Shortly after the August 2013 addition of the Arizona Highways came out I was getting ready for bed and to my surprise I found my wife Winnie reading the magazine in bed. Now this is unusual for several reasons, which I will explain momentarily, but most surprising to me was that as I crawled in between the sheets my wife was so engrossed she did not even look up from her magazine. Out of curiosity and maybe just a touch of envy I asked, “What are you reading?” Several seconds after my words finally filtered through her thoroughly engaged mind, she replied without taking her eyes of the page,
“It’s late Pal…”
Now admittedly, Winnie is a direct no-nonsense German girl, but in twenty years of marriage she has been anything but dismissive or distant. Further adding to my discomfiture was the fact that I felt I had been misunderstood. With this unexpected answer ringing in my ears I turned over, pulled up my covers, and tried to understand her uncharacteristic reply.
To really appreciate my conflicting thoughts you should understand a little about our history. Winnie is my heroine. I am unapologetically in love with my wife. We are best friends and I prefer her company to any other living human being. Twenty one years ago we were set up on a blind date. Her, a beautiful no-nonsense 18 year old German exchange student who I had a hard time understanding and me a 21 year old, much too serious and lonely plumber. Six months later we were married.
In fairness to Win, buried in my own hurt feelings was a little bit of guilt. You see, I’m a plumber by trade and my occupation requires a decent amount of hard work, but my wife’s daily endeavors make my job look like a permanent vacation. A normal day for her typically begins around 6am with 20-30 minutes swimming laps in our pool. That is followed by gardening, then office work (for our business), school (she homeschools our five children, 7-18), lunch, piano (she’s taught all five children to play), more office work (invoicing, taxes, scheduling, etc.), more gardening (our leftover produce she sells at our local farmers market), dinner, and then more office work. Somehow during these activities she manages to execute her “normal” household tasks with prototypical German precision.
So when Win hits the bed sometime around 10pm she has typically done more work than three normal people. Most admirable to me is her day does not end in exhausted frustration and fear for more of the same the following day, but instead with humble satisfaction of accomplishment. Now you can understand my surprise at finding Winnie reading the magazine in bed. You can also understand the complicated mix of my emotions which resulted from her unusual reply to my question regarding the subject of her absorbed interest. But the greatest shock of all was yet to come.
Lying there in bed, sorting through that matrix of complicated emotions my thoughts were arrested by the beautiful sound of my wife’s dulcet laughter. I’m not talking about normal laughter you hear in the course of every day life, no I’m talking about the laughter of genuine good feeling warmed with twenty years of respected and love. Turning around, my startled gaze took in my wife lying there with the magazine in her lap, the sparkle of mirth in her eye and a lovely smile on her face. Before I could ask what had cause her joyous outburst she simply held up the magazine, turns it around showing me a beautiful picture of an ethereal lake scene taken by Gary Ladd. With barely suppressed laughter she says,
“You asked what I was reading. I said it’s Lake Powell!”
I don’t think either of us have laughed that hard in twenty years.
So the moral of this story? Remember the next time you are walking the rough narrow ridge of human emotion, overlooking the deceptive waters of doubt and misunderstanding, take a moment to consider the view, it’s probably just Lake Powell!
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