When I met Dave Marcus, it was a while after the dust had settled from my grandfather’s death. I was finally able to start looking forward again with the NY house sale and my duties as executor behind me. The divorce house renovations were finished, things were put away physically and metaphysically. Anne was in high school. It was a good time.
My little family (Anne, Dad and me) decided to celebrate by going to the John C Campbell Folk School in North Carolina for the week between Christmas and New Years. All three of us loved contradancing and music, Anne had been taken to events like this since she was born. It was a nice time to be together doing something I knew my stepmother would not want to join us for. It was becoming increasingly challenging to get my dad to myself, so their agreeing he should go was a real treat.
In those days, Dave-the-business-executive was a guy who took a lot of space. Full on, he could suck the air out of the room. He was used to getting what he wanted. He had a laugh that could cause everyone to pay attention. (He still does.) I saw him across the room and I immediately discounted him as That Kind of Guy. One day, I was working in an empty studio on a piano piece I needed to perform in a few weeks. Dave walked in, knew the piece, and asked me if he could play the missing clarinet part on his concertina for me. Well, sure. That’s helpful, even. We started making music together. Huh. This guy can sight read. And he’s musical. And we’re playing together intuitively. Interesting.
So it began. He met everyone at once that week; they had varying opinions. So did I. It took a few months for Dad and Anne to come around, and for Dave and me to extricate ourselves from varying degrees of dating relationships. Before long we were head-over-heels in a relationship that challenged us, pushed us to grow, opened us each to the possibility of a real partnership.
There were more deep signs that I can count that this was the person I’d been waiting for all my life, outer persona and all.
When I first visited Dave’s home, I was surprised at how little furniture he had in all that square footage. The furniture I had was the furniture he was lacking. He had nothing in the guest rooms. I had a day bed and extra antique dressers. He didn’t have a bedroom suite for himself – I had my grandfather’s that I was dying to use. Although his taste was modern, I could see my antiques fitting in the house and complimenting what was there.
My grandparent's antique furniture on Dave's log walls
And that empty basement.
The day the moving van pulled away, that formerly empty basement was piled, floor to ceiling along one wall. It was clear we needed to buy shelving. The boxes of my stuff were everywhere in Dave’s neat-as-a-pin living/dining room. It was an exhausting few months of unpacking upstairs while Dave mostly traveled for work. I questioned what I was doing more than once. I’m sure he did, too.
Ultimately, our hearts knew best. It’s been 21 years since we met, almost 18 that we’ve been married. I wouldn’t trade any of our time together for the world.
Meanwhile, the ticking time bomb in the basement sat quietly, year after year, waiting for us to have time to deal with it.
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