his uncle. He kept his worries to • eco-friendly fabrics available freeze, either. himself, though. More than anything, he wished From this moment, more moments of contact happiness for this gentle, kind man.

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PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS

They say love ages well. Then again, we’ve all seen loves fail over time. Our author believes what happens depends on how certain rules get followed.

On love A veteran psychotherapist’s lessons

By John McInerney

W

hat can I tell you about love that you haven’t already heard in the lyrics of that song you’ve been listening to obsessively for the last three months?

Or how about that movie you’ve watched a dozen times? Have they taught you everything you need to know?

If you’re reading this, my guess is it’s because you’ve had the experience of being swept off your feet and fallen helplessly in love. But you’re smart enough to know that there’s more to it than that, right?

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Hence your curiosity.

Well, good for you! An open and curious mind is a great gift that will serve you well in the course of your relationship if you can hold onto it.

All’s fair in love and war, they say. It’s not true, not if you want to sustain a good relationship over time. There are a few rules which are worth laying out up front.

If your first reaction is “that’s a buzz kill,” just chill out and roll with it. Believe me, it’s worth the effort if you want to make your dreams come true.

Even if you think you know the basics, there’s no harm in having them written out to post on the refrigerator of your starter home. We’ll get to the mushy part in a minute.

Rule No. 1. The only person you can change is yourself.

At first glance, this sounds like an easy one. But it’s not. Remember this every single time (count them, I mean it) you wish your partner would stop doing that thing they do that used to be cute but has started to become really annoying, it means that you have to adapt: accept, forgive, ignore, play down, count to ten, whatever it takes. That’s the only way this is going to work. Not so easy now, is it?

Rule No. 2. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and be willing to be held accountable for every word that comes out of your mouth without putting up a fight. (Okay, you’re allowed one small one.)

Nowadays, this rule is increasingly important. It is the essential ingredient of the social compact, the glue that holds society together. Without it, we are lawless and chaotic.

This rule will safeguard your relationship against the slings and arrows of outrageous stupidity

and ignorance. Oh, you’re immune to that stuff?

Nobody is! Language evolved to help us communicate in greater detail and collaborate better.

With words instead of grunts, we could perform more complex tasks more precisely and in teams.

That way we could survive better against the incredible odds of living in wild nature. You don’t want to be arguing about who makes the best spear when a saber-toothed tiger is stalking you.

Sad to say, we wouldn’t need this rule if some of us didn’t misuse the power of speech to gain an edge; to dodge, obfuscate, confuse, control, cheat, lie, even demean or belittle others for our own benefit. It usually happens when people are scared.

Long-term, committed relationships can be a scary place. You know what I’m talking about.

Please, I beg you, respect this rule. Be prepared to cop to your stuff, to apologize and to expect your partner to do the same. Help preserve the basis of civilization for future generations.

Rule No. 3. There is no such thing as unambiguous monogamy.

This one can be really confusing. It’s probably why some people choose open relationships or pursue polyamory rather than go the traditional route.

It means you can be in a committed relationship but sometimes wish you weren’t. That’s okay. Wishing doesn’t make it so, and It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that there’s something wrong with you and you need to cheat on your partner to fix it.

It also doesn’t mean there must be something wrong with your marriage or you wouldn’t feel this way. It just means you’re human.

Don’t act out your doubts. They’re yours. Nobody put them there, nobody can take them away. If they persist, see a therapist. Don’t discuss them with your partner unless you are fairly sure you can pin them to something specific in the relationship.

July 20, 2017 Celebrations of Love

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 15

you. ‘Nuff said?

Okay, now let’s move on to the mushy bit.

The Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown has a beautiful object in its collection that can teach you everything you need to know about what love and romance are all about. It is a man’s summer hunting coat made from caribou skin between 1725 and 1800. It came from the Naskapi Innu, a first-nation people from what is now the Labrador area of Canada.

The coat is beautifully decorated. When you see it, you wonder why. It’s meant for hunting. It’s an LL Bean, not a Ralph Lauren. Of course all the work is done by hand. The hunter killed the caribou and skinned it. His wife and he prepared the skin together. They and their children, we assume, lived on the meat for quite some time, probably sharing it with neighbors and relatives.

It was and still is a tough life out there in the brutal conditions of Labrador. Why would you take the time and energy to do such elaborate work?

Here’s what happened. The coat is decorated with an interpretation of the hunter’s dreams. He shared his dreams with his wife. She considered them, perhaps over many hours and days, and translated them into images which she painted onto the prepared caribou skin. The coat will protect her husband and bring him luck in the hunt. He will return with food for them and their children.

It’s easy, in our oh-so modern, sophisticated digital days to dismiss this story as “magical thinking.”

That would be a mistake.

The couple who made the coat had a dialogue, not only of words, but of body-minds living on and with the earth, interacting with each other, dreaming and envisioning together, sensing, intuiting, feeling, thinking and bringing the entirety of their experience to the creation of a functional and beautiful object that helped them sustain themselves. If either one had decided they wanted life to be a certain way, or thought that they knew how life was, they both might have starved or frozen to death. Instead, they were able to augment their meager resources with the power of their shared dreams and so enhance their ability to adapt and sustain themselves effectively and efficiently in a harsh, even brutal environment.

That is why we couple, why we decide to share our life with someone else. We do it so that we can feel safer, so that we can share our deepest desires and sweetest dreams, so that we’re not alone in a harsh world, and so that we can augment our own resources by sharing our dreams with someone else as they share theirs with us.

That’s what love is. It’s working together. Enjoy it to the fullest, but remember the rules.

PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO

The romantic believe love can happen anywhere; the realistic know it all depends on many factors, including an inner sense of responsibility for emotions.

Rule No. 4. Your relationship is more important than whatever feelings you have about it.

This one is difficult, too. It basically means

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