Story of an old man in love

The Column: 06.27.25

I am a happy man in love for many years with one woman who is from my hometown, who grew up a stone’s throw from my high school but was only three years old at the time, so I had to marry someone else while I waited to meet her as an adult. We are happy together and contented and though we disagree on numerous matters such as oatmeal (I love, she loathes), we live in harmony because I acknowledge that she is probably right. It isn’t the oatmeal I love but the brown sugar and raisins.

She loves Bruckner and brooks no disagreement on this. Alka-Seltzer disgusts her; I consider it a cure-all. She is dedicated to her book club and isn’t shy to express her frank opinion. My only book club is Sunday morning at St. Michael’s and because it is THE book, we hesitate to question it. Her church is Central Park and she’d be happy to visit it daily. She is delighted to be in a group of people and mixes easily and is curious; I take a while to warm up and sometimes don’t and stand apart and wait to escape.

She did not take my name when we married because why would a person give up the name Nilsson, meaning “Victory of the People,” symbolizing triumph attained through effective action. “Triumph attained through effective action” sums up my wife pretty well, so when she says to me, “Don’t keep looking for that, it isn’t here,” I know it isn’t here.

She knows me so well that she can find things I’ve lost: she can imagine where I’d have put them, silly though it be.

I am a descendant of Sanctified Brethren, a separatist sect who considered Lutherans worldly and forbade their children to play percussion instruments lest it lead to dancing and then to sensual longing and physical affection. My people were serious folk and I ventured into the field of humor to escape from the rectitude and breathe; to talk to a crowd and feel a wave of laughter is a profound pleasure and the audience seems to think so too.

Ms. Nilsson grew up in a family of violinists and pianists and she found herself in music. At the age of 16, she spent a summer at the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood Music Center, playing in a youth orchestra, and the experience of learning the Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 set her on her life course. I am a writer, a loner, but she needs to be in alliance. Solitude can make her jittery; she is fully herself when she is in tune with others, looking at things, listening, walking in the park. When she attends a show of mine, she reads the crowd perfectly and afterward tells me exactly what worked and what didn’t and why. I don’t know anyone else who can do it so well. But I am good for her too. I scratch her back, I make her laugh. She is high-strung and she needs a low-key guy to play off. If we were both high-strung, the strings would snap and someone could get hurt.

My parents were low-key, my dad was taciturn, and I cannot recall a single long conversation I ever had with Daddy. I loved him but I had to set my own course. Mother adored him and tried mightily to keep us on an even keel, clean, fed, rested, busy. She was third youngest in a family of 13 kids and she liked orderliness. She was never angry, only briefly disappointed, but she recovered.

My love had an aunt, a brilliant woman whose mental illness worsened with age. My love was a main support to her in old age, saw her through dark times, and it gave her a warm heart for the suffering and off-kilter, on the streets of New York and also in Africa. She had a wacky grandma and a saintly one and a crazy bachelor uncle and as a freelance musician, she spent periods on the edge — she’s seen more of life than I have, by a long shot. After all these years I admire her more than ever and at the same time I like to hold her in my arms for long periods of time. We met in 1992 over lunch, which lasted for three hours and onward we go. Life is good, a bassoon next to a violist and, yes, it’s odd, but we found a way. It works.

Celebrate your affection for Lake Wobegon with this personalized wood sign, featuring Peter Thorpe’s beloved artwork and your family name displayed in classic style across the bottom.