Time Traveler - Page 4


Of course, the whole point of a vacation is to "vacate" oneself from the rigors of ordinary life. Soon enough, we were back in a house that needed work, bills that needed paying, and prescriptions that needed refilling. Ah, prescriptions. They represent the other side of my nest-emptying experience—the side that feels distinctly older than ever before. We have a bunch of meds. In fact, Dan and I have enough health issues that we've gone the route of weekly pill organizers. Dan's is red, mine is blue. They're positioned squarely on our kitchen counter, side by side. When Darrah comes home on breaks, we squirrel away the boxes in a corner, sparing her what we call "the nursing home look." But when she's away at school, they resume their front-and-center positions. I can still dress up in a fabulous, shimmery outfit and go off to a dance party brimming with cool. But I come home to his-and-her pill organizers.

I also come home to my attachment to routine. Even as Dan and I have abandoned some of our ho-hum habits, others have deepened into curiously codgerlike rituals. One of our favorites takes place after dinner, when we boil water for tea, amble into the living room with our steaming cups, put on some music, and pick up our respective books. We then commence what we call "parallel reading." We talk some, but mostly we just sit together and read. It's become an unexpectedly satisfying, comforting way to spend an evening.

From time to time, one of us will notice the rutlike quality of the activity and say something like, "What have we come to?" Then we'll remember, "It's just us! We can do what we want!" Then we'll chuckle, sip some tea, and turn the page.

Marian Sandmaier is a freelance book editor living in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. She's a features editor for the Psychotherapy Networker. This essay was adapted from an article published in More magazine. Contact: mariansandmaier@gmail.com. Letters to the Editor about this department may be e-mailed to letters@psychnetworker.org.

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