Faithful readers of this space know that I live in a retirement community and that it’s probably the best old folks home on the West Coast. I live in a charming cottage of my own, surrounded by all my favorite things with a fenced-in patio for my dog and all my plants. I also have my own garden plot in the community gardens where I grow raspberries and strawberries. And I get to help care for the roses in the huge rose garden.  It’s a nonprofit place, so if I outlive my resources, they won’t kick me to the curb. And, should the time come when I cannot take care of myself, I can move to the care building or to memory care. Really, all our needs can be met here.

However, today having breakfast in the main dining room, I begin to think maybe we need yet another category.  Not memory care. Just some special consideration for some really nice people who are completely ditzy in the sweetest way.

There’s a man here who was an ophthalmologist in real life and who now lives in one of the fanciest cottages on campus. He’s physically able and is always beautifully dressed and groomed. And most of the time he makes complete sense. He’s just a little eccentric.

For example, there are a group of women here who went to St. Paul’s church and who were in a service group called Saint Anne’s Guild.  One of our number arranges for us to have dinner together every Thursday evening. Actually, I only join the group about once a month. But Tom, the afore mentioned ophthalmologist, joins the table every Thursday night. He did raise his family at St. Paul’s, but he was certainly never a member of Saint Anne’s. Of course, no one mentions to him that it’s not appropriate for him to sit at our table. He is warmly welcomed, is very charming, and  never seems to notice that he’s the only guy.

Today at breakfast, he took it upon himself to go around the room with a carafe of coffee, keeping everyone’s cups full, even though the professional wait staff were doing a fine job. Every time he came by my table and filled my cup, he said,” I just love you so much,” to which I replied,” I love you too, Tom.”   Actually, I do.  He’s very sweet, and not completely bonkers.  Not yet.  And who knows.  Maybe someday we’ll both be in Memory Care and still telling each other “I love you.”  How bad is that?

You know how after someone says something rude to you and you just smile and walk away and later you think of the perfect comeback?  I have done the all my life.  Probably, that’s good thing. Pick your battles.  Make friends not enemies. If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.  Be nice. Be lady-like.

I call snappy come-backs “zingers.”  More and more these days, zingers come readily to my mind. Usually, I just bite my tongue.  Getting the best of someone usually just isn’t worth it.

In looking at today’s date just now, I suddenly realized I got married sixty years ago today.  Let me tell you, there were lots of times during that long marriage that I bit my tongue.  There were other times I hit back.  It was rarely worth it.

Still, there is this one example that I really wish I hadn’t walked away from.

A bride always remembers what size her wedding dress was and how much she weighed then.  I don’t know why.  Size  7.  117 pounds. And this personal tidbit will make you cringe: I was a virgin.  That is not something I would recommend, but it was very common sixty years ago.

Shortly after I got married, we were with a group of Jim’s air force friends.  For some reason, I really can’t remember how this conversation got started, he said, “Jean was such a prude, I didn’t know she was fat until after we got married.” As I recall, no one, including me, said anything.  Everyone kind of looked embarrassed and moved on.  I wasn’t a prude.  Or fat. 117 pounds.  Size 7.

And this morning, decades later, I remembered that unfortunate moment.  And now I know exactly what I should have said. “And I didn’t know how ugly you are until after we got married.”

Zingers are rarely worth it.  But today, decades too late, I’m glad to get that off my chest.

Let me close on a happier note.  Once Jim and I were in the Prado looking a a Peter-Paul Rubens painting of  beautiful, full-bodied women.  TheThree Muses. The word is Rubenesque. Jim was rarely witty, but he said” I can’t believe you took your clothes off for that man.” I was not a size seven any more, and I laughed my head off.

trouble shooting
bandwidth
greenwashing
fugue state
hydrate
gifted (as a verb)
liaise
feminism
macho
gal (referring to an adult woman)
safe sex
downsizing
fat free
sugar free
gluten free
screen time
parenting
bonding (in reference to relationships)
problem solving
influencer
carbs
senior citizen
retirement community
user name
wedding venue
mammogram
tachycardia
decaffeinated
cholesterol
colonoscopy
leaf blower
fake news
talk show
pedicure
celulite
f _ _ _ (Which as far as I can tell actually means nothing any more anyway)

Sometimes I find myself trying to explain to someone why I am a practicing Episcopalian but not a believing one. Actually, I think I often try to explain it to myself.  Having lost the child-like faith of my childhood, I feel what Jean-Paul Sartre, an atheist existentialist philosopher, ireferred to as a  “God-shaped hole”. The phrase is used to describe the emptiness left behind when the divine disappears from human consciousness.

Recently, I came across an article in the NY Times that explains my behavior better than I have ever been able to.   Here is it:

CAN I GO TO CHURCH WHEN I DON’T BELIEVE?

I grew up in the Catholic tradition, but after obtaining several university degrees — including one in religion — it became clear to me that Jesus wasn’t divine and that the cobbling together of the Bible in the fourth century was a consummate work of spin-doctoring. I have about 20 arguments in defense of this, not the least of which is Christ’s inefficacy. After 2,000 years, his followers have split into thousands of sects, many of whom have shot and killed members of rival sects. Think of Northern Ireland, World War II. It doesn’t seem to me the way an omnipotent deity should operate.

But boy, oh, boy, do I love the artistic output of Christianity. Bach’s B-minor Mass, the Fauré Requiem, St. Paul’s Cathedral — all these lift my spirit. I love a beautiful Christian service.(Where else do you hear an organ like that?) Actors talk about ‘‘working from the outside in,’’ in which a physical position unlocks inner emotions. For me, kneeling does this. I don’t pray, but the act creates humility and gratitude. It does me good. Then there’s the lovely sense of community in a congregation.

I’ll never be converted. So I guess I’m lying when I turn up at a service and recite the Creed and sing the hymns as lustily as anyone else. Am I hurting anyone by doing this? Is it, for want of a better word, a sin? — Name Withheld