My husband and I continue to stick with our plan to have a weekly date night, a recent routine that I instituted as a way to get us out of the house so that we might share time alone. Since my father-in-law came to live with us we often find ourselves spending much more of our time at home tending to his needs. Lately we have even had more than our usual share of doctor’s appointments for ourselves as well. It just feels good to set our concerns aside and spend time together if only for a few hours.
On a recent evening we chose to visit the Menil Collection of art and artifacts. It is a lovely venue in Houston, Texas that is open from Wednesday through Sunday each week until seven in the evening. Amazingly the admission is absolutely free. We walked through the rooms gazing at paintings from Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso as well as ancient treasures dating from before the common era. It was a delightful experience in a beautiful setting nestled in the Montrose area near the University of St. Thomas.
It had rained all day on the afternoon that we visited. The storms had only stopped at around four in the afternoon. The sky was still overcast and a blustery wind shook the leaves in the ancient oak trees surrounding the buildings. Everything was damp and quite green as spring was showing off its awakening in colorful displays. Somehow the gray skies and chilly winds seemed comforting rather than dreary.
A short walk from the Menil Collection the Rothko Chapel stands waiting for those who want a spiritual uplifting. The stark edifice conceived by Marc Rothko is like a beckoning lighthouse in the middle of the fourth largest city in the United States. It is a sacred place of contrasting dark and light where people silently come to meditate. It was so calming that I felt every breath that I took and my heart seemed to beat more slowly. It was filled with people quietly and reverentially relaxing, praying or thinking.
After our wonderful visit to the place that Dominique de Menil had so generously created for the people of Houston we drove a short distance to Niko Niko’s, a popular Greek restaurant in the area. There we sampled stuffed cabbage, shrimp and fish while enjoying the people watching and talking about this and that with each other. I felt a kind of lightness in the evening and a bit of wonder at how incredibly diverse my city of origin has become. I see the variety as a glorious thing, not something to concern me. The many faces of the people we encountered were as beautiful as the works of art that we had just seen.
We decided just to drive around for a time after dining. We saw the delightful quirkiness of Houston and the different lifestyles that had cropped up over the years since I was born. Along the way we drove past the spot where my parents had lived on the day that my mother felt the pangs of my impending birth. The garage apartment where my mother and father resided is no longer there, but my mother had pointed out that location time and time again with a big smile demonstrating the joy that she had felt there. I’ve found myself being drawn to that place again and again as I contemplate my life and the good fortune that I have experienced from the moment that my mother and father became my parents.
While my husband and I rode home from our date night I pondered the incredible luck that had brought me to the present time. Everything about my circumstances has been filled with so much love that I was surely bound to achieve the good life that has been mine. I wondered out loud why I had been so fortunate when so many in the world have experienced deprivation and abuse. I understood the gifts that the people I have known have given me, most especially my brilliant father and my incredible mother who eventually shouldered my upbringing alone. I thanked my husband for never once demeaning me or holding me back in achieving my dreams. I know that sometimes I babble on and on about the world around me and he always so patiently listens and supports me.
As we neared our home I felt a rush of emotion as I remembered students whom I had taught whose lives had been betrayed by the adults who should have loved and cared for them. I hoped that I somehow helped them to know how wonderful and beautiful they were even in their very broken states of mind. I felt such honor for being able to show them that they were loved.
Somehow this one date night rose above the ordinary. I don’t know if it was the weather, the majesty of nature, the timelessness of the art, the sanctuary of the chapel, the joyfulness of the restaurant or the return to my beginning, but something triggered a torrent of emotions that made my heart sing. I think I’ll keep up the tradition of a date night alone with my husband, a new routine that my dearest friend, Pat, once urged me to try. Somehow I felt her presence with me as well. She was smiling and and winking and declaring that it was indeed a “rainbow day!”
All It Takes Is A Little Love 