Happily Ever After

By Dan Mackie
There isn’t much that beats a beach day in the fall. Recently we headed to the Maine coast for a couple of days to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Yes, I know, I expect the Guinness Book of World Records to be in touch.
Our longevity seems natural: each brings something to our “coupleness,’’ or is it “coupletude.” My wife is overall a better person than I am. I am taller and can reach things on the top shelf. And there you have it: wedded bliss.
We found ourselves driving to Maine thinking of 1976, and not the big Bicentennial, which pretty much robbed our chance of being the headline event of the season. She was a happy bride, and I was an awkward groom (any time I am the life of the party you have a pretty sad party — although I’ve gotten better in three decades). We set off in ’76 for life, liberty and the pursuit of children, not entirely comprehending that the latter would make life immeasurably richer, but that liberty was out the window for a couple of decades at the least.
We probably should have done something bigger for The Big 30 — climb Kilimanjaro or hitch a ride to the Space Station, but Maine was the best we could manage. I have nothing against Maine, although its cold ocean water seems unearthly; my wife has a sentimental attachment to the York-Wells-Ogunquit tourist triangle because she was a chambermaid at the Sleepytown Motel one summer when she was a teenager. She and her best friend walked to doughnut shops and arcades and pizza shops and to meet boys, after slaving all day in a typical high workload/low pay summer arrangement. These days they bring in seasonal foreigners because Americans are either too lazy or they’ve wised up.
We did a quick summary on the way over. Satisfied? Check. Still happy? Check. Would do it all again? Better go with yes, or as Ricky Ricardo used to say to Lucy, “there’s gonna be some ’splainin’ to do.’’ But could we have taken a different path? Could I have married a rich supermodel? Could she have married into the Monaco royal family? Not likely, come to think of it. I would have liked to have been a professional ballplayer, too, and I could have been, except for the hitting and throwing and running and fielding and stuff — there is no pro league for “nice try’’ level athletes. When you make a nice try at marriage it often works, however. Effort counts in relationships.
And no matter what, we’ll always have Maine.
We yacked all the way over; I never fell asleep once, which was good since I was driving. Before you knew it, we were near the coast and seeing signs for lobsters, lobster bibs, lobster T-shirts, lobster pots, lobster stew and lobster psychics. (I made that last one up, although there is a psychic or two on Route 1, as you’d expect.)
Though it was mid-October, the weather had only turned brisk, not punitive. The sun came out to say Happy Anniversary, and seagulls danced in the air like bluebirds of happiness. Also, some other people on the beach were throwing them chips. They’d been married for several years and had a couple of kids. He seemed taken aback when we said we were celebrating our 30th; he contemplated that as he would a stint at Folsom Prison. “Goes by just like that,’’ I said, which was something I didn’t believe when people said it to me three decades ago. And now I know it’s true.
We walked on the Marginal Way in Ogunquit, a beautiful coastal walk that goes from Ogunquit Beach to Perkins Cove, gift shops stuck like barnacles onto a little fishing cove. People stop and stare at the ocean and sit on craggy rocks, which to some people speak of the power and beauty of nature, but to most of us speak of those old Chevy “Like a rock’’ commercials. Some took out their cell phone cameras to take disappointing pictures of the mighty Atlantic. One or two made a call. When you contemplate the ocean and cliffs and deep blue sky, I don’t think you should talk to anyone but your Higher Power, and I am not referring to Verizon.
We had lunch at the Maine Diner, fabulously busy and still serving up real diner food even though it could just rip off all the tourists. I was proud of their integrity, and the cole slaw.
I felt so cheery that I even walked into the shops, where Dede was scouting for birthday presents for our daughter. I’d brought a camera along so I could take my own disappointing photos of the rocks, ocean and boats, although I do better than the cell phone folks. The camera also encourages me to look intensely for interesting light, colors and shapes, and for clearance sale signs. I can outwait the trinket sellers — I only get really interested when it’s 75 percent off or they’re “closing forever.’’
Fall at the beach is prime time for me. I am not a person who does well in the summer heat and sun; centuries of Irish rain produced a race of people like me who turn red and peel, then red and peel, over and over, where others turn into bronze gods and goddesses. I enter the warm months pale and leave them the same way. But I appreciate the fall sun, which leaves my skin alone, especially on a day when shadows remain cool and only the direct light warms the skin. You feel how fleeting perfection is in a way that you can’t in July, so you face the sun and smell the light, drink the rays, take it inside where you store it like a pilot flame until spring.
After you are married 30 years you know that happiness — alone or together — is a little like the fall sun: you seize the minutes, you embrace the hours. You remember the perfect days, and as well as you can you forgive all the rest.
Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.