It’s Just Another Kind of Grass

Thank you, Mister Mayer
Twitter, as it has become with so many other folks, is now a regular and important part of my life — sometimes to the unfortunate end that it can be all-consuming. That’s not always a good thing when you have a bent toward stints of obsession like I do.

I’m trying my best to overcome it, but the Twit-o-holic that I have become has wreaked havoc on my blog-posting habits, which were sporadic at best even prior to the point last summer when I first began dabbling in this hottest of social media pool-parties.

As is typical of Twitter newbs, it took me awhile to get the hang of dispensing anything of value in within the considerable constraints of a 140-character limit. For someone as typically wordy as I am, that seemed tantamount to asking Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling in a dozen strokes.

So I watched and followed the apparent ‘masters’ of the medium, and soon began to learn the power of brevity. I certainly haven’t figured it out completely — and probably never will — but amongst its many other benefits, Twitter has been a tremendous aid in making me think about what I say, maximizing the impact of my words, and helping me to convey my thoughts more succinctly. Such constraints can drastically change the way we think about telling a story.

This weekend, my way of looking at the words that make up the story of my marriage changed immeasurably, thanks to a Twitter ‘celeb’ who put forth a challenge that I found to be a fabulous exercise in the art of storytelling.

Singer/Songwriter John Mayer is one of the more significant popular music artists to have embraced Twitter thus far. And while most of his conversations appear to be directed to the small group of friends and family he follows, on Sunday he actively pitched the entire Twitterverse with a challenge based upon a quote from author Ernest Hemingway, whom Mayer asserted, “once claimed he could write a great story in six words or less. His story: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’”

While admitting that he wasn’t the first person to invoke Hemingway’s feat of storytelling brevity, Mayer surmised that Twitter would be the ideal place to do so, and he was right; I mean, what better forum in which to tell a truly ‘short’ story?

I was immediately intrigued when I saw Mayer’s challenge, however it was only in passing, as I was making a last quick check of my email and friend’s tweets as my wife Michelle and I were preparing to check out of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel on Monday, following a weekend celebration of our 30th wedding anniversary, which actually happens to be today, St. Patrick’s Day.

With it being our 30th, we naturally had planned to take the day off from work, but decided to augment our celebration with a hotel getaway over the weekend, maximizing our time, and making it a truly momentous occasion (which, if I may boast just a little, in this day and age, it IS).



Quite rightfully, my attention was focused upon Michelle, so I didn’t really have the opportunity to sit down and craft my own version of Hemingway’s six-word soliloquy.

I mean, who would you rather pay attention to?

However later that evening, after we were back home and settled in, I returned to Mayer’s Twitter page to see his comments about what others had come up with. Most of the ones he posted I thought were quite good; to wit:
@stevesalkin: Home is not home to me.
@Vincenza72: At least I got the dog.
@mytimetoshine: This time, I won't look down.
@taylorswift13 (yes, that Taylor Swift): My diary is read by everyone.

Mayer’s own entry, which sort of explains why he’s the songwriter and we the hacks, was typical John:
This heart didn't come with instructions.

But the one I especially liked, was such because it could have easily been penned by my own wife:
@DailyChameleon: True love: He's shorter than me.

My Six-Word Story
Unfortunately, due to indecision on whether or not I should try to throw my hat into the ring, not to mention the fact that coming up with a concept and THEN distilling it into six words was indeed a pretty daunting task, I thought…and thought…AND thought about what I might say until late in the evening — well beyond the time John Mayer curtailed his posts on the stories he’d received.

I could have thrown something out there, but I really wanted it to be a story, not just a tagline. I came up with, I can’t make this stuff up, but relented in posting it; again, a nice thought, but not enough substance behind the phrase.

Then it hit me; something based upon the saying that Michelle has long since adopted as her personal philosophy in light of what we’ve been through in our thirty-year trek together.

It was a piece of advice she had offered someone just 24 hours earlier.

But first a bit of background…

30somethings
Sunday evening at the Opryland Hotel, our hand was somewhat forced in choosing where we were to enjoy our ‘big dinner’ — the one in which we would officially celebrate our 30-year milestone at one of the four signature, really nice, and fairly pricey in-house restaurants featured in the sprawling hotel complex.

I’ve been a sucker for Italian Food my whole life, and Michelle enjoys it as well, so we’d planned to dine that evening at the well-reviewed Ristorante Volare. However to our dismay, upon attempting to make reservations for the evening, we learned that the Volare would be closed Sunday night, due ostensibly to the current economic downturn. I learned that the hotel’s normal 70-80% occupancy rate for a typical Sunday was down to a mere 12% that day.

We certainly hadn’t noticed any lack of folks on hand when we arrived Saturday, however. Following a busy end-week (Thursday thru Saturday), the hotel indeed enjoyed its usual compliment of guests attending the various events and conferences that are the lifeblood of its existence. However the difference in these current tougher economic times is that people aren’t staying over that extra day for pleasure as they often did; they come into the hotel on business, a conference, etc, and when that business is concluded, they’re out the door; hence, the considerably lighter occupancy on Sunday.

The hotel therefore determined that it wasn’t worth having all four of their signature restaurants open with such a low potential clientele for the evening, so they decided that only one, the world-famous Old Hickory Steakhouse would be accepting reservations for dinner.

While we were obviously disappointed at first, I had always wondered about the Old Hickory. Located in the hotel’s ‘Delta’ quadrant (Trekkie-pun intended), it offers their finest dining experience, featuring as one would expect, a pricey-but-impressive array of à la carte entrees: steaks, chops, chicken and seafood, with the greatest emphasis of course on their world-class steaks and accompanying sauces.

To say it was a little beyond our normal price range would be an understatement; nevertheless, we figured 30 year anniversaries don’t come around too often, so we went for it — and we were oh so glad we did.

The meal and the ambiance were worth every penny. We decided to go for the Old Hickory's signature offering: the 8 oz Fillet Mignon; it was like buttah.



But as incredible was the food was, it was kinda fun being the center of attention too. Y’see, when I was making reservations earlier that afternoon, I just happened to mention that we were celebrating our 30th, and as a result, from the receptionist’s first greeting and throughout the rest of the evening, the staff went out of their way to congratulate us many times over. Our server even went so far as to mention the fact to the couples occupying the tables on either side of ours, both of which it turned out, were newlyweds on their honeymoon.

Michelle took the opportunity to pass on her one-sentence testimony for a long and successful marriage as each of the couples stopped by our table on their way out. Her advice was simple: “The one thing I’ve learned is that the grass isn’t greener on the other side — it’s just another kind of grass.”

What that means is that it’s important to realize, when things get tough in your marriage, not only is there no guarantee that life would be better with a change of scenery, it may not even be all that different when all is said and done.

Michelle and I endured a tremendous amount of hardship, both emotionally and financially in our 30 years together; stuff that most people these days wouldn’t think twice about ending a marriage over. I didn’t make enough money; she was unresponsive to me emotionally; I had an affair; our mortgage went into foreclosure; we reached a crossroads. Our marriage was a train wreck. We had to look within ourselves and decide whether or not the work it was going to take to salvage our relationship was worth the effort. We decided that it was.

The cost I counted was in learning that the grass I had been longing for through my unfaithfulness wasn’t what I thought it would be. For Michelle’s part, she realized that the life-altering thought of being a single Mom and being alone for the first time wasn’t quite so liberating as it first appeared when she self-assuredly prepared herself to counter my act of rebellion with one of her own.

This is the backdrop to Michelle’s little ditty, not that it’s often explained in casual conversation for obvious reasons; Michelle certainly didn’t offer any elaboration in passing it on to those young couples we met at dinner on Sunday evening.

However it did spark a powerful, strangely satisfying conversation between the two of us, as we strolled the Opryland Hotel grounds after leaving the restaurant.

I am still amazed that my wife truly considers what we went through a positive thing, and that she harbors no resentment toward me for all the pain I caused. She considers it worth it because of the way it changed her; the way it forced her to grow up, to be less idealistic, and in her words, to “get scrappy.”

She says that if we hadn’t gone through those things; if we hadn’t fought back from the possibility of losing everything — emotionally and financially — that she wouldn’t have become the person she is today.

And quite frankly, she really likes that person now.

Now that you know the rest of the story…
So now that you know the background, perhaps you’ll better understand my own version of Michelle’s personal mantra, told Hemingway-style.

Monday night, as I thought about those conversations at and following dinner 24 hours earlier, I finally came up with my own take on John Mayer’s six-word Twitter challenge, based on the bitter reality I had faced after seeing the grass on the other side up close and personal.

It’s a story that may never be published, but now that it’s been written, can never be taken away from me; forever reminding me what I learned years ago when I nearly lost something I didn’t truly know I had:

@ajinnashville: That ‘other’ grass wasn’t even green.




finis