Re-emergence: Do It Your Way

“Making plans for after lockdown?” a friend asked recently, in an email.

For a moment, I froze, in a kind of panic. That was so completely not what I was doing. Suddenly I imagined that I was woefully out of synch with everyone else. It was akin to that old feeling that occasionally swept over me (maybe you too) in high school and college: probably I was missing some kind of ultra-fun event, not in the coolest place at the right time. Now they call it “FOMO.” It’s real in any decade.

But then I got hold of myself and realized how much I appreciated that she was even asking, checking in from across the country, sending out a tendril. And beyond that, I recalled that I’d better get going on finding my family a place to stay during my niece’s wedding at the end of July. When I actually do manage to extricate myself from the constant throb of present demands and get to this task, I will in fact be making plans. May and June, though? Not exactly filling up with new adventures.

What we’re all beginning to face is the reality of “re-emergence.”

The more vaccinated we get, the more we begin to peer out from behind a kind of curtain that has been in front of us all these months; we’re getting glimpses of what we might dare to do, again. At least as far as I can tell, though, this is going to be a gradual process, and accompanied by plenty of anxiety. This beautiful woman, for instance, need have no qualms whatsoever about how she looks — remember make-up? — but still you can tell she’s holding something back, cautious.

Since I’ve already been going back and forth to a high school for my job, trying to get acquainted with students and faculty I can barely recognize behind their masks, I find myself thinking anew about another role I play: bishop’s wife. Eventually, my husband will resume his early Sunday morning departures in his blue car, traveling to churches around the state. Same routine as before? Not likely.

So many months have gone by since he last did this with any regularity. Will the whole enterprise feel different — to either one of us — when it picks up again? Will I feel a new urge to accompany him over the miles, to experience some of what he experiences when he’s warmly welcomed in these congregations? Will he voice his desire for me to come hear his sermons more, or perhaps less, than he used to?

Recently I made sure that one of our living room shelves has a section devoted to books, both fiction and non-fiction, with strikingly similar titles. Apparently, I’m part of a substantial crowd, with an occasional relative-other-than-wife getting into the group, too. Seeing these books on a regular basis serves to remind me first, that everyone has his or her own story, and second, that any effort I might choose to put towards trying to imitate anyone else in this role would lead me down the wrong road. One woman out in Idaho who sent me her manuscript — a kind of “Dear Abby” for clergy wives needing guidance — considered herself as already having a “profession” through her marriage. Attending virtual meetings with other bishop spouses, or conversations that have emerged from a website called The Partner’s Path, which encourages spouses to engage in their own “discernment of gifts,” might be OK, so long as I don’t start analyzing myself, checking off what I am and am not doing, too much. After all, I already have more than enough ways of poking holes in my confidence.

With any luck, the book that I’ve written (perhaps “squeezed from my soul” is a more apt description) will go on this shelf eventually, if it sees the light of day. I can promise you, though, that the title will not include the word “wife.” Or perhaps it will go on another shelf — one that contains a number of publications by or about family members, including Rob’s recent two books (steeped in his faith) as well as a biography of the aunt for whom I was named, and my grandfather’s slender volume called American Trout Streams.

Yes, I too am a minister’s wife (we won’t quibble about nomenclature); but even more importantly, I am a wife to a particular, and — even after 30 years together — still often deeply mysterious man.

As the quiet months went by, kids gone, I began to sense how much our human-to-human connection was strengthening. Best not to jinx it by pointing it out, though. Some small pockets of mystery actually were illuminated for me. We had an extended opportunity to get to see one another up close, all over again.

However we each begin to re-emerge, taking drives with destinations and seeing friends we’ve missed so much, I’ll be grateful for the many evenings the two of us have had together, often starting with a meal at this island (seen here before the stools arrived) while exchanging tales from the day…

…continuing towards Jeopardy (for him, knowing half the answers or are they questions?) and maybe piano (for me, sometimes Beatles and sometimes Chopin); then an hour of a good Netflix series (both of us); a walk with Rocky under the stars (mostly me); finally upstairs, excited for…… our really good books.

Soon, there will be more plans, yes; and also perhaps a bit of wistfulness about a time when there weren’t all that many.