To celebrate a quarter century of legally binding togetherness, my wife and I recently rented a small cabin in Pennsylvania, near scenic wooded areas, flowing water, and a quaint little town. As proof of our continued compatibility on this, our 25th wedding anniversary, I submit the fact that we both thought this was the perfect setup for a horror movie. Our goal, however, was more of a romantic, celebratory vibe.
On the way to the cabin, we stopped for a short hike near a waterfall. The trail entrance had a sign prominently posted, warning of bears in the area. We certainly weren’t in Hamilton anymore.
A gentle rain started as we followed the path to Raymondskill Falls, the tallest waterfall in Pennsylvania. We stood and enjoyed its spectacle, sharing a wide, fenced viewing platform with an older couple who relied on canes and walking sticks to navigate the steps and nearby rocky terrain. The sight of them enjoying each other’s company on day trips funded by Social Security offered a glimpse of a possible future.
Turning to go, we were alarmed to catch sight of an awkward-looking creature approaching. It was tall, hairy, and stumbled a bit as it lumbered uncertainly on its hind legs. I felt an adrenaline surge and prepared to make a choice: fight, flight, or be polite and discuss the sights.
I chose the latter option, but the hazard before us was less predictable than any bear; we were confronted by an old, bearded man holding some kind of orange beverage that, if smell was any indication, had been doctored heavily with alcohol. I told our tipsy guardian of the woods that we had already left the viewing platform, but he insisted on warning us in detail how slippery and dangerous it could get during inclement weather. He also proudly announced that he had explained the same to the “elderly couple,” who, to my eyes, looked much more capable of avoiding a broken hip than this guy.
As has happened many times in the last 25 years, I lingered a bit, enjoying the chance to probe the mind of a wackadoo, while my wife continued toward the car.
The cabin wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but the inside was quite nice, and included a record player with two boxes of vinyl albums to choose from. I picked out The Sounds of Kung Fu, and we started a fire in the wood-burning fireplace, settling in to the romantic strains of “1000 Warrior Monks.”
My wife found a stash of card games, and picked one of those conversation-starter boxes that asks questions like, “Who were your best and worst teachers?” and “What’s your favorite color?” We answered these and other inquiries, and discovered that after 25 years, there’s still more to learn about each other.
One card asked, “What’s your favorite quote?” and in keeping with the anniversary theme, I invoked the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges: “To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.” In an example of our personal dynamic, in which one of us always seems to find a way to bring the other back down to earth, my wife picked, “It is what it is.”
The next day, we embarked on a hike through the property’s woods, looking to link up with a trail that led to a nearby lake. Following the flow of water upstream proved challenging, as a deluge of rain during the previous week had swollen many areas that would otherwise be dry, making the passable impassable and forcing us instead to go over logs, under branches, and around large rocks, while attempting to avoid stepping wrong and getting soaked. It was all rather exciting, even if it felt more like a corporate team-building exercise than a modern-day Lewis and Clark adventure, but we worked well together and the soaking was kept to a minimum.
The weekend wouldn’t have been representative of our 25 years of marriage if I didn’t push my wife just slightly beyond her limits, and that moment came soon after we undertook a bike ride on a trail described as “easy to moderate” on the internet guide map. Unfortunately, all of the “moderate” riding (a designation I would quibble with) was stacked toward the beginning of the route, in the form of steep, rocky hills, and this prompted a vigorous exchange of opinions, at perhaps a higher than normal volume.
But after walking our bikes up and down a few steep grades, the path evened out and opened up, and we rode through beautiful areas for several miles. We finally came to a point in the trail where bikes were prohibited, though there was no indication of this on the map; in fact, rechecking the guides, we saw details about other obstacles, temporary and permanent, but no mention of our current impasse.
After bonding once again over our shared, and many times reinforced, antipathy toward the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and its laissez-faire attitude regarding information accuracy and communication, we stopped for lunch at a Mexican place and headed home.
It was a near-perfect weekend, and it energized us enough to tackle the next round of plumbing issues, car problems, and other assorted nuisances of life. We’ve now been married to each other for most of our lives, which is kind of a stunning milestone; sharing a residence, bathroom, and meals for that long, there are some similarities to prison life, as less-poetic types have previously noted.
But as the renowned romantic lyricist Mel Brooks might put it, we are “prisoners of love,” and “hearts in love are always free.” This prisoner and his wife are doing 25 to life, and it’s a sentence I’m happy to serve.
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