Tomorrow (Sunday) is Maria’s 60th Birthday. We are celebrating it today for various reasons, one being Maria has her own very original idea about how to mark her birthday, and we’ll be doing that today. We don’t make a huge deal out of birthdays, but the 60th is a landmark in some ways. I call it a gratitude day for me, a way to thank her for the greatest gift I have ever received.

I wrote something for her last night and read it after dinner. She said it was okay with her if I wanted to post it on the blog. Of course I do. I also like to thank you, good people, for all of the love and support you have shown her and for the support of her work, which is so crucial to both of us.

 Here is what I read to her last night.

 

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Maria: I’m happy to be among the first to welcome you to the rich and exciting world of the middle age and beyond. 

It’s exciting up here, but you’re still a kid to me in some ways, the youngest 60-year-old I know.

When I met you and pestered you to marry me, you told me you wanted to be an artist. 

You are an artist. 

You said you wanted to be a loyal, loving, and supportive partner. You are.

You wanted to escape the suffocation of your family and challenging childhood.

And you did.

You said you wished to live a life close to nature and animals.

You are.

You said you wished to launch your blog and use it to express your independence and sell your art.

And you have.

And you promised yourself that you would have a creative and meaningful life you love and appreciate.

You are.

 From the first day we met, you have inspired me, helping me to move past the difficulties and pain we both felt and into the land of light and fulfillment.

It took me two years of pestering before you agreed to marry me. It worked from the first hour, proof there are miracles in life. Once or twice, I suggested that I have lived longer than you have and must, therefore, be broader in some ways. That didn’t fly too far.

When I started taking pictures, you were the only person who encouraged, supported, and urged me not to give up. Your faith in me brought strength and purpose to me.

I didn’t quit on life because of you. I was close.

You turned my life around, showed me how to love and be loved, and supported me through the most challenging times without complaint (well, mostly,) and I am thankful for you every day of my life. You are bristling with attitude, all good.

We do what people who love each other do – laugh, cry, plan, argue, and love beyond doubt, confusion, and cruelty. 

Here, today, I want to renew my pledge to you, Maria: to love, support, and care for you until they come to lock me up and take me away.

I know you’ll be there for that, holding my hand and laughing at me to the very end and also reminding me that you are busy and have work to do, potholders to make, quilts to design, and that there is nothing wrong with me other than that I will die one day. 

I understand from the first that interfering with your work would be dangerous, a marriage killer, or maybe a Jon killer. I stay out of the way. Seeing your creativity take you to such a good place is a pleasure. You have work you love, a life you love, and a partner you love. You have put together the life you wanted.

 You ever speak poorly of your life, even though it was a hard life, you never surrender your work or independence, step back from your art, or give up on it. I am often reminded that you are one part German and one part Sicilian. As my grandmother would have said, “Is this good for the Jews?”

Yes, grandma, it was.

But I don’t fool myself. Maria has another love in her life, her art. And she will never let that fall away or give up on it. That makes me very happy. Her discipline and passion for her work are astonishing, even now. We can shape our own lives if we find the heart.

Good for you, my love. You have fought for and found your good life and stuck with it. So many people flee from that or hide from it. You are a Willa Cather woman. Putting your work and life out there for others to see and judge is never easy. You never doubt your work.

The fearless Maria –  my Willa Cather girl — is building a bonfire in the cold and the wet to celebrate her birthday out in the open with the animals that are so big a part of your life. What a Maria thing that is. It just has to be different. 

Every morning, when I wake up and go outside, I hear you singing to her donkeys, sheep, dogs, cats, and chickens – you have a song for each.

The other day, I asked you if getting up in the dark, shoveling manure, checking on her animals, and loving your chores was difficult.

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “I love doing the morning chores.” I did marry well. I have a saying: even an old dog hits the hydrant occasionally. 

I lucked out. 

Maria, you are my happy ending, no matter how long it lasts and how it ends.

Nothing and no one can take the happiness away from us or the wonder of my second chance at life. 

You will always be what you want to be: an artist, walking in the woods, taking pictures, re-home-ing spiders, plucking drowning bugs from the water bucket, and whispering to the Ravens.

 You will always love the outsiders, spiders, owls, birds and bugs, snails, and bobcat feces. I hear Snail News first thing every morning when I wake up. I even hear about it when they are having sex. Maria is not like the other children.

You pay attention to the world. And you are teaching me how to do it. The story isn’t what I have done for you but what you have done for me. You are deep in life, a wonderful thing to see. So many people ignore it or can’t notice it. Thanks for showing me the way.

Happy Birthday,  Maria; you are my light, strength, and most remarkable gift.