June 14, 1985: To the Lake (part 2)

I had been dating Peter about a month when I invited him to my Happy Place: our family’s rustic lake cabin in northern Minnesota. On the drive north, we had a long conversation about our relationship. Meanwhile, I pictured a quiet, romantic weekend of fishing, walking in the woods, relaxing, and listening to lovely loon sounds. His version included carefree gamboling and skinny dipping.

We were both in for a surprise.

As we arrived at the cabin, so did two of my brothers and their families! Oops. There went the quiet, and the, um, gamboling. We all laughed and agreed to make the best of it. We divvied up the three bedrooms (none with any real privacy), and a couple of kids slept outside in a tent. Peter and my sisters-in-law said they would take turns cooking for everyone. Dinner was loud and chaotic, as was the after-dinner conversation.

At about 10 o’clock, Peter whispered, “Let’s go sit on the dock.” It was a clear night, and in the darkness the Milky Way arched across the sky. We could hear small animals splashing at the water’s edge, and from time to time a fish would jump. A light breeze kept most of the mosquitoes at bay.

Peter sat behind me and pulled my shoulders so I was leaning back against him. He returned to the subject of the day. “I’ve been looking for someone for a long time,” he said, and then drew on a figure of speech (he may have used a washing machine as his metaphor; I don’t remember). “I’m a good shopper; I do a lot of research and when I find the model that has everything I’m looking for, I know it. I don’t have to keep looking.” He went on to say he’d been dating lots of women, looking for the right one. “Sometimes I could tell before I was in the door that this wasn’t a woman I wanted to spend even one evening with. But you have everything I’ve been looking for. You are the one.” He took a deep breath and said very deliberately, so I would know he was serious,

“Will…you…marry…me?”

I let the moment sink in for a long while. Then I told him I couldn’t answer yet. I had not been looking. I needed time—not just to get to know him, but to know myself in combination with him. I said he should ask me again in the fall—if we were still together. He asked what I meant. I said that with one exception, my previous relationships had not lasted that long, so I had trouble comprehending this rapid commitment. If we were still together by September, then it would make sense to talk about marriage.

He knew better than to press for a different answer. We looked at the stars and drank in the sounds until the mosquitoes began to bite. Then we went inside and won a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit.

There will be more to this story. Meanwhile, I wish to note that these photos are not mine.

June 14, 1985: To the Lake (part 1)

Since our initial meeting in April and our first lunch date in May, Peter and I had had three dinners and an afternoon walk around Lake Harriet. Then I spent a weekend at my family’s cabin, and when I got home Sunday evening, June 9, he called and asked to come over.

“Nope,” I said, “not possible. I haven’t showered all weekend. I have fish guts on my jeans.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “I just want to see you; I can’t stay long. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

I could have used that half-hour to wash my hair or change my jeans. Instead, I read the mail, checked the newspaper headlines, fed the cats. When he arrived, I told him that with any other guy I’d dated, I would have rushed to clean up. “That’s a good sign,” he said. “You’re comfortable with me.”

We went to dinner Monday night, and on Tuesday he got tickets to The Magic Flute.

Then I took a Really Big Step: I invited him to the lake for the weekend. I loved our rustic cabin “up north,” as we say in Minnesota. It was my escape, my sanity, my connection to nature. I never invited casual friends. This seemed too soon, but if he didn’t like it I may as well know now. I explained it carefully (no electricity, no running water, nothing fancy) so he’d be prepared. On Thursday evening we shopped for groceries, stocking up appropriately and added a few treats, like the hard candy that—like my Mom before me—I tucked into my pockets before going fishing.

We left mid-afternoon Friday; the drive would take about four hours. There was small talk, of course, but he directed much of our conversation to our relationship. He liked that we could be equal partners; we were well matched intellectually and I had enough confidence to stand up to his strong New York personality. I liked, a little too much, the fact that he was already keeping house for himself and Abby, and he said if we ever got together he would just keep on doing the cooking, laundry, etc.

I loved that he laughed at my jokes; we really enjoyed each other’s senses of humor, including puns and wordplay. At one point, about halfway to the lake and just before we stopped to buy bait, he was talking about…something, and I didn’t have much to add. I heard myself say, “One is as voluble as the other is taciturn.” It was an observation, not a joke, but it cracked him up. Even a straight line can be humorous when two people get each other.

He was 37 and had remained open to the possibility of having more children if he met someone who wanted them. At 42, I didn’t. He said he’d get “snipped” if I was committed to the relationship; I didn’t have to answer right then. I was both moved and taken aback by how quickly he was moving into serious territory, when to me everything was still so new and unexpected.

There would be other surprises that evening.