Yesterday, I was carrying rocks from the front yard to the back through the garage. I know…surprise, surprise, I was working on the garden. I feel very anxious lately and being outside in the yard is my Xanax. I had come in through the back door and made sure to close it, but I didn’t lock it. I was getting more rocks when I suddenly noticed two flashes of yellow flying out of the garage and into the cul-de-sac. I was discombobulated, but quickly realized Grace and Millie had somehow broken out and made a run for it. Now Grace has done this before. Only twice, but it was scary enough to make us extra careful about the dogs getting out. She just will not come back. She runs and runs, looking over her shoulder the entire time and laughing. It is nearly impossible to catch her, usually requiring the sainthood of a neighbor to help. She just can’t resist jumping all over a person when she sees them so then I’m usually able to wrangle her. Yesterday, it was very clear that Grace was the instigator. I could tell Millie wanted to come back, but she has to do everything big sister does and while she looked contrite, she just kept running. I ran inside quickly, screamed that the dogs got out, and grabbed the treats tin. Then I started running. Thankfully, they adore our neighbors down the street. They have two dogs and Christine just loves them. The girls ran up to the front door and you could tell they had no plan whatsoever. They just didn’t want me to catch them. I had no idea how I was going to get the two of them home. Right at that moment, I heard Christine’s voice and she came outside with her two dogs. The flurry of canine activity had us both looking like a couple of keystone cops. Social distancing just went out the window as we tried to figure out what to do. I got Millie pretty quickly and managed to hook her up to a leash. Grace was another story. She chased Christine’s dog, Ace, to the side door of the house. They both ran inside and then a few seconds later, came flying out the front door. I kept apologizing and Christine was just so sweet about all of it. We were finally able to get a hold of her collar when Bill pulled into the driveway, helped me shove them in the car, and we returned the evil villains to their lair. Talk about heart pounding.
Later on, we went to the grocery store after the irrigation guy fixed a leak in the yard. I had apparently gotten a little carried away with a pickaxe and managed to nick one of the water lines. I didn’t say I was the most careful gardener. Sometimes you just gotta beat the hell out of something to make it act right. The store trip was uneventful, but in these days of Covid-19, I am a little on edge. We got home and I was wrecked. It was nearly dinnertime, but I needed a martini and well, the problem is that I can’t have a martini so gardening was just going to have to suffice. There was a huge pile of tree limbs that needed to go into lawn bags so we started to do that and I got frustrated because I had a system that would enable us to get the maximum amount of brush into the bags without ripping them with sharp sticks and well, frankly, Bill just wasn’t able to figure out my system. He is a very smart man, but not a mind reader. Go figure. So he walked over to the rock pile and started carrying loads of rocks to the backyard with the wheelbarrow. We worked for about an hour and then we came in for dinner.
Here’s the thing, Bill didn’t get mad at me or think it was stupid for wanting to do some yard stuff before dinner. He knew I needed to do it after a stressful day and it didn’t matter if it was silly or not a good time. And he didn’t get mad when I had a certain way to fill the lawn bags. He just found something else to do and let me get out my stress on all of the branches and leaves.
There’s a song called In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine about an oddball couple who are just going to love each other no matter what. He knows her idiosyncrasies and she knows his and they just don’t care.
“In spite of ourselves we'll end up a-sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds, honey we're the big door-prize”
When Bill and I got married, we made some CD’s of our favorite songs to play at the reception. Bill had picked this song and while I thought it was a fun song, I just hadn’t really been paying attention.
On Tuesday, April 7th, John Prine died of Covid-19. He was 73. It hit Bill pretty hard. I had trouble relating and was struggling with my own stress about this whole crazy virus situation and I was not very supportive. I hadn’t realized who he was and that he had written that song that Bill had played for me before we got married. I didn’t realize that Prine’s music and that song had really meant something to Bill.
This morning, Prine was on my mind and I started reading about him. I hadn’t realized what a gift he had been to music. He started playing the guitar at 14 and had been discovered by Kris Kristofferson. His music was sort of a cross between folk and country and his lyrics were often meaningful with a commentary on current social and political situations.
Iris DeMent, Prine’s duet partner on In Spite of Ourselves, wrote a lovely essay about Prine for Rolling Stone where she said:
“John had a way of making even the most mundane seem special…..the quality about John that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind might best be summed up by something Nelson Mandela once said: ‘It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better because of it.’
We all know that John ennobled the characters in his songs. Any of us lucky enough to have seen one of his shows knows he also did this for his audience. I, for one, happen to know he did it at truck stops and Dairy Queens, too. John was one of the all-time great ennoblers of others.”
Can you even think of a better gift to have? To be someone who can do that for another human being? I imagine the loss to the world of a person who ennobled others and it breaks my heart. I imagine the loss to his wife and his children and it fills me with sadness. Fiona was Prine’s third wife. She was Irish and they had a home in Ireland. She adored him. I’m so thankful that she was able to be with him when he died.
Some people don’t know this, but Bill plays the guitar. Beautifully. One of my favorite sounds is the guitar coming from his office as he practices just about every day. He has a gift for it. I don’t know if Bill knows this, but he ennobles me and many others. He makes people believe they can be something more, something special. He also has a gift for that.
I read the lyrics to In Spite of Ourselves and felt a connection to this crazy couple. Bill and I are them. Bill knows me and I know him and we each have our own silly habits. I need to fill a lawn bag a certain way when the world is in crisis. In the end though, I’m pretty sure we’ll end up sittin’ on a rainbow. I’m a lucky girl.
