Storyteller's World

Next to the canon of Holy Scripture, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's musical Fiddler on the Roof is the nearest thing to Holy Writ that I acknowledge. The Norman Jewison film of it, was the first film I took Alison to see when we started going out together. It spoke powerfully to us of the place of God, and of faith, in the lives of ordinary people living in an environment hostile to that faith. It spoke of the integrity of the faith community, and the heartache that would be involved for anyone whose loved ones left that community, especially to marry 'outside' it.

And as the years passed, and we lived on a clergy stipend and had three daughters (and a son, but there the similarity ended), I came to identify very much with that poor man Tevye, devoted to God and hassled by all the womenfolk in his life.

One of my favourite songs is the one where Tevye, much exercised by the way that all his daughters are marrying for love, instead of following the traditional way of arranged marriages, asks his wife Golda, 'Do you love me?' She responds with impatient annoyance: What do you mean? All these years I've struggled and starved with you, etc., where does love come into any of this? But he goes on pressing her, until at last she admits that she has done all this for him, and 'if that's not love, what is?'

Tevye: Then you love me?

Golda: I suppose I do.

Tevye: And I suppose I love you too.

Both: It doesn't change a thing, but even so: after 25 years, it's nice to know.

Well, we've been married thirty years now, and even after thirty years, it's still jolly nice to know that we love one another. How do we know? Well, one way is that we can acknowledge the things about the other that still drive us crazy, but know that they really don't matter. Our love is stronger.

Most of the things that really annoy me about her, involve the washing up, which is the only thing I've ever found that I do better than she does, so naturally it drives me crazy that she doesn't do it as well as I do.

Example: she never washes up the teapot but just rinses it out, alleging that using washing-up liquid on a teapot spoils the flavour. She'll allow brown rings to remain at the bottom of the coffee mugs, unless I'm standing there looking over her shoulder. She doesn't wipe the cutlery but just dips it in the water and takes it out again. And so on.

Naturally, the things she complains about that I do are totally trivial... Which almost certainly means that she has a lot more to put up with me, than I do with her.

The main thing is not the maddening tics and quirks, but the long-lasting, slow-flowering loyalty, respect, admiration, and pride in one another's achievements - the things we have been able to achieve, because of the shared love and support.

Someone recently asked visitors to his blog to name their 'best brag'. I think mine is something to do with this ...