Groundhog Year: Four

Four: It’s the years between Summer Olympics, World Cup soccer, votes for presidents, solar eclipses and leap years. To dogs it’s 28 years, about the time their metabolic tide is no longer rolling with them but turns against them. Unconditional love becomes a challenge, but they are terrific role models for the rest of us.

Four years ago Teri and I went on our first date. It was a four-in-one special. We started at the Tamastslikt Cultural Museum, near Pendleton, and then went to the Wildhorse Resort and Casino for a buffet lunch. After that, we went on a river walk along the Umatilla River with fall colors vibrant on an Indian summer day, and capped our day with a family-style dinner at a local restaurant. We shared enough conversation to write a 60,000-word novel.

Now we celebrate Oct. 26 every year with a river walk. One year we went to Bend, a second to Tri-Cities and a third to Boise. This year, because the weather is less stupendous, we’re returning to Pendleton, going on a fall color photography tour in the Blue Mountains south of town, dodging snowstorms. Later we’ll walk along the river once more, looking for color if not in the leaves in blue herons, and go out for dinner at the Prodigal Son, which boasts the best onion rings in the Northwest. (My boast, not theirs.)

I’ve enjoyed every day of Teri and my four years together. We met on 10-26-08, got engaged on 2-14-10, got married on 9-10-11. Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” This has been 1,460 days of daring adventure. I continue to live most of the time in the mountain cabin in Cove and work at the newspaper in La Grande, which has gone from six days a week when I first met Teri to three days a week today. Believe it or not, that means more work, not less. Teri continues to live most of the time in the “beach condo” in Milton-Freewater and works at Whitman College in Walla Walla. I commute over the snowy Blue Mountains once a week all winter in the Prius snow leopard as a continually changing scene unfolds on Interstate 84.

The relationship, for both of us, is all about being a Braveheart, not a Faintheart. True to my Scottish roots, I know that Teri is the best woman out there for me, and I want to do what it takes to make the relationship thrive. That might mean financial sacrifices of keeping two homes going. That might mean emotional sacrifices of living apart some of the time so she can keep an eye on her 80-year-old dad. So be it. We do what we have to do. The investment is worth the results. Besides, we can’t give up jobs in this recessionary economy and live off the land. That only works in mountain man movies, not in real life.

Four years has meant a lot. Energy hugs. 4:44s, a special time that if we catch it we email each other or give each other a special minute-long hug if we are together. Four years means a lot of first dances of the day. Four years means a lot of back rubs at bedtime and kisses goodnight. Four years means a lot of morning emails with etreats and affirmations. The good news is, with all the variations Teri and I have added, the routine never becomes routine. I’m always trying to remember this anniversary or that, the 10 (our wedding date), the 12 (our first email), the 26 (our first date). I’m always having to try to remember kisses coming and going, bouquets, cards, morning emails, evening first dances. On and on. I’m enjoying every minute of every day we get to spend together — and even those days we don’t when we get together through email or phone calls. Four years? Seems like just yesterday.