I’ve just had a dinner that’s about as Scottish as it gets: haggis, neeps and tatties – translation: haggis, turnip and potatoes. Unfortunately, I ate alone, since my husband was stricken by one of those random bouts of nausea that kidney patients sometimes experience. He was looking forward to the meal even more than I was, so it’s a shame that he didn’t get to enjoy any of it. It did strike me, though, that if you’d asked me years ago if I would willingly eat haggis I would likely have grimaced and said, “eww…”
Despite Sem not feeling all that well at the moment we’ve just had a good post-dinner laugh. You see, often when I announce a new upload of fountain pens to my sales website I’ll do so with a silly poem, either mangling an existing famous poem or coming up with my own nonsense. Usually Sem and I compose something fairly quickly, but first we have to get all the dirty limericks and rude words out of our system. I can’t help it – my rhyming brain is permanently set to “naughty”. Tonight’s favorite poem, though neither a limerick nor rude, had both of us in stitches.
* Clears throat *
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
So is ink.
Buy our pens.
Maybe you had to be there, but we laughed ourselves nearly into hiccups, mainly because there are so many serious pen buyers out there who just wouldn’t really get why that is so funny. In fact, lots of you might not think it’s funny either, but it took us a while before we could get on with writing something less silly. Sem and I fit together so well in humor and nonsense and we always have, right from the beginning; before the long emails, before the phone calls, before the romance, and before he crossed the ocean so that we could meet in person. There is an ease between us, and while we have the same misunderstandings and missteps as other couples undoubtedly do, for the most part we are nearly always on the same wavelength.
We will celebrate our 10th anniversary towards the end of May. How is it even possible that 10 years have gone by? I’ve been thinking about it a lot, of course, but first, another wavelength example. When we looked up what the traditional gift is for 10 years of wedded bliss we saw that it is the ‘Tin Anniversary’. Amazon is full of tin heart boxes, tin heart lockets, and tin heart picture frames. Tin yawn. We sat looking at the computer screen for a moment or two, unimpressed, and then we both said nearly in unison, “tin toys!”
It’s a grand thing, when one is a 7-year-old at heart, to have married a fellow 7-year-old.
So much has happened in this last decade. I have gained many things: the ability to understand various Scottish dialects, a hands-on education in kidney failure and dialysis, an appreciation for the dry humor and reserved friendliness of Highlanders, more weight than I’d like to admit, a taste for various Scottish dishes (hmm, those last two may be related), a few thousand grey hairs and wrinkles, my British driver’s license, and best of all, the accumulation of these years with my Sem.
So what do I miss, after 10 years away? Family and friends, of course, though those who are closest to me have remained in contact over the years. The rest I have learned to let go, first with frustration and sadness, but then with love. Beyond that, among the things I miss are the conveniences that I don’t have way up here in the far north of Scotland. Simple things like 24-hour grocery stores or drive-through pharmacies, which are available in the cities but not where we live. I also miss good Mexican food, my Mama’s hugs, Rita’s Water Ice, H&R Block, and Wawa, which is like 7-11 only better.
There are other, smaller things that I can’t get here, and in this I am fortunate in having good friends. I don’t ask for ‘care packages’ often because I don’t want to be a pest and also because postage costs are unreasonable. Still, I am indebted to my friends for their generosity of spirit; the few times over these last 10 years that I’ve asked for something specific there have been lots of “I’ll send that!” responses, and my mother, seamstress extraordinaire, still occasionally sends me perfectly-altered trousers. I am deeply grateful for such kindness in my life.
As for things that can’t be bought in shops: I miss Pennsylvania summer night sounds, that chorus of crickets chirping and frogs croaking and all the changing “verses” as the night deepens and then the day dawns. Much-missed, too, are the drifting sparks of fireflies in the dark, glowing in the grass or flashing high among leafy branches. The well-remembered staccato ch-ch-ch of locusts in the trees rising to deafening crescendos will always mean “the school year will be starting soon,” though I haven’t heard it in 10 years. I miss the sound of rainfall in the trees, and I miss the colorful brilliance of northeastern autumn foliage. In exchange, though, I now know the liquid trill of the curlew and the oyster-catcher’s piercing call. Big-sky sunrises and sunsets are gloriously breathtaking, and I’ve had one small glimpse of the Northern Lights, with a constant hope for more. The coconut-suntan-lotion fragrance of gorse is heavenly, and the scent of briny wind, fresh off the sea, is a constant delight. There are hills painted yellow by broom and gorse, and others tinted purple with heather. The past endures around me in the form of croft house and byre ruins, old stone walls, and brochs. The roar of the sea and the crash of high waves against harbor walls are sounds I know well now, along with the click-clacky racket of a million pebbles being tumbled by waves as they surge along the shoreline. I’ve seen puffins, seals and every kind of gull imaginable, and have watched the sea in all her changing moods from deep ominous black to sparkling diamond brightness. These are the things I would miss, if I suddenly found myself away from my Highland home. They are the background sounds and sights of my life, now; much-loved, as dear as the myriad things I miss from my former life in the States.
What I don’t miss now that I live in Scotland, is Sem. I don’t have to – it is my great good fortune to get to be here, with him. The year that we were apart, from his 2007 visit to our 2008 wedding, was almost unbearable. We both existed in a fog of longing, and missed each other like you miss fresh air in an enclosed space, or cold water on a hot day. When you are far away from the person you love with your whole heart it’s a hollow ache to not be able to reach out to find them right there, where they really ought to be. What a joy it is not to have to feel that any more! To this day I often get a little pang of gratitude that we are together to love and to laugh, to work on fountain pens together, to write nonsense poetry and to just share our lives. I don’t ever take Sem’s presence for granted and I am so glad that he is seldom far from me.
I started writing this article a week or so ago and, ironically, right this moment as I proofread and edit it turns out that I am missing Sem terribly. He’s been in the distant main hospital for almost a week, and because the round trip is now 80 miles longer than it was before we moved, I’ve only been able to go down every other day. I’ve discovered that even I have my limits of endurance, and trying to drive 220 miles a day is apparently one of them. Thank goodness for cell phones! The good news is that Sem is being discharged today. Nothing is right, when we’re apart, and I roam through our little apartment, lost and uneasy. I cannot wait to bring him home this evening.
To feel this way about someone, the strength of it undiminished after all this time, is astounding and unexpected. The sense of being two halves of one whole remains strong. Though our life together changed more rapidly and permanently than we ever could have imagined after kidney failure hit, in many ways life is just how we envisioned it would be. In spite of the daily physical challenges we face we are so fortunate, and our life together over these last 10 years has been a beautiful gift. A hundred more years would never be enough, and every single day we have together is precious.
